AIDS Activist Martin Delaney Honoured By NIAID

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Regulatory Affairs / Drug Approvals;  Public Health
Article Date: 24 Jan 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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Martin Delaney, the founder and longtime director of the HIV advocacy/education organization Project Inform, has been presented with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director's Special Recognition Award for his many contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Delaney in 1985 founded Project Inform, a leading national HIV treatment and public policy information and advocacy organization based in San Francisco, and served as its Director until 2008.

He was a member of the NIAID AIDS Research Advisory Committee from 1991 to 1995, served on NIAID's National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Disease Council from 1995 to 1998, and also has served in other advisory roles for the Institute.

The NIAID Director's Special Recognition Award cites Mr. Delaney's "extraordinary contributions to framing the HIV research agenda, particularly with regard to antiretroviral drugs and access to treatment; exceptional efforts on behalf of HIV-infected people; and wise counsel while serving on NIAID advisory committees."

"Millions of people are now receiving life-saving antiretroviral medications from a treatment pipeline that Marty Delaney played a key role in opening and expanding," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. "Without his tireless work and vision, many more people would have perished from HIV/AIDS. He is a formidable activist and a dear friend. It is without hyperbole that I call Marty Delaney a public health hero."

"As a treatment advocate and activist, Marty always has been keenly analytical, well-informed, articulate, persistent, tough-minded, gracious and fair," Dr. Fauci adds. "With this award, NIAID thanks Marty for his advice, his boldness in asking hard questions (and demanding cogent answers), and for the countless hours he has devoted to helping NIAID, formally and informally, in our work in the fight against HIV/AIDS."

Mr. Delaney was one of the founders of the community-based HIV research movement and, through his work at Project Inform, led the way to HIV treatment education becoming widely available to patients and medical providers. He was a leader of the movement to accelerate Food and Drug Administration approval of promising drugs and a key player in the development of today's widely used Accelerated Approval regulations and Parallel Track system for providing experimental drugs to seriously ill people preceding formal FDA approval.

In recent years, among many other activities, Mr. Delaney has led the Fair Pricing Coalition to improve the accessibility of HIV medications, and has advocated for an aggressive research agenda to find a cure for AIDS.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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NIAID conducts and supports research - at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide - to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation's Medical Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

Source: Greg Folkers
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

MARTIN DIED OF LIVER CANCER ON 23RD JANUARY, 2009.