, who died from AIDS in 1990, is the namesake for U.S. federal legislation that addresses the unmet health needs of persons infected with HIV/AIDS. He is the poster boy for HIV/AIDS. This is a categorized, alphabetical list of people who are known to have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, the pathogen that causes AIDS, including those who have died. AIDS is a pandemic. In 2007, an estimated 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and it killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. HIV is spread primarily by unprotected sex, contaminated blood transfusions, hypodermic needles, and from mother to child during pregnancy, delivery, or breastfeeding. Because of lack of public acceptance, people infected with HIV are frequently subjected to stigma and discrimination. Publicity campaigns around the world have aimed to counter HIV-related prejudices and misconceptions and to replace them with an accurate understanding that helps to prevent new infections. These efforts have been aided by various celebrities – including American basketball star Magic Johnson and South African judge Edwin Cameron – who have publicly announced that they are HIV-positive.
American actor who starred in the television series Dark Shadows.
Amanda Blake
American actress best remembered for her role as Kitty Russell in the television series Gunsmoke.
Jim J. Bullock
American actor who starred in the sitcom Too Close for Comfort, Ned's Declassified and the voice of Queer Duck.
Stephan W. Burns
American actor who starred in the film Herbie Goes Bananas and the television mini-series The Thorn Birds.
Merritt Butrick
American actor best remembered for playing Captain Kirk's son in the films Star Trek' and '.
Ian Charleson
British actor whose best-known role was the part of athlete Eric Liddell in the film Chariots of Fire.
Keith Christopher
American actor and singer who was best known for roles of HIV positive characters in NBC soap opera Another World and CBS daytime drama The Guiding Light.
Brad Davis
American actor, played the part of Billy Hayes in the film Midnight Express.
Robert Drivas
American film, television and stage actor.
Denholm Elliott
British actor; won three BAFTA awards as best supporting actor for Trading Places, A Private Function and Defence of the Realm, as well as an Academy Award nomination for A Room with a View.
Richard Frank
American television and motion picture actor best known as Father Vogler in the film Amadeus.
Leonard Frey
American Broadway and film actor, earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof.
Tom Fuccello
American actor, known for his role as Dave Culver in the television series Dallas.
Kevin Peter Hall
American actor, played in Predator and Harry and the Hendersons.
American AIDS activist, author and singer–songwriter. In 1983 he testified before the President's Commission on AIDS and before both houses of the United States Congress. With Joseph Sonnabend, he was co-founder of PWA Health Group and Community Research Initiative
Bobbi Campbell
American AIDS activist and one of the first people to publicly acknowledge his HIV infection.
Paddy Chew
Singaporean AIDS activist. He was the first person in Singapore to publicise his HIV-positive status.
Dolzura Cortez
Filipina AIDS activist. She was the first person in the Philippines to publicise her HIV-positive status.
Spencer Cox
American AIDS activist, helped facilitate development of protease inhibitors
American brothers who were the subject of a federal court battle against the DeSoto CountySchool board to allow them to attend public school despite their diagnoses.
Josh Robbins
American HIV activist who published a video on YouTube of being told of his HIV diagnosis in January 2012
Jorge Saavedra Lopez
Mexican AIDS activist and director of CENSIDA, Mexico's top AIDS agency, since 2003.
Jim St. James
Canadian actor and activist best known for starring in a series of HIV/AIDS awareness commercials on Canadian television in the 1980s, and as the subject of a biography by journalist June Callwood.
Pedro Julio Serrano
Puerto Rican LGBT and AIDS activist and the first openly HIV-positive and openly gay person to run for public office in Puerto Rico.
Peter Staley
American HIV/AIDS-LGBT rights activist, known for his work with ACT UP and founding both the Treatment Action Group and the educational website AIDSmeds.com
American teenager and AIDS activist. The Ryan White Care Act, a federal legislation that addresses the unmet health needs of persons infected with HIV/AIDS in the United States, was named after him.
Business
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Vasily Aleksanyan
Russian lawyer and businessman, former Executive Vice President of Yukos oil company, jailed as a suspected accomplice to tax evasion and money laundering; allegedly denied treatment in jail.
Stephen D. Hassenfeld
American businessman best known for being the chairman and chief executive officer of Hasbro from 1980 until 1989.
American magazine publisher, founder of POZ magazine
Criminal transmission of HIV
Name
Life
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Johnson Aziga
Ugandan-born Canadian resident of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, notable as the first person to be charged with, and convicted of, first-degree murder in Canada for transmitting HIV, after the deaths of two women he had infected.
Nadja Benaissa
German female pop singer who was convicted of knowingly infecting a number of her lovers.
Henry Cuerrier
Canadian man convicted of aggravated assault for knowingly exposing two women to HIV.
Carl Leone
Canadian businessman found guilty of 15 counts of aggravated sexual assault for not informing his partners of his HIV status.
Andre Chad Parenzee
South African-born man convicted in Australia on three counts of endangering human life through having unprotected sex without informing his partners of his HIV status.
Italian accountant convicted of thirty transmissions of HIV and sentenced to 24 years imprisonment. In court his partners testified that he would claim that he was allergic to condoms in order to convince them to have unprotected intercourse.
Nushawn Williams
American who infected 13 women with HIV; imprisoned for reckless endangerment and statutory rape.
American film director and producer; directed the films Dirty Dancing and Sister Act.
Howard Ashman
American playwright and lyricist; along with music composer Alan Menken he received two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and two Oscars for best song for the films The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
American screenwriter, director, and producer; wrote the screenplay for the 1971 film Harold and Maude.
Richard Hunt
American Muppet puppeteer; played the character of Scooter on The Muppet Show.
Derek Jarman
British film director, stage designer, artist, and writer
Peter Jepson-Young
Canadian medical doctor who promoted AIDS and HIV awareness and education in the early 1990s through his regular segment on CBC Television news broadcasts.
Melvin Lindsey
American radio and television personality in the Washington, D.C. area; pioneered the Quiet Stormradio format.
Roy London
American acting coach, actor and director
Lance Loud
American columnist; best known for his role in An American Family, widely considered television's first reality show.
James K. Lyons
American actor and film editor, film Far from Heaven
Michael McDowell
American novelist and screenwriter
Andy Milligan
American playwright, screenwriter and film director.
CJ de Mooi
British quizzer
Ongina
American drag queen and HIV activist, competed on the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race and the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, and became one of the first reality TV stars to come out as HIV positive.
Norman René
American film director and producer
Marlon Riggs
American author and documentary filmmaker
Max Robinson
American journalist; was the first African American network news anchor for ABCWorld News Tonight.
Anthony Sabatino
American art director, won an Emmy Award for his work on the television show Fun House.
Murray Salem
American television actor and screenwriter; wrote the script for the film Kindergarten Cop.
Bill Sherwood
American filmmaker, known for the film Parting Glances.
Jack Smith
American underground film director, best known for the avant-garde movie Flaming Creatures.
Michael Sundin
British television presenter and actor; was presenter of the BBC children television show Blue Peter.
Jonathan Van Ness
American hairdresser, podcaster, and television personality; cast member on Netflix's Queer Eye series.
Esther Valiquette
Music
Name
Life
Comments
Reference
Peter Allen
Australian born songwriter and singer; wrote an expatriate anthem "I Still Call Australia Home".
Dutch boyband singer and model. In 1992 starred in a controversial and iconic episode of Paul de Leeuw's TV show De Schreeuw van de Leeuw, where Klijn's illness was the main subject while De Leeuw took the liberty of cracking jokes about it. The episode was praised for discussing a taboo subject in frank but refreshing terms and won a Bronze Rose d'Or at Montreux. Their duet, Mr. Blue, became a number one-hit in the Netherlands while the money was donated to the AIDS foundation.
American lawyer; came to prominence during the investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy into alleged Communism in the U.S. government, especially the Army–McCarthy hearings.
American pornographic actor; transmitted to Lara Roxx, Miss Arroyo and Jessica Dee, causing an international pornography-industry AIDS scare.
Tim Kramer
American pornographic actor
Robert La Tourneaux
American pornographic actor
Richard Holt Locke
American pornographic actor
Kurt Marshall
American pornographic actor
Wade Nichols
American pornographic actor and soap opera actor; committed suicide after receiving HIV diagnosis.
Scott O'Hara
American pornographic actor, poet and editor/publisher
Jeff Palmer
American pornographic actor
Al Parker
American pornographic actor
Johnny Rahm
American pornographic actor
Erik Rhodes
American pornographic actor
Lara Roxx
Canadian pornographic actress; see Darren James entry.
Aiden Shaw
British author, musician, model and former pornographic actor
John Stagliano
American pornographic actor; best known for his Buttman series of films, which is credited with sparking the gonzo adult film genre.
Joey Stefano
American pornographic actor; was a model in Madonna's book Sex.
Marc Stevens
American pornographic actor
Eric Stryker
American pornographic actor
Cole Tucker
American pornographic actor
Marc Wallice
American adult film actor
Josh Weston
American adult film actor
Scientifically notable infections
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Life
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Kimberly Bergalis
American woman who alleged she had contracted HIV from her dentist
Timothy Ray Brown
American man who was the first to be considered cured of HIV. Known as the "Berlin patient."
Gaëtan Dugas
French-Canadian flight attendant who was widely, although incorrectly, identified as "Patient Zero" for the spread of HIV in North America.
Nina Martinez
American woman, self-proclaimed "AIDS baby" who became the first HIV-positive living organ donor.
Arvid Noe
Norwegian sailor famous for being one of the first humans known to have died from AIDS.
Margrethe P. Rask
Danish physician and surgeon, one of the first people known to have died from AIDS.
Robert Rayford
African-American Missouri teenager who was the victim of the first confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America. His death baffled doctors because AIDS was not discovered and officially recognized until June 5, 1981, when five San Francisco doctors discovered the disease, long after Rayford's death.
Sports
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Arthur Ashe
American tennis player and social activist; won three Grand Slam titles.
American comics artist, also active as a ballet dancer.
Felix Partz
Canadian artist, member of the artist collective General Idea
Neal Pozner
American comics writer, editor and art director. Worked for DC Comics.
Joel Resnicoff
American artist and fashion illustrator
Herb Ritts
American photographer and video director, best known for his work with Madonna.
Tom Rubnitz
American video artist
David Seidner
American photographer
Allen Shapiro
American comics artist
Willi Smith
American fashion designer
Ted Stearn
American animator and comics artist
David Wojnarowicz
American artist, writer and activist
Jorge Zontal
Canadian artist, member of the artist collective General Idea
Writing
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Gordon Stewart Anderson
Canadian writer whose novel The Toronto You Are Leaving was published by his mother 15 years after his death.
Reinaldo Arenas
Cuban novelist who committed suicide while living in New York
Jean-Paul Aron
French writer and journalist; One of the first people of renown in France to die of AIDS.
Isaac Asimov
Russian-born American author and biochemist, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. He became infected with HIV through a tainted blood transfusion during his 1983 triple heart bypass surgery.
Italian serial killer; in revenge for his contracting HIV he murdered four homosexuals.
Christine Maggiore
American AIDS denialist who refused interventions to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to her children; her three-year-old daughter died of complications of AIDS in 2005.
Leonard Matlovich
American decorated Vietnam Warveteran, fought U.S. military in 1975 for the right to serve as an openly gay man.
American groupie who gained some cult fame by appearing in Frank Zappa's film 200 Motels and making a musical contribution to the album Permanent Damage with The GTOs.
Ed Savitz
American businessman accused of sexually abusing children
