90th Anniversary Issue: 1980s
Solving the AIDS puzzle and other highlights, 1980–89
By Science News
Chasing the AIDS virus
In 1981 a short story in Science News noted an uptick in a rare form of cancer and pneumonia in gay men (11/14/81, p. 309). The cause of what the story called a “puzzling outbreak,” the human immunodeficiency virus (below, reproducing inside a cell), wouldn’t be named for another five years (4/26/86, p. 265). In the meantime, the scientific community struggled to link this virus to AIDS, facing “a grim picture of a disease that remains one step ahead of the researchers seeking ways to stop it” (4/27/85, p. 260). As the outbreak became an epidemic, Science News reported on the first copying of the virus’s genetic blueprints and the first screening tests (1/19/85, p. 36). A breakthrough came in 1986 with the use of azidothymidine, or AZT. The drug, which promised to “prolong the lives of an estimated 600,000 people in the United States” (8/26/89, p. 135), helped make AIDS a treatable disease instead of a death sentence. — Devin Powell