Shortly after his diagnosis with GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) in 1982, Michael began writing, speaking and organizing about what would soon be called AIDS. He is best known for:
“WE KNOW WHO WE ARE”, an article which appeared in the New York Native in the Fall of 1982;
HOW TO HAVE SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC: ONE APPROACH, generally recognized as the world’s first guide to safe(r) sex, and probably the only 40-page pamphlet in history to be favorably reviewed in both The New York Review of Books and Stallion;
SURVIVING AND THRIVING WITH AIDS: Volumes I & II, consisting of work by Mike and many others and mostly culled from the pages of the PWA Coalition Newsline, the world’s first publication by and for PWAs, which he started and edited for many years; and
SURVIVING AIDS, a rich and essential distillation of everything Mike had thought and said and written during eight years of activism. Despite being widely attacked in the gay press (mostly for the doubts expressed about AZT), it was nominated for a trade book of the year award by the American Medical Writers Association, which said “rarely are books written with such honesty, economy, scientific integrity and humanity…well-researched, clearly and passionately written…the book has a great value not just for those with AIDS, but for those who love someone with AIDS, who know someone with AIDS, and who have a responsibility for the correct (read life-affirming, healing-promoting) use of information–obviously most of us.” (HarperCollins, 1990: SBN 06-016148-5)
Regrettably, most of the above is no longer in print. If you would like information about acquiring Surviving AIDS or accessing the rest of Mike’s writing, or have an idea about publishing it, please send an email to Significant Other Inc.
In the meantime, a few documents are available here:
SPEECHES AND TESTIMONY
- Against “Drugs Into Bodies” — The conflicts which unfortunately exist between conducting scientifically credible treatment research and providing compassionate, wider access to promising experimental therapies (1990)
- To the American Public Health Association Convention in Las Vegas (1986)
- To the New York Congressional Delegation (1983)
- Point Counterpoint on AIDS and Promiscuity (1983) — Realvideo excerpts from television show hosted by Vito Russo, featuring Mike and Charles Jurrist
ARTICLES
- “Not Everyone Dies of AIDS” — then a radical concept — from the Village Voice (1988)
- A History of the PWA Self-Empowerment Movement (1988)
- Challenging the Proposition of Female to Male Transmission (1987) — A long-lost and utterly ignored broadside against the notion — put forward most brazenly by a GMHC functionary — that AIDS in America was “a steaming locomotive headed for the general population.”
SEX WARS