Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2009. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - January 25, 2009
Sam Whiting, swhiting@sfchronicle.com.
"Marty Delaney was highly influential in opening a pipeline of drugs that have played a major role in saving countless lives," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
This month the institute presented Mr. Delaney with the Director's Special Recognition Award, its highest honor. He received the letter informing him of the award a few days before he died.
"Without his tireless work and vision, many more people would have perished from HIV/AIDS," Fauci said in a statement that accompanied the award. "It is without hyperbole that I call Marty Delaney a public health hero."
Martin Edward Delaney was born and raised in Chicago, where he studied for the seminary, said his sister, Lois Delaney-Ogorek of Seminole, Fla.
After teaching elementary school in Chicago, he came to San Francisco in 1978, to participate in a clinical trial for an experimental use of Interferon to treat Hepatitis B, which he had contracted. "That was the start of his advocacy and passion for helping those who had chronic illnesses," Delaney-Ogorek said.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Delaney became appalled with the lack of available medicine for the treatment of HIV. In response to seeing several friends die without adequate treatment, he began smuggling the drug Rivavirin from Mexico, his sister said. Frustrated after failing to get a drug company to sponsor a trial of Rivavirin, Mr. Delaney co-founded Project Inform in 1985 with Joseph Brewer, a psychotherapist.
"He thought it was going to be a short-term deal, so he called it a 'project,' " said Tom Kelley, an AIDS activist and Project Inform board member. "The project became a lifetime."
At first, Mr. Delaney hand-printed and copied informational pamphlets and mailed them around the country, while running a phone bank at home in Sausalito. This led to the 1987 book "Strategies for Survival: A Gay Men's Health Manual for the Age of AIDS," which Mr. Delaney wrote with Peter Goldblum.
"Most AIDS organizations at that time were helping people die with dignity and Project Inform was helping people live" said David Evans of New York, associate editor at AIDSmeds.com and a longtime friend of Mr. Delaney. "Project Inform was one of the first organizations that said 'get tested and seek out treatment.' "
Within 10 years, Project Inform had become a nonprofit with an annual budget of $1 million and offices on Market Street. There was a paid staff of 16, but the foundation of Project Inform was its 200 volunteers who staffed the National HIV Treatment Hotline seven days a week. At the height of the epidemic, in the early 1990s, volunteers were answering more than 100,000 calls a year from people desperate for treatment information. In the Internet age, the outreach has expanded to well over 1 million people a year with an annual budget of $1.7 million.
In 2008, Mr. Delaney stepped down as founding director and was honored with events in San Francisco and Washington.
In addition to his sister, Mr. Delaney is survived by three brothers, William, Michael and Don Delaney, all of Illinois.
Services are pending.
Donations may be made to Project Inform, 1375 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103.
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