AmfAR
amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, known until 2005 as the American Foundation for AIDS Research, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of AIDS-related public policy.
amfAR is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Revenue Code section 501 and operates as an independent nonprofit with worldwide initiatives. amfAR was formed in September 1985 by actress Elizabeth Taylor, researcher Mathilde Krim, physicians Michael S. Gottlieb and Joseph Sonnabend, and activist Michael Callen. The organization was created when Taylor and Gottlieb's California-based National AIDS Research Foundation, which sought to actively engage in HIV-related drug development, merged with Krim's New York-based AIDS Medical Foundation, which sought to lessen the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS diagnoses, as well as to increase funding to the cause. What resulted was a foundation that prioritized both research and development as well as policy influence. This foundation was one of the first of its kind to embody both aspects of healthcare.
amfAR has three headquarters, located in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Bangkok, Thailand. amfAR spurs research and development through providing grants to organizations and researchers, and fellowships to early-career scientists through the Mathilde Krim Fellowships in Basic Biomedical Research. amfAR has provided over 3,800 grants to research teams across the world and has invested over $900 million to research aiming to effectively treat HIV and AIDS-related illness, as well as to cure HIV and other global health threats. amfAR's funds historically have gone to funding research, and as a result have helped pioneer community-based clinical research trials in the 1980s, as well as the involvement of AIDS patients in the drug approval process. Changes in leadership have marked changes in focus, resulting in shifts from public health outreach to public education to international research and outreach.
amfAR has embarked on various national and international campaigns to spur AIDS/HIV research, create a dialogue and decrease stigma surrounding the disease. Through TREAT Asia and GMT, amfAR took international roots and began funding research and outreach on all inhabited continents. National initiatives have included the Countdown to a Cure for AIDS. The amfAR Institute for HIV Cure Research and amfAR Research Consortium on HIV Eradication were both created to aid this countdown, both to help fund research as well as provide a facility at which those researcher can work. To supplement the funding of these initiatives, amfAR is funded through sources like stock donations and their annual galas, which represent the majority of their source of funding.
After Kenneth Cole stepped down as chairman, he was replaced by William H. Roedy. The CEO Kevin Robert Frost joined amfAR in 1994 and became CEO in 2004. Frost leads eight members of the Management Team, 25 Board of Trustees members and over 100 advisors to both their scientific and political platforms.
CharityWatch gives the Foundation for AIDS Research an "A−" grade.
Charity Navigator rates amfAR a four-star charity.
History
Origins
In the early 1980s, a group of researchers and scientists including Mathilde Krim, Ph.D., then a researcher at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, formed an informal study group to investigate the condition that came to be known as AIDS. In 1983, Krim, Joseph Sonnabend, Michael Callen, and several others launched the New York-based AIDS Medical Foundation. In Los Angeles, Michael S. Gottlieb and amfAR Founding National Chairman Elizabeth Taylor spearheaded the creation of the National AIDS Research Foundation with a $250,000 contribution from Rock Hudson shortly before his AIDS related death in October 1985. The two organizations merged in September 1985 to become "American Foundation for AIDS Research".Elizabeth Taylor's critical role
As founding national chairman of amfAR, Elizabeth Taylor became the organization's principal spokesperson and titular head. She made countless public appearances on the foundation's behalf and secured multiple $1 million gifts. As a star and public figure, her involvement attracted enormous media attention to amfAR, and she made trips to Thailand, Japan, and Europe on the foundation's behalf.In 1987, she testified before Congress to plead for a funding increase for emergency AIDS care in areas hardest hit by the epidemic. Her testimony helped draw media attention, which built public support for the Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act. She then persuaded President Ronald Reagan to acknowledge the disease for the first time in a speech in 1987. Three years later, she once again testified before Congress with Jeanne White, mother of Ryan White. The pair urged Congress to pass the CARE Act of 1990. The CARE Act, named for White, was passed by Congress on August 18, 1990. Funds were slow to be allocated so Elizabeth went back to Congress to fight for the promised funding. The CARE act was the largest federally funded program for people living with HIV/AIDS. In 2009, President Barack Obama signed the fourth extension of the act. The program provides care for 500,00 people a year and funds over 2,000 organizations.
Leadership under Krim
Krim's achievements during her time as a leader of amfAR involved increased public education and direct political action. Krim spearheaded the publishing of amfAR's first HIV/AIDS Treatment Directory, which provides medical professionals updated information on the treatment of HIV/AIDS, as well as clinical trials that People With AIDS can participate in. The publishing of this directory continued for 11 volumes until the year 2001. Following the increased involvement of AIDS activists and patients with the drug approval process, Krim and Taylor testified before the National Institute of Health and Congress on the importance of clinical trials within community settings. These testimony and lobbying efforts by Krim and Taylor led to the first Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group, which allowed people with AIDS and HIV to actively take part in the testing needed to approve AIDS drugs. Krim further shaped the structure of amfAR fellowships, as she impelled the first grant to Peter Piot for his landmark study on female-to-male AIDS transmission in Kenya."They felt that this was a disease that resulted from a sleazy lifestyle, drugs or kinky sex—that certain people had learned their lesson and it served them right," Krim told The New York Times Magazine in 1988. "That was the attitude, even on the part of respectable foundations that are supposed to be concerned about human welfare."One of Krim's final projects was her push for needle exchange programs in the face of mass stigma toward IV-drug users. Amid the 1980s' "war on drugs", Krim's thoughts on sterile needle exchange is reflected in a quote, saying, "It was a brilliant idea. It would work—the drug users would use the clean needles—and it would be inexpensive." Krim worked with the Outside In needle exchange program in Portland, Oregon, in 1989, and funded trials of needle exchange programs in Tacoma, Washington, between 1989–1991. amfAR used the results of these studies, as well as a study in New Haven, Connecticut, to compile a report with the National Academy of Science which concluded that syringe exchange programs were safe and effective. Before stepping down, Krim saw the international surge of amfAR, with the creation of initiatives such as TREAT Asia, and in 2004 the TREAT Asia HIV Observational Database.
In 2005, Krim stepped down as founding chair. According to amfAR, she served as CEO from 1990 through 2004, and is described as the "heart and soul" of the organization. Charles Kaiser described Krim as "determined to prevent America from using AIDS to stigmatize homosexuals" in his book The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America. She was widely viewed as someone who fought on the front lines against prejudices against many people with AIDS. Apart from aiding research for life saving drugs, Krim was equally a proponent of reshaping public opinion, as noted by The New York Times tributes to her and those who interacted with her.
amfAR after Krim
The year after Krim stepped down in 2004, the CDC reported that 1,000,000 Americans were living with HIV/AIDS. In an effort to reduce the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, amfAR's new chairman Kenneth Cole led amfAR to partner with Viacom Inc. and the Kaiser Family Foundation to launch an initiative called KNOW HIV/AIDS. This program funded an AIDS awareness campaign titled, "We All Have AIDS", which marked a more controversial tone in amfAR's new public strategy. In line with the launching of program initiatives, amfAR under Cole launched the TREAT Asia pediatric network and the MSM initiative, which was a global effort to help educate, treat and prevent HIV/AIDS in men who have sex with men.In honor of its founding chair, amfAR launched the Mathilde Krim Fellowship in Basic Biomedical Research in 2008. The goal of this fellowship is to spur young and independent research groups who are actively searching for HIV/AIDS medical advancements. This grant has spurred discoveries such as the first recorded birth of new HIV virus particles by Dr. Nolwenn Jouvenet, as well as other developments at the pinnacle of HIV research. Other recipients of the Mathilde Krim Fellowship such as Bing Chen and Rosa Cardoso have made discoveries that have been central to the modern understanding of the HIV virus.
After Cole stepped down as chairman due to a fraud investigation surrounding money diversion, he was replaced by William H. Roedy. The current CEO Kevin Robert Frost joined amfAR in 1994 and became CEO in 2004. The CEO leads 8 members of the Management Team, 25 Board of Trustees members and over 100 advisors to both their scientific and political platforms.