BUSINESS WIRE - 44 Montgomery St, 39th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104; Tel: (415) 986-4422; FAX: (415) 788-5335 - Saturday, 21 December 1996.
"When the history of this era is written, it is likely that the men and women who turned the tide on AIDS will be seen as true heroes of the age. For helping lift a death sentence -- for a few years at least, and perhaps longer, on tens of thousands of AIDS sufferers, and for pioneering the treament that might, just might, lead to a cure, David Da-i Ho, M.D. is TIME's Man of the Year for 1996," according to the magazine.
"In choosing Man of the Year, we try to step back and consider what the year will be remembered for. David Ho did not make the most headlines, but he helped make history," said Walter Isaacson, TIME Managing Editor. "We'll look back on 1996 as the year when we finally made progress against a plague that has been frightening the world for more than a decade."
In 1996, 3.1 million people became infected with HIV, bringing the worldwide total to 22.6 million currently living with HIV/AIDS, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) based in Geneva. Working alone or in concert with others, Ho, a virologist and Scientific Director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City, has fundamentally changed the way scientists looked at the AIDS virus, reports TIME, in its year-end double issue on newsstands Monday.
"His breakthrough work in virology, beginning in the mid-1980s, revealed how HIV mounts its attack. His tenacious pursuit of the virus in the first weeks of infection helped show what the body does right in controlling HIV. His pioneering experiments with protease inhibitors helped clarify how the virus ultimately overwhelms the immune system. His work and his insights set the stage for an enormously productive shift in the treatment of AIDS away from the later stages of illness to the critical early days of infection," according to the magazine.
But as TIME reports, even if Ho's treatment works, "there is still no magic bullet for patients in late stages of the disease and no vaccine that will inoculate against HIV infection. The cost of the cocktails (up to $20,000 a year) puts them beyond the reach of all but the best-insured patients -- and out of the question for the 90% who live in the developing world. Nevertheless, the world has learned this year what may be the most important fact about AIDS: it is not invincible."
TIME last recognized scientists in 1960 when 15 U.S. scientists were named Men of the Year.
TIME's Man of the Year report will also be available online through the TIME News Center on CompuServe and on the Internet. In addition, a one-hour special, CNN Presents TIME Man of the Year, will air Sunday, December 22, at 9 p.m. ET. Audio from the program's Man of the Year interview and other transcripts will be be available at Time.com/MOY. TIME's website will also include an index of other related sites containing information on AIDS, and medical research underway in treatment and the search for a cure.
The full text of TIME's Man of the Year package is available through TIME's toll-free Fax-On-Demand system by calling 1-800-311-TIME (8463). Follow the prompts and request Document No. 96. AIDS poll results are available through Document No. 97. Other Man of the Year related stories are available through Document No. 99.
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Copyright © 1996 - Business Wire. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Business Wire, Permissions Desk, Business Wire, 1185 Avenue of the Americas, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10036; Tel: (212) 575-8822; FAX: (212) 575-1854. http://www.businesswire.com.
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