Peter Piot
Belgian-born Piot became one of the foremost microbiologists as a result of his efforts in the discovery of the existence of Ebola. He also became internationally recognized for his research into AIDS. He is one of a group of scientists known for their studies of the consequences of human incursion on the development and spread of viruses who collectively became known as the “disease cowboys.”
Karl Johnson
Johnson is an American virologist who also was involved in the discovery of the Ebola virus. In fact, it is he who is identified as the person that gave the Ebola its name, purposely choosing to identify it with a river to avoid the stigma usually brought down upon locations after which a viral contagion is named.
Jim Curran
Jim is an epidemiologist was one of the group of scientists who were among the first to detect something unusual going on within the homosexual community in the late 1970’s. In 1981 he was appointed to lead the government task for investigating what would eventually come to be known as AIDS under aegis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Faced with an already daunting task ahead of them made worse by newly elected President Reagan’s almost obsessive belief in the controversial theories of a young economic named David Stockman that massive slashing of the federal budget across the board was the key to bringing the country out of a prolonged recession, Curran and CDC director Bill Foege managed to successfully keep the task force from essentially being dismantled through creative management of the department budget. Curran would later appear as a character in the famous book and movie about the AIDS crisis, And the Band Played On.
Bill Darrow
Darrow also appears in And the Band Played On. He also worked at the CDC, but as a sociologist rather than a medical doctor. Although the work in locating and identifying the HIV virus which causes AIDS was a medical science research endeavor just like Ebola, continuing the research and maintaining funding was complicated by the fact that in the beginning it seemed to be a condition isolated entirely within the highly marginalized and victimized gay community. Darrow’s sociological input was essential in not just proving that this was not the case, but in ultimately changing the very terminology of the disease to reflect that it was not simply a gay disease.
