On June 5, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published a report in its "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)" describing five cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), in young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. The report, co-authored by Dr. Michael Gottlieb and Dr. Wayne Shandera, notes severe immune deficiency in all five men. Two had already died by the time of publication.

That same day, New York dermatologist Dr. Alvin Friedman-Kien alerts the CDC to an unusual cluster of Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS), a…