Anthony Fauci was an immunologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases when the CDC published its First Reports in 1981, and like many scientists at the time, he turned his attention to the mysterious illness appearing in previously healthy gay men. In 1984 he was appointed director of NIAID, one of the institutes of the National Institutes of Health, and he made HIV and AIDS research a central part of both his own laboratory work and the institute's mission. Some colleagues objected to the share of the budget he directed to AIDS.

In the early years of the epidemic, as people with AIDS waited for treatments that were slow to arrive, Fauci became a target of activists' anger at the federal response. In 1988, Larry Kramer, who had cofounded GMHC and ACT UP, wrote that Fauci's inaction made him a murderer. Activists demanded a seat at the table as scientists and officials designed drug trials and tested vaccines, and Fauci came…