Protesters participate in a "die-in" at the National Institutes of Health campus during the "Storm the NIH" protest in Bethesda, Maryland on May 21, 1990. The protesters blew whistles and sounded horns every twelve minutes to symbolize the death rate of AIDS victims at the time: one AIDS-related death every twelve minutes in the United States.
Standard
Bill and Ernie Branson/National Institutes of Health via Flickr
2001
The AIDS advocacy group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was formed; it would become one of the most prominent activist groups for people with AIDS (PWAs). ACT UP used drastic tactics to bring attention to the AIDS crisis. The organization notably shut down the Food and Drug Administration for an entire day in 1988. In 1990, 1,200 ACT UP protesters stood outside the National Institutes of Health to protest the use of placebos, the dearth of women and people of color in clinical trials, and other research practices they saw as unethical and against the interests of PWAs. Many of the PWA activists had become experts in the virus and shocked scientists with the extent of their medical knowledge.
Timeline Entry Prefix
March 1987