Dr. Joel Weisman first aids doctor Died at 66

Los Angeles physician Joel Weisman, one of the first to identify HIV/AIDS in 1980 from his Sherman Oaks office, died Saturday. He was 66.

Known as "the dean of Southern California gay doctors," Weisman made the discovery nearly three decades ago, when he realized that three of his male patients, all gay, started suffering from similar symptoms (including drastic weight loss, pneumonia, and fevers). With UCLA immunologist Martin S. Gottlieb -- who also had a patient with similar symptoms -- the pair wrote a report in a 1981 issue of the Centers for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, signaling the official start of the AIDS epidemic. The two doctors cited health information among five patients, who died shortly thereafter, of what would eventually be known as AIDS.

Following their report, cases of immunodeficiency were being reported globally. By the end of 1982, 618 cases were reported. Twenty years later, the full toll had reached 500,000.

Weisman became an advocate for his patients and others with HIV when in 1983 he became founding chairman of AIDS Project Los Angeles. There, Weisman played a critical role in increasing services to those with the virus.

He also helped establish the first AIDS-specific hospital unit at the Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center. Weisman also pushed to fund AIDS research as an original member of amFAR. He later became chairman of the organization from 1988 to 1992. Dr. Mervyn Silverman lead the board of directors of amFAR from 1986 to 1996, including the period while Weisman was chairman of the board. Silverman described his colleague as a diligent advocate in the early stages of the AIDS epidemic.

"Hearing about him really upset me because he was very caring, very compassionate, he wasn't just part of the gay community, or the medical profession," Silverman said. "He was someone who really cared about the issues, especially with his involvement with APLA and amFAR. I never got the sense, working with him, that anything he was doing was for self aggrandizement or to be in the spotlight. He just did what he did."

Silverman remembers Weisman's work with amFAR during the early years as being controlled during such a hectic time.

"The foundation was in its very formative years, and if you've worked with a new foundation, you'll know that it can get crazy, especially because with amFAR you had people who were there for one reason, and it was to solve this mystery and get on with it," he said. "When you have that kind of commitment and dedication, the organizational things get more difficult. So in the beginning, you have mostly people who are there volunteering because of the cause, during that time, it's a very difficult maturation. I look at the board today compared to the board back then, and it's like night and day."

Weisman died in his home after suffering from heart disease and being ill for several months, his partner of 17 years, Bill Hutton, told the Los Angeles Times. He is survived by Hutton, his brother Mark, his daughter Stavey Weisman-Bogue Foster, a granddaughter, and two nieces. Donations may be made in his name to amFAR, AIDS Project Los Angeles, or the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences College of Osteopathic Medicine.