On May 18, 1981, the New York Native, a gay newspaper in New York City, published an article by Lawrence Mass under the headline "Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded." Mass was a physician who had been writing for the gay press, first in Boston and then in New York, for a couple of years. His article was the first about the illness later called AIDS to appear in a US publication, nearly three weeks before the CDC published its First Reports.

The story began with a phone call. A friend who worked in a city emergency room told Mass that gay men were being treated in New York intensive care units for a serious infection. Mass checked with health officials, who told him the talk of a new disease among gay men had no basis. His article reported that only eleven cases had been seen, all in men whose immune systems were severely weakened. He later said he wrote it to stop a rumor from…