1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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The first documented case of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the U.S. was in June 1981 and the first patient was seen at the National Institutes of Health. By August the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported 108 cases of the new disease. In the fall two NIH research primates were found to have simian AIDS. Little more than a year later the CDC reported 593 cases in the U.S., with a disproportionate number of infections among homosexual men, hemophiliacs, intravenous drug users and people of ethnic minorities particularly African Americans and Latinos. Then in December 1982 the first case of AIDS contracted by a healthy infant via blood transfusion was reported, followed a monthly later by cases in heterosexual female partners of infected men. For the next 15 months various NIH organizations, clinicians and researchers formed task groups and conducted studies of the disease, all while the number of cases – and deaths – rose exponentially. On April 23, 1984, HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler announced that Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute had found the cause of AIDS: the retrovirus HTLV-III.
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