Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - November 3, 2006
Getty was a mentor to a generation of AIDS activists who fought for more research on treatments for the disease and for greater access to those medicines once they were developed. He drew international headlines in 1995 after undergoing an unprecedented and controversial bone marrow transplant from a baboon in the hope that the primate's natural immunity to HIV would help him ward off the virus.
The transplant failed, but Getty's health rallied, and he continued to take on new causes, including a successful bid to develop rules allowing organ transplants for patients with HIV.
"He helped save my life. It's a gratitude that's just there inside me forever,'' said New York playwright Larry Kramer, who underwent a successful liver transplant in 2001.
Getty died of heart failure after chemotherapy for cancer on Oct. 9 at Hi-Desert Medical Center in the San Bernardino County town of Joshua Tree, where he had lived since 2002.
The memorial program will be held at 10 a.m. Nov. 11 at the San Francisco LGBT Center, 1800 Market St. The public is invited.
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