Los Angeles physician
Joel Weisman, one of the first to identify HIV/AIDS in 1980
from his Sherman Oaks office, died Saturday. He was 66.
Known as "the dean
of Southern California gay doctors," Weisman made the
discovery nearly three decades ago, when he realized that three
of his male patients, all gay, started suffering from similar
symptoms (including drastic weight loss, pneumonia, and
fevers). With UCLA immunologist Martin S. Gottlieb -- who also
had a patient with similar symptoms -- the pair wrote a report
in a 1981 issue of the Centers for Disease Control's
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,
signaling the official start of the AIDS epidemic. The two
doctors cited health information among five patients, who died
shortly thereafter, of what would eventually be known as
AIDS.
Following their report,
cases of immunodeficiency were being reported globally. By the
end of 1982, 618 cases were reported. Twenty years later, the
full toll had reached 500,000.
Weisman became an
advocate for his patients and others with HIV when in 1983 he
became founding chairman of AIDS Project Los Angeles. There,
Weisman played a critical role in increasing services to those
with the virus.
He also helped
establish the first AIDS-specific hospital unit at the Sherman
Oaks Hospital and Health Center. Weisman also pushed to fund
AIDS research as an original member of amFAR. He later became
chairman of the organization from 1988 to 1992.
Dr. Mervyn Silverman
led the board of directors of amFAR from 1986 to 1996,
including the period while Weisman was chairman of the board.
Silverman described his colleague as a diligent advocate in the
early stages of the AIDS epidemic. "Hearing about him
really upset me because he was very caring, very compassionate,
he wasn't just part of the gay community, or the medical
profession," Silverman said. "He was someone who
really cared about the issues, especially with his involvement
with APLA and amFAR. I never got the sense, working with him,
that anything he was doing was for self-aggrandizement or to be
in the spotlight. He just did what he did."
Silverman remembers
Weisman's work with amFAR during the early years as being
controlled during such a hectic time. "The foundation was
in its very formative years, and if you've worked with a
new foundation, you'll know that it can get crazy,
especially because with amFAR you had people who were there for
one reason, and it was to solve this mystery and get on with
it," he said. "When you have that kind of commitment
and dedication, the organizational things get more difficult.
So in the beginning, you have mostly people who are there
volunteering because of the cause -- during that time, it's
a very difficult maturation. I look at the board today compared
to the board back then, and it's like night and
day."
Weisman died in his
home after suffering from heart disease and being ill for
several months, his partner of 17 years, Bill Hutton, told the
Los Angeles Times
. He is survived by Hutton, his brother Mark, his daughter
Stavey Weisman-Bogue Foster, a granddaughter, and two nieces.
Donations may be made in his name to amFAR, AIDS Project Los
Angeles, or the Kansas City University of Medicine and
Biosciences College of Osteopathic Medicine.
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