POZitive Attitudes

THURSDAY FEB. 27, 2020

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER TOPIC :

“AIDS RESEARCH ACTIVISM & THE NIH:

PERSPECTIVES FROM THE BULLSEYE”

ACT UP PROTEST AT NIH Circa 1980’s

 Jack Killen, MD

GUEST SPEAKER

Jack Killen, MD, former Director of the Division of AIDS at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) will share reflections on the profound and far-reaching effects of AIDS research activism from his perspective in “the bullseye” during the early decades of the epidemic.

Summary: On May 21, 1990, one thousand activists from across the country descended on the campus of the National Institutes of Health. They came to protest the pace and focus of federally funded HIV research, inadequate and unfair access to drugs being studied in clinical trials, and lack of community involvement in planning and carrying out process clinical trials. “Storm the NIH” marked a major turning point in the country’s HIV/AIDS research effort, and launched new paradigms for community engagement in research on other life-threatening conditions.

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   BIOGRAPHY JACK KILLEN, MD

After graduating from Kenyon College in 1971, Jack received his M.D. degree from Tufts University in 1975, and completed training in internal medicine and medical oncology at Georgetown University Hospital in 1980. From 1980-1986 he served as a program officer at the National Cancer Institute at NIH. He left NIH briefly in 1986 to serve as Medical Director of Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, DC. He returned to NIH in 1987 as Deputy Director, and then in 1993 Director of the Division of AIDS (DAIDS) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

During those 14 years at DAIDS he oversaw the establishment of many of the NIH’s major HIV/AIDS research programs, and he played a central role in creation of innovative programs of community and activist engagement in the national AIDS research enterprise. From 2001-2003 he was Associate Director for Research Ethics, NIAID. In 2003 he joined the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (now the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health), where he served as Deputy Director from 2007-2013.

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In retirement he enjoys exploring the intersections of science and spiritual practice, genealogy, and volunteer work. He, his husband Fred Boykin, and their four cats now live in Wilton Manors, FL.

.Poster From 1980’s

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