AIDS and ACT-UP

ACT UP is an activist movement that stands for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Founded by Larry Kramer in 1987, the organization representing the movement fights to end the AIDS crisis. The ACT UP movement first urged the FDA to undergo changes by encouraging the funding of drug therapies for AIDS, speeding the process of drug approval, and being inclusive in clinical trials. The movement split into two groups: activists and scientists. The activists would focus on civil rights and protests while the scientists would focus on gathering data and finding solutions, and each used its own means to achieve the same end. 

In 1990, the year Tom died, ACT UP had successfully made a way for HIV-positive patients to take selected drugs by pressuring the FDA, and this approach was called the ‘parallel track’. They also changed the narrow definition of AIDS to a more comprehensive and representative one, issuing it as a public health care subject. Finally, they accelerated medication tests which allowed patients with HIV to recognize their infection faster and thus treat it before it was too late. Overall, ACT UP continued to strive for achieving its main objectives, which include: investing in research for new HIV/AIDS medicines and treatments, making HIV/AIDS care accessible to everyone, and addressing the stigma, poverty, and discrimination that is derived from the HIV/AIDS epidemic.