The first AIDS conference

The current bash in Mexico reminds me of a little bit of (almost forgotten) history - the first AIDS conference in Denver, Colorado. Held in June 1983, less than two years after the epidemic first became apparent, this was not an international conference, and was intended to focus only on science. But a group of activists living with AIDS (HIV wasn't yet discovered) thought different, and gate-crashed the conference to present what became known as the Denver Principles. The complete text of this declaration can be seen in this excellent Wikipedia article, but perhaps I can repeat the first part:

We condemn attempts to label us as ‘victims,’ a term which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally ‘patients,’ a term which implies passivity, helplessness, and dependence upon the care of others. We are ‘People With AIDS.’.

Sadly, this bit of our history is now becoming covered by the sands of time; it seems that few of today's people with HIV know what happened there in Denver 27 years ago. Even UNAIDS ignored this (as well as the Paris AIDS Declaration of 1994) when it published its '25 years of AIDS' timeline in 2006 - so much for their commitment to involvement of people with HIV!

Is our history only of interest to old fogies like me?

Babé