For an epidemic that would explode to claim hundreds of thousands of lives, AIDS surfaced very quietly in the United States, with a small notice on June 4, 1981 in a weekly newsletter published by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, alerting doctors to five unusual cases of pneumonia that had been diagnosed in Los Angeles residents over the previous few months. All the patients were homosexual men who had come down with PCP (Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia), a lung infection usually seen only severely malnourished children or adults undergoing intensive chemotherapy. But until they got sick the California men were well-nourished, vigorous adults, whose immune systems should have protected them from the infection. Within the year, similar cases were reported from all over the country: apparently healthy adults who were suddenly getting sick with rare infections and malignancies that healthy people should not get. Most were from New York City, California, Florida and Texas, and......
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