Ben Thornberry — A Testament to Action: ACT UP, 1999 Thirty silver gelatin selenium-toned prints documenting ACT UP’s fierce activism during the early AIDS epidemic (1988–1992). This collection launched TAG Limited Art Editions in 1999 as a gift from Thornberry himself.
Forty-five years ago tomorrow, on June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a brief report describing five cases of a rare pneumonia among young gay men in Los Angeles.
The report occupied just a few paragraphs in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). No one reading it could have known that it marked the beginning of one of the deadliest epidemics in modern history.
What followed was not only a public health crisis. It was a crisis of neglect. For years, people living with HIV and AIDS faced stigma, political indifference, inadequate funding, and a research establishment that moved too slowly while lives hung in the balance. Yet the history of HIV is not simply a story of scientific discovery. It is a story of people demanding that scientific discovery serve everyone.
AIDS activists challenged government agencies, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies to move faster. Communities demanded access to experimental treatments, accountability from public officials, and investment in lifesaving research. At the forefront were TAG’s founders, who helped redefine how affected communities participate in research, treatment development, and the policies that shape access to care, helping to save millions of lives in the process.
The breakthroughs that transformed HIV from a near-certain death sentence into a manageable chronic condition were hard fought and hard won.
Making that history is why Treatment Action Group exists. TAG was born from the conviction that affected communities deserve a seat at the table where research, policy, and access decisions are made.
For 34 years, TAG has worked to accelerate lifesaving research, strengthen public health systems, and ensure that scientific advances reach frontline communities. We have helped shape HIV treatment, prevention, and cure research agendas, advanced community engagement in research, fought for equitable access to care, and pushed policymakers to follow evidence rather than ideology.
The most meaningful way we can honor that legacy is not simply to remember it, but to continue it.
To commemorate this anniversary, TAG’s Board of Directors has committed a $29,500 matching challenge. Every gift made today will be matched dollar-for-dollar.
Today, the challenges are different, but the stakes remain extraordinarily high.
Research funding is being slashed. Public health institutions are under attack. Scientific expertise is being sidelined. Political interference is increasingly shaping decisions that should be guided by evidence, public health, and human dignity.
The consequences will not be measured only in budgets and headlines. They will be measured in delayed cures, preventable infections, interrupted care, and lives lost.
We cannot take progress for granted. Not when research funding is being cut. Not when public health institutions are being weakened. Not when misinformation is undermining trust in science. And not when millions of people around the world still depend on the discoveries, policies, and advocacy that TAG and partner organizations help advance every day.
Tomorrow, TAG will join partners across New York City to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the first recognized AIDS cases and observe HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day. Through a candlelight vigil, march, and die-in, we will honor the advocates, researchers, caregivers, survivors, and loved ones whose determination changed the course of the epidemic and whose legacy continues to guide our work today.
The future of HIV research is being written right now. With your support, TAG can help ensure our shared future is shaped not only by scientific discovery, but by equity, accountability, and the belief that lifesaving progress should reach everyone.
Please make a matched gift today and help ensure that the next generation of breakthroughs reaches the people and communities who need them most.
Thank you for standing with TAG and with everyone who believes science should serve all people.
In solidarity,
Mark Harrington
Executive Director
