Twenty years of information,
advocacy and inspiration—1986

Project Inform achievements (1985–2004)     View PDF

Project Inform milestones:

• Opened the nation’s first AIDS treatment information hotline service.
• Initiated the first community meetings with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Washington.
• Formally launched the “town meeting” program to provide HIV treatment education.
• Organized the first demonstration against a pharmaceutical company.
• Held the first community meetings with a pharmaceutical company.
• Successfully challenged the U.S. Border Patrol and the FDA regarding personal importation of therapies to create the FDA “Personal Importation Policy.” This policy now enables the purchase of a wide range of drugs from Canada and other countries.

Epidemic milestones:

• The first controlled effectiveness trial of AZT is undertaken by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
• President Reagan first mentions the word AIDS in public.
• 2nd International AIDS Conference is held in Paris, France.
• U.S. Surgeon General Koop issues “Surgeon General's Report on AIDS”, calling for education and condom use.
• The first panel of the AIDS Memorial Quilt is created in San Francisco.
• National Academy of Science issues report critical of the U.S. response to “national health crisis;” calls for a $2 billion investment.
• Ricky Ray, a nine-year-old hemophiliac with HIV, is barred from Florida school and his family's home is burned by arsonists in the following year.
  Institute of Medicine report calls for a national education campaign and creation of National Commission on AIDS.