[Introduction] It was the first day of classes at Harvard Medical School in fall 1998. As students arrived for the new semester, members of the Boston chapter of ACT-UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) took positions in front of the building.

[Chapter 1] When a puzzling new medical syndrome was first reported to be afflicting -- and killing -- young gay men in certain cities in the United States, there was no particular reason to expect that the cause might be a previously unknown virus.