Today In History, 1981: Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals

Jim Burroway

July 3rd, 2016

MMWR1981.07.03

That was the headline the New York Times used to announce a new set of illnesses stalking gay men. The Times article, the first mainstream media report about of what would eventually become known as AIDS, came out just a month  after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) first announced that five gay men had died of a rare form of pneumonia in Los Angeles (see Jun 5). Now the CDC issued another notice of gay men in New York and California being stricken with Kaposi’s Sarcoma in the July 3 edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report:

During the past 30 months, Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), an uncommonly reported malignancy in the United States, has been diagnosed in 26 homosexual men (20 in New York City [N YC ]; 6 in California). The 26 patients range in age from 26-51 years (mean 39 years). Eight of these patients died (7 in NYC, 1 in California)—all 8 within 24 months after KS was diagnosed. The diagnoses in all 26 cases were based on histopathological examination o f skin lesions, lymph nodes, or tumor in other organs. Twenty-five of the 26 patients were white, 1 was black. …

Skin or mucous membrane lesions, often dark blue to violaceous plaques or nodules, were present in most of the patients on their initial physician visit. However, these lesions were not always present and often were considered benign by the patient and his physician. …

Seven KS patients had serious infections diagnosed after their initial physician visit. Six patients had pneumonia (4 biopsy confirmed as due to Pneumocystis carinii [PC]), and one had necrotizing toxoplasmosis of the central nervous system. One of the patients  with Pneumocystis pneumonia also experienced severe, recurrent, herpes simplex infection; extensive candidiasis; and cryptococcal meningitis.

This report, which noted that gay men were developing KS “during the past 30 months” confirmed rumors that had been swirling in New York of a “gay cancer.” Until then, KS had been extremely rare, affecting mainly older men of Mediterranean descent, Africans in the equatorial belt, and transplant patients who were on anti-rejection drugs that suppressed their immune systems. The CDC report also updated their count of gay men with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) from the prior month, from five to fifteen.

The New York Times story mostly repeated information gleaned from the CDC’s two released reports on the “gay pneumonia” and the “gay cancer,” but it did try to provide some additional context to those reports:

Cancer is not believed to be contagious, but conditions that might precipitate it, such as particular viruses or environmental factors, might account for an outbreak among a single group.

The medical investigators say some indirect evidence actually points away from contagion as a cause. None of the patients knew each other, although the theoretical possibility that some may have had sexual contact with a person with Kaposi’s Sarcoma at some point in the past could not be excluded, (Dr. Alvin E. Friedman-Kien of New York University Medical Center) said.

(CDC spokesman Dr. James Curran) said there was no apparent danger to nonhomosexuals from contagion. ”The best evidence against contagion,” he said, ”is that no cases have been reported to date outside the homosexual community or in women.”

This may have been the first time the New York Times noticed the disease, but the brief story was buried inside the paper. As the story’s author, Dr. Lawrence Alman, reflected on the story’s 20th anniversary in 2001:

Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, it seems as if doctors, the public, journalists and governments were shockingly slow to recognize an epidemic in the making and take steps to try to contain it.

Most doctors overlooked a basic fact of biology, that a new infectious disease could appear at any time. When it became clear that AIDS could be sexually transmitted, many people, including doctors, patients and public health officials, hesitated to speak frankly about it. Many members of the public denied that such a disease could occur in their communities.

The Times ran only two more articles on the new epidemic that year, and a story about AIDS didn’t appear on the paper’s front page until 1983. Much of the gay and gay-friendly press was little better. A columnist for the Village Voice denounced the Times story as “the despicable attempt of The New York Times to wreck the July 4 holiday break for every homosexual in the Northeast.” The New York Native, which actually published the very first story about AIDS (May 18) even before the CDC made their first report about it public (Jun 6), would later destroy its reputation over its publisher’s obsession with countless outlandish conspiracy theories about AIDS.

[Sources: A. Friedman-Kein, L. Laubenstein, M. Marmor, et al. “Epidemiologic Notes and Reports: Kaposi’s Sarcoman and Pneumocystis Pneumonia among homosexual men — New York City and California.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 30, no. 25 (July 3, 1981): 305.308. Available online here (PDF: 705KB/12 pages).

Lawrence K. Altman. “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexual Men.” New York Times (July 3, 1981): 20. Available online here.]

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