Bay Area Reporter - December 14, 2006

Billi Goldberg died in San Francisco of cancer on Monday, December 4, 2006 at the age of 73. Born William Stanley Goldberg to parents Isadore and Mary Goldberg, in Oakland, California on Feb. 12, 1934, Billi touched, moved and inspired people locally and globally. Billi was an outspoken AIDS activist, and was one of the world's experts on immunology relating to cancer, HIV and other infectious diseases.

Billi's experience as a transgendered person helped her find an affinity with one of the most marginalized groups of people in the United States at that time: people with HIV/AIDS. She was able to explain her sophisticated theories to both Nobel Prize winners as well as ordinary people. She was an author of Anarchist AIDS Medical Formulary: A Guide to Guerrilla Immunology, and was published in numerous medical journals, such as Science and the New England Journal of Medicine. Her passion for understanding how HIV infection damages the immune system and eventually causes AIDS began late in life after raising a family and a full career as a civil engineer. She worked for the State of California from 1955 through the late 80's.

While at CalTrans, Billi was a very active member of the California State Employees Association (CSEA), and represented employees in communications whenever problems arose. Billi was also in the Naval reserves from 1955 and in active duty in 1961-62. Billi continued as a Naval reservist until resigning over a newly grown beard the early 70's. Billi earned a BA and later, an MA from San Francisco State University. She was also a member of the Mensa Society, early ACT-UP/SF and was a marathon runner.

Her son Gregory remembers, "Billi was an inspirational father, and he was dedicated to performing his fatherly role to the best of his ability. He treated all of his children equally and pushed them all to aspire and become better individuals."

An informal memorial service will be held Saturday, December 16, at 2pm at Cafe Flore, Market and Noe streets.

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Editor's Note: Sean Hosein at CATIE wrote the following in response to Billi's passing.

Billi Goldberg was an amazing and smart person. Since the early 1990s, she devoted herself to understanding one of the scourges of humanity--how HIV infection damages the immune system and eventually causes AIDS. Sixteen years ago, we had no idea that HIV would become so widespread and rise to become the 4th leading cause of death worldwide. However, Billi's experience as a transgendered person helped her find an affinity with one of the most marginalized groups of people in the United States at that time, people with HIV/AIDS.

Perhaps Billi's greatest contribution to humanity was her ability to analyse and make sense of complex scientific research. Because she had taken early retirement, Billi was unencumbered by worries about a loss of research funding or respect from colleagues. This allowed Billi to devote herself to try and understand exactly how HIV caused disease. She hoped that her work would ultimately lead to improved therapies for AIDS.

Initially, she questioned the approach to treating HIV/AIDS. However, in later years she focused on the origins of HIV and then later, its effect on the immune system. She spent years immersed in the scientific literature and later emerged as one of the world's experts on immunology relating to cancer, HIV and other infectious diseases. She was able to explain her sophisticated theories to both nobel prize winners as well as ordinary people.

Billi's passion and drive would cause her to pour over research papers late into the night, emailing scientists around the world, many of whom recognized her intelligence and treated her as a peer, assuming that she had a least one, if not two PhDs. She would be invited to national and international meetings on infectious diseases or immunology to give lectures. Over the years she would co-author many research papers, some of which are still relevant a decade after they were published. This is no mean feat for any researcher.

Billi's insight and ideas were able to spark discussion and debate among immunologists and other scientists. These discussions led to some researchers performing studies to confirm her theories. This is an amazing impact, considering that she was not formally tranined in the medical sciences; her background was in engineering.

She had little patience for turf wars or careerism and it was sometimes exceedingly difficult to accept her unusual ideas. Yet, as the 21st century slowly unfolds, her ideas are gaining currency among some researchers.

Her enormous output of emails, essays, webpostings and at least one book are invaluable. Her writings have both infuriated and inspired researchers as well as ordinary people around the world as she asked questions, the answers for which were difficult. Her ability to turn orthodox theories on their head earned her a great dislike among some senior scientists. Yet, it only by overturning ruling paradigms that progress can be made.

Although her newsy emails have stopped, Billi left a lasting impression in the field of HIV/AIDS research. We will wait and watch in the coming years and see if her predictions about progress against HIV/AIDS, whether in research relating to treatment or vaccine development will come true.

Billi will be dearly missed by her devoted family, friends, and many people in the field of HIV/AIDS research around the world.

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