Twenty years of information,
advocacy and inspiration—1990

Project Inform achievements (1985–2004)     View PDF

Project Inform milestones:

• Led a successful community-effort to get a second reduction in the price of AZT.
• Hosted the first community-sponsored Treatment Awareness Week Forum, a patient-oriented medical conference.
• Worked with Dr. Fauci and a small core of activists to develop the “Parallel Track” concept of providing early access to experimental drugs, an evolution of the concepts first proposed by Project Inform at the meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 1988.
• Played a leadership role on a special U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Task Force created to draft the Parallel Track regulations.

Epidemic milestones:

• 6th International AIDS Conference (“AIDS in the Nineties: From Science to Policy”) is held in San Francisco, CA. To protest U.S. immigration policy, domestic and international non-governmental groups boycott the conference. (The 1992 conference, scheduled to take place in Boston, is moved to Amsterdam.)
• Ryan White dies at the age of 18. The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act of 1990 is enacted by the U.S. Congress, providing federal funds for community-based care and treatment services. In first year, it is funded at $220.5 million.
• FDA approves use of AZT for pediatric AIDS.
• Congress enacts the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities, including people living with HIV/AIDS.
• First National Conference on Women and AIDS held in Boston.
• Pop artist Keith Haring dies of AIDS.