Though AIDS was highly controversial throughout the rest of the country, Harvard as a whole seemed to be relatively ahead of the times.

“It was a tolerant campus,” said Eric A. Berman ’88.

Students on campus worked to understand the epidemic and the “emotionally complicated” plight of AIDS patients, according to Berman. Berman,  a member of the Institute of Politics’ Student Advisory Committee in 1987, helped produce the Committee’s rendition of “The Normal Heart,” a semi-autobiographical play by Larry Kramer that centered on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City during the early 1980s.

AN IMPERFECT CURE

According to Hirsch, AZT was the first step to a comprehensive treatment for HIV/AIDS. “AZT was not the first drug that we had looked at, but it was the first drug that had any promise,” he said.

However, the drug proved less effective than anticipated. Epperly recalled many who, despite beginning the drug therapy shortly after its release, fell ill and eventually died.

“For a lot of people, it showed early promise, but either had insufferable side effects or stopped working effectively too soon,” he said.

Mermin recalled strong debates over whether AZT was more harmful than helpful for AIDS patients. “The activist community was concerned that the [drug’s] toxicity outweighed the potential benefits,” he said.

As time passed, researchers expanded upon Groopman’s and Hirsch’s discoveries to find drugs that better tempered the ravaging effects of HIV/AIDS.

Nevertheless, the discovery of AZT was a landmark on the road to removing the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS and the communities often associated with it. “I think AZT in retrospect was a minor advance, it was a conceptual advance... I think the subsequent improvements in therapy greatly reduced the stigma,” Hirsch said.

—Staff writer Victoria Fydrych can be reached at fydrych@college.harvard.edu.