Gay health and AIDS advocate Alvin Novick dies

Alvin Novick, an openly gay Yale University biologist who was an early AIDS advocate and served as president of the group that evolved into the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, died of prostate cancer on April 10 in New Haven, Conn., The New York Times reports. He was 79. Novick ended his 25-year study of the sonar system of bats in 1982 to refocus on AIDS issues and remained a tireless AIDS researcher and advocate through the remainder of his career. He challenged public officials to do more to fight the spread of HIV, including pushing for needle-exchange programs, greater disease prevention measures at blood banks, and greater privacy protections for HIV-positive health care providers. "We have to stop seeing [AIDS] as anything other than a devastating infection," Novick told the Times in a 1987 interview. "No one is guilty. Only the virus is guilty." Novick was elected president of the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights in 1985; that group eventually became GLMA. He also served as editor in chief of the AIDS and Public Policy Journal and served as chairman of the New Haven mayor's task force on AIDS from 1986 to 1991. Novick's partner, William Sabella, died of AIDS-related causes in 1992. Sabella served as Connecticut's first AIDS coordinator in the 1980s.