This date, April 11, 1983, was later cited by the officials of the National Cancer Institute as the turning point, the time that the institute became firmly committed to finding the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It was precisely one year, ten months, and seven days after the MMWR had announced the first twenty-six cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma in gay men, as well as the eighteen other mysterious cases of Pneumocystis and other unexplained opportunistic infections.
