The AIDS Epidemic in San Francisco: The Response of Community Physicians, 1981-1984, Vol. I

BAPHR's Scientific Affairs Committee

Hughes

The epidemic was the stimulus for forming that committee?

Campbell

Yes. The first committee was, I think, started in 1981, and I don't think I was on that. It was the Kaposi's Sarcoma Ad-Hoc Committee. I think in the summer of 1982, it was renamed Scientific Affairs Committee, and I think that's when I joined it.

Hughes

Well, the reviews of scientific articles on the epidemic that appeared sporadically in The BAPHRON, as far as I know were always signed by you.

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Campbell

Yes.

Hughes

Nobody else was doing that?

Campbell

No, I started doing that. Every time there was a major conference about AIDS, I wrote it up.

Hughes

But you also reviewed AIDS literature.

Campbell

[pause] Hmm, I don't know if I reviewed literature.

Hughes

Yes, you did. [tape interruption; Hughes shows example of a literature review which appeared in The BAPHRON.]

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Campbell

Yes, I think whenever I saw an article on AIDS that was particularly important, I would do a little update.

Hughes

It seems to me that in the early years of the epidemic you were serving as the scientific voice of BAPHR.

Campbell

Yes, I was chairman of the committee.

Hughes

Which I suppose makes it logical that you would be doing all this. But it's also a role that you chose to take on.

Campbell

Yes.

Hughes

Do you have any more to say about it?

Campbell

I think the reason for taking it on was that it just didn't seem like anybody else was taking it on. Bob Bolan had been doing it. I think the first set of safe-sex guidelines [1983] were a little too general, not quite specific enough, and so I was very anxious to take it on because I wanted to make sure that very specific things were heard.

Hughes

Well, BAPHR is not just any AIDS organization; it's an organization of physicians, most of whom are dealing with AIDS patients. It's not the AIDS Foundation or another organization.

Hughes

Did it almost exclusively deal with science as related to the epidemic?

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Campbell

Yes. All we talked about was the epidemic. Things were moving so fast in the epidemic. I think we met two times a month, and every time we met, there was something new that we brought up and that nobody else, other organizations included, was talking about patients. It's not the AIDS Foundation or another organization with a general membership; its membership is physicians.

Campbell

That's correct.

Hughes

So of course, it's very important that members of BAPHR be up to date on the latest scientific information. But I'm also wondering if there's another dimension. Is BAPHR trying to project to the gay community and to the San Francisco community at large that BAPHR physicians have a different sort of information, an important different sort of information, than you're going to get from any other group? If so, it's important for many reasons that you project yourself as scientific experts. It's an image thing.

Campbell

Yes. I felt that we were uniquely involved, because we felt very personally involved from our own lives or our own risk, and then we were seeing a huge amount of this new syndrome in our medical practices. I think we were in a unique situation because nobody else was in that situation. Most physicians weren't seeing that much of the disease, or if they were seeing a lot of it, they may not have been personally at risk. So we had a lot invested in it emotionally. And nobody else was coming out with guidelines for medical management of the disease or guidelines to prevent transmission. What we were seeing was brand new; nobody had seen it before, so it was very important to get out there and write about it or speak about it. It was new, and it was urgent throughout that summer and fall of 1981, because they were seeing more and more of that syndrome there.

About this text
Courtesy of Regional Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt6580067h&brand=oac4
Title: The AIDS Epidemic in San Francisco: The Response of Community Physicians, 1981-1984, Vol. I
By:  Sally Smith Hughes
Date: 1996
Contributing Institution: Regional Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley
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