RIP, Martin Delaney, HIV patient advocate, dies (SF Chron)

Martin Delaney, HIV patient advocate, dies
Sam Whiting, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, January 25, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/25/BAQQ15FVR9.DTL

Martin Delaney, who started the pioneering HIV patient advocacy and treatment organization Project Inform, died Friday of liver cancer at his home in San Rafael. He was 63.

"Marty Delaney was highly influential in opening a pipeline of drugs that have played a major role in saving countless lives," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

This month the institute presented Mr. Delaney with the Director's Special Recognition Award, its highest honor. He received the letter informing him of the award a few days before he died.

"Without his tireless work and vision, many more people would have perished from HIV/AIDS," Fauci said in a statement that accompanied the award. "It is without hyperbole that I call Marty Delaney a public health hero."



In the early 1980s, Mr. Delaney became appalled with the lack of available medicine for the treatment of HIV. In response to seeing several friends die without adequate treatment, he began smuggling the drug Rivavirin from Mexico, his sister said. Frustrated after failing to get a drug company to sponsor a trial of Rivavirin, Mr. Delaney co-founded Project Inform in 1985 with Joseph Brewer, a psychotherapist.

"He thought it was going to be a short-term deal, so he called it a 'project,' " said Tom Kelley, an AIDS activist and Project Inform board member. "The project became a lifetime."

Thanks Martin and a job well done. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: RIP - pinto