Presidential Address: American Foundation for AIDS Research

Photocopied at the Roald Reagan Libra.
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And I also want to thank other doctors and researchers who
aren't here tonight. Those individuals showed genuine courage in
the early days of the disease when we didn't know how AIDS was
spreading its death. They took personal risks for medical
knowledge and for their patients' well-being. And that deserves
our gratitude and recognition.
I want to talk tonight about the disease that has brought us
all together. The poet W.H. Auden said that the true men of
action in our times are not the politicians and statesmen, but
the scientists. I believe that's especially true when it comes
to the AIDS epidemic.
Those of us in Government can educate our citizens about the
dangers; we can encourage safe behavior; we can test to determine
how widespread the virus is; we can do any number of things. But
only medical science can ever truly defeat AIDS.
We've made remarkable progress already.
To think, we didn't even know we had a disease until June of
1981 when five cases appeared in California. The AIDS virus
itself was discovered in 1984. The blood test became available
in 1985. A treatment drug, A.Z.T., has been brought to market in
record time; others are coming. Work on a vaccine is now
underway in many laboratories.
In addition to all the private and corporate research
underway here at home and around the world, this fiscal year the
Federal Government plans to spend $317 million on AIDS research

and $766 million overall. Next year, we intend to spend
30 percent more on research -- $413 million out of $1 billion