Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'The Fight's Never Over': Early AIDS Activist, Writer Larry Kramer Dies Of Pneumonia
The New York Times: Larry Kramer, Playwright And Outspoken AIDS Activist, Dies At 84
Larry Kramer, the noted writer whose raucous, antagonistic campaign for an all-out response to the AIDS crisis helped shift national health policy in the 1980s and ’90s, died on Wednesday morning in Manhattan. He was 84. His husband, David Webster, said the cause was pneumonia. Mr. Kramer had weathered illness for much of his adult life. Among other things he had been infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, contracted liver disease and underwent a successful liver transplant. (Lewis, 5/27)
The Associated Press: Larry Kramer Used Voice, Pen To Raise Consciousness On AIDS
Time never softened the urgency of Larry Kramer’s demands. Theatergoers leaving a celebrated revival of Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” in 2011 were greeted by the playwright himself, deep in his 70s by then, handing out leaflets outside the Broadway theater demanding they do more to stop AIDS. “Please know that AIDS is a worldwide plague. Please know there is no cure,” the leaflets read. (Kennedy, 5/27)
The Wall Street Journal: AIDS Activist Larry Kramer Dies At 84
Mr. Kramer helped form the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP, two advocacy groups devoted to combating the epidemic. His Broadway play “The Normal Heart” (1985) and the essays collected in “Reports from the Holocaust” (1989) chronicled his tactics, which combined demonstrations, civil disobedience, and opinion pieces. “I know that unless I fight with every ounce of my energy I will hate myself,” he wrote. Early in his activist years, Mr. Kramer often criticized Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and now a leader in trying to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. During the AIDS crisis, activists often saw the agency as too slow to pursue research on treatments. In time, Dr. Fauci gave Mr. Kramer credit for his impact. (Brody, 5/27)
The New York Times: ‘We Loved Each Other’: Fauci Recalls Larry Kramer, Friend And Nemesis
“How did I meet Larry? He called me a murderer and an incompetent idiot on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner magazine.” Speaking as he passed though a fever check on his way into the White House, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recalled some of his fondest memories of his friend Larry Kramer, who died early Wednesday morning. Nearly every anecdote in our brief interview had the same plot: the country’s best-known AIDS activist publicly abusing the country’s best-known AIDS doctor — and then privately apologizing afterward, saying he hadn’t meant it, that it was just how to get things done. (McNeil, 5/27)
