- Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March, 1947) is a five-time Grammy and one-time Academy Award-winning English pop/rock singer, composer and pianist. In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially in the 1970s. John has sold more than 250 million albums plus hundreds of millions of singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. - Ryan White
Ryan Wayne White was a young man with AIDS from Kokomo, Indiana. In the 1980s, he drew national and worldwide attention due to his infection. White became infected with HIV from a blood product known as Factor VIII, as part of his treatment for hemophilia given to him on a regular basis. He was diagnosed with AIDS (as transmitted by casual contact) on December 17, 1984, by a doctor performing a partial lung removal. - Sam Harris
Sam Harris (born Samuel Kent Harris, 4 June 1961, Cushing, Oklahoma) is an American pop and musical theatre recording artist as well as a television, stage and film actor. Harris was the winner of the first "Star Search" competition in 1984, and no contestant surpassed his winning streak of fourteen weeks in a row in the entire history of the show. - Jacob Zuma
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (born Inkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, April 12, 1942) is a former Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa and current deputy president of the governing political party, the African National Congress (ANC). A popular figure even across political divides, he gained notoriety after his financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of corruption and fraud, leading to Zuma's dismissal as deputy president in June 2005. - Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was a British musician and songwriter, best known as the frontman and pianist of the rock band Queen. He is remembered for his vocal abilities and charisma as a live performer. As a songwriter, he composed many international hits, including "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". In 1991, Mercury died of bronchial pneumonia brought on by AIDS, … - Elizabeth Glaser
Elizabeth Glaser, born Elizabeth Meyer, (November 11 1947 - December 3, 1994), was a major American AIDS activist and child advocate married to actor and director Paul Michael Glaser. She contracted HIV very early in the modern AIDS epidemic after receiving an HIV-contaminated blood transfusion in 1981 while giving birth. Like other HIV-infected mothers, Glaser unknowingly passed the virus to her infant daughter, Ariel, through breastfeeding. - Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, popularly known as Yasser Arafat, was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (1968-2004) and President of the Palestinian National Authority (1993-2004). In 1994, Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize together with, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres, for the negotiation of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord. Arafat was a controversial and controlling figure throughout his lengthy career. - Peter Piot
Dr. Peter Piot is Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN specialized agency UNAIDS. In 2004, he was awarded the Vlerick Award. "From UNAIDS.org Bio:" <blockquote> Executive Director of UNAIDS since its creation in 1995 and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations, … - Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson (November 17, 1925 - October 2, 1985) was a popular American film and television actor, noted for his splendid, virile looks and most remembered as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s. Hudson was voted "Star of the Year," "Favorite Leading Man," or any number of similar titles by numerous movie magazines and was unquestionably one of the most popular and well-known movie stars of the time. - Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer (born June 25 1935 in Bridgeport, Connecticut), is an American playwright, author, public health advocate and gay rights activist. He was nominated for an Academy Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and was twice a recipient of an Obie Award. In response to the AIDS crisis he founded Gay Men's Health Crisis, which became the largest organization of its kind in the world. - Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a Canadian journalist, author and activist. Her grandfather was fired for labor organizing at Disney in the United States. Her father Michael, a physician, was a Vietnam War resister (draft dodger) and became a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her film-maker mother, Bonnie, won fame with her anti-pornography film, "Not a Love Story". Her brother Seth is director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. - Jeffrey Sachs
Mr. Sachs has advised governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa on economic reforms - and has worked with international agencies to promote poverty reduction, disease control and debt reduction of poor countries. Prior to joining Columbia, Mr. Sachs spent over 20 years at Harvard University, most recently as Director of the Center for International Development. He is the author of many scholarly articles and books. - Zackie Achmat
Zackie Achmat (born Abdurazzack Achmat in 1962) is a South African activist, most widely known as founder and chairman of Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and for his work on the behalf of people living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa. - Shilpa Shetty
Shilpa Shetty is a four-time Filmfare Award-nominated Indian film actress and Supermodel. Since making her debut in the film "Baazigar" (1993), she has appeared in nearly 50 films, her first leading role being in 1994 in "Aag". She resides at the centre of the Hindi-language film industry in Mumbai, India. Her younger sister Shamita Shetty is also a Bollywood film actress. - Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming (born 27 January 1965) is a Scottish actor known for his film roles in "GoldenEye", as Boris Grishenko; in "X2: X-Men United", as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler; and on the stage with his Tony Award-winning performance as the Emcee in the highly successful revival of "Cabaret". Cumming has directed, produced, and written films, TV series and plays, voiced several soundtracks, written a book, developed a stand-up show at the Edinburgh Fringe, … - Manto Tshabalala-Msimang
Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (9 October 1940 -) is the controversial Health Minister of South Africa under the government of Thabo Mbeki (as of 2005). She was a deputy minister of Justice from 1996 to 1999, and then has served as Health Minister since 1999. Her emphasis on treating AIDS with vegetables such as garlic and beetroot, rather than with antiretroviral medicines, has been the subject of international criticism. - Anthony Fauci
Anthony S. Fauci is an immunologist who has made substantial contributions to research in the areas of AIDS and other immunodeficiencies, both as a scientist and as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). - John Holmes
John Curtis Holmes better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd (after the lead character in a series of related films), was one of the most famous male adult film stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and porno feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s, including at least one gay feature film and a handful of gay loops. He was best known for his exceptionally large penis, … - Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally (born), is an American playwright, considered one of the leading American dramatists still writing today. In addition to four Tony Awards, McNally has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild since 1970 and has served as vice-president since 1981. - Robert Gallo
Robert Gallo is currently the Director of the Institute of Human Virology and Division of Basic Science at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. Prior to becoming director of the Institute in 1996, Dr. Gallo spent 30 years at the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he was head of its Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology. - Mariela Castro
Mariela Castro Espín is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana and an activist for LGBT rights in Cuba. She is the daughter of first vice president Raúl Castro Ruz and Vilma Espín Guillois, and the niece of president Fidel Castro. Her group campaigns for effective AIDS prevention as well as acceptance of homosexuality, bisexuality, transvestism, and transsexualism. - Ross Bleckner
Ross Bleckner (born 1949) is an American artist from New York City. He is the youngest artist ever to have a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. His series of "stripes" paintings in the 1980s revitalized interest in Op art. He has a B.A. from New York University (1971) and an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts (1973). He is also Jewish, gay, and an activist for AIDS organisations. Bleckner graduated from George W. Hewlett High School in 1967. - Bob Hattoy
Bob Hattoy was an American activist on issues related to gay rights, AIDS and the environment. Hattoy worked in the White House under American President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1999. He also served as chairman of the research committee of the Presidential Commission on HIV/AIDS, having himself been diagnosed HIV positive in 1990. He won renown as an outspoken critic of presidents Clinton, … - Hibiscus
Hibiscus (real name, George Harris, Jr.) (1949-1982) was one of the leaders of the psychedelic gay liberation theatre collective group known as the Cockettes in early 1970's San Francisco - by today's standards he may have been considered a Creative Director. - Peter Duesberg
Peter H. Duesberg (born December 2, 1936 in Germany) is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, best known for his controversial theories on the cause of AIDS. Duesberg initially gained note, at the age of 33, for being the first scientist to discover a cancer gene (oncogene), which he isolated from a virus.. At 36, he earned tenure at the University of California, Berkeley, … - Luc Montagnier
Luc Montagnier is a French virologist. In 1982 he was asked for assistance with establishing the possible underlying retroviral cause of a mysterious new syndrome, AIDS, by Dr. Willy Rozenbaum, a clinician at the "Hôpital Bichat" hospital in Paris. Rozenbaum's role was vital, as he had been openly speculating at scientific meetings that the cause of the disease might be a retrovirus, … - Alan Cantwell
Alan Cantwell Jr., MD, (b. 1934, New York, New York), is a retired dermatologist, researcher, and active conspiracy theorist in the field of cancer and AIDS microbiology. He is the author of around 30 published papers between the late 1960s and mid-1980s, predominantly on Kaposi's Sarcoma and other dermatological malignancies related to HIV infection. More recently, he has written speculative articles on the origin of HIV, … - David Ho
David Da-i Ho (born November 3, 1952) is a Taiwanese American AIDS researcher famous for pioneering the use of protease inhibitors in treating HIV-infected patients with his team. - Jonathan Mann
Dr. Jonathan Mann (1947 - September 2, 1998) was a former head of the World Health Organization's AIDS program. Mann resigned his post at the WHO to protest the lack of response from the UN and international organization with regard to AIDS, and the actions of the then WHO director-general Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima. Mann's work against AIDS, his conflict with Dr. - Jonathan Larson
Jonathan Larson was an American composer and playwright who lived in New York City and authored musicals, including "Rent" and "Tick, Tick... BOOM!". These musicals tackle serious issues such as multiculturalism, addiction, homophobia, and the AIDS epidemic. His artistic vision and goal was to fuse Generation X and the MTV Generation with the world of musical theatre in his work. This mission was somewhat accomplished by his magnum opus, "Rent", … - Samantha Power
Samantha Power 's 'A Problem from Hell' is a broad attempt to document the major acts of genocide/human rights violations of the 20th century paired with the international community's subsequent negligence in each case. She reports on the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and especially her major areas of research- Rwanda and Serbia. - Chip Arndt
Chip Arndt (born October 2, 1966, in West Hartford, Connecticut) became an international celebrity after he and Reichen Lehmkuhl won "The Amazing Race 4" in 2003. The team was the first out gay couple to win a TV reality competition. Since then, Arndt has become increasingly active in the movement for LGBT equality as well as raising money for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and other community charities. - Phill Wilson
Phill Wilson (born 1956) founded the Black AIDS Institute in 1999 and is a prominent African-American HIV/AIDS activist. Wilson is himself both gay and HIV-positive. His partner, Chris Brownlie, died of HIV-related illness. - David Carr
David Carr was a sailor from Reddish, Manchester. He died at a relatively young age owing to multiple complications that were at the time inexplicable to his doctors at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. In 1990, more than three decades after his death, stored tissue samples from his body were tested positive for HIV. Given the date of his death, he was suspected to have been the first victim of AIDS in the West. - Kevin de Cock
Kevin De Cock , M.D., director of HIV/AIDS, World Health Organization Video | Transcript | Podcast The World Health Organization's Dr. Kevin De Cock talks about the global efforts to stem the spread of HIV and improve access to antiretroviral therapy. Kevin De Cock Biography - Pedro Zamora
Pedro Pablo Zamora (February 29, 1972 in Diezmero, San Miguel del Padrón, Havana, Cuba - November 11, 1994 in Mercy Hospital, Miami, Florida USA) was an openly gay, Cuban-American HIV-positive AIDS educator who became famous for his activism, testimony before Congress, and his appearance on MTV's "The Real World: San Francisco". President Bill Clinton credited Zamora with personalizing and humanizing those with the disease. - David Baltimore
David Baltimore (b. March 7, 1938) is an American biologist and one of the recipients of the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he was the president from 1997 to 2006. He is also currently the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Baltimore was born in New York City. - Chad Lowe
Charles "Chad" Lowe (born January 15, 1968 in Dayton, Ohio), is an American television actor, and the brother of actor Rob Lowe. He won an Emmy Award for his starring role in "Life Goes On" as a man suffering from AIDS. He has also had recurring roles on "ER", "Melrose Place", and "Now and Again". He currently plays Deputy Chief of Staff Reed Pollock on "24". - Oliviero Toscani
Oliviero Toscani (b. 1942) is an Italian photographer, best-known worldwide for designing controversial advertising campaigns for Italian brand Benetton, from 1982 to 2000. Most of these advertising campaigns were actually institutionals for the brand, always composed of rather controversial photography, usually with only the company logo "United Colors of Benetton" as caption. One of his most famous campaigns include that of a man dying of AIDS, lying in a hospital bed, … - David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz (September 14, 1954 - July 22, 1992) was a gay painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s. He was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, and later lived with his mother in New York City, where he attended the High School of Performing Arts for a brief period. From 1970 until 1973, after dropping out of school, …
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