“When President Reagan came to NIH and visited our ward, Phil took him on rounds and was holding a baby who had HIV. He said, ‘Here, Mr. President, why don’t you hold him."
In June 1981, the NIH Clinical Center saw its first patient with AIDS. The story of how AIDS went from an unknown disease to one with a treatment is one of our most visited web sites, In Their Own Words.
Long recognized as essential to global health, vaccines protect individuals and populations from contagion and the reappearance of eradicated diseases. Vaccination against deadly diseases prevents two to three million deaths worldwide every year, and there are significant economic benefits as well. In the United States, every dollar spent on the routine childhood immunization program saves society more than $16 in future costs.