Joseph Sonnabend

Joseph Sonnabend
FRCP Ed
Born
Joseph Adolph Sonnabend

(1933-01-06)6 January 1933
Johannesburg, Union of South Africa
Died24 January 2021(2021-01-24) (aged 88)
London, England
Alma materUniversity of the Witwatersrand (MBBCh)
Occupation(s)Physician and clinical researcher
Known forPioneering HIV/AIDS research
RelativesYolanda Sonnabend (sister)
Websiteaidsperspective.net

Joseph Adolph Sonnabend (6 January 1933 – 24 January 2021) was a South African physician, scientist and HIV/AIDS researcher, notable for pioneering community-based research, the propagation of safe sex to prevent infection, and an early multifactorial model of AIDS.[1][2]

As one of the first physicians to notice among his gay male patients the immune deficiency that would later be named AIDS, during the 1980s and 1990s he treated many hundreds of HIV-positive people. During the height of the AIDS crisis, Sonnabend helped create several AIDS organisations, including the AIDS Medical Foundation (now amfAR),[1][2] the nonprofit Community Research Initiative (now ACRIA),[1][2][3] which pioneered community-based research,[4] and the PWA Health Group, the first and largest formally recognised buyers' club.[5]

Sonnabend became controversial for advocating that gay men change their sexual behaviors to avoid sexually-transmitted infections, rather than to just have fewer sexual partners, as advocated by Gay Men's Health Crisis and other gay community organizations and for hypothesizing a multi-factorial model of causation, including for a period of time after discovery of HIV.[1] He was widely respected as a pioneering and compassionate clinician and researcher.[2]

  1. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference NYPL papers was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c d "2000 Honoring with Pride: Joseph Sonnabend, M.D". amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  3. ^ Sean Strub (July 1998). "The Good Doctor". POZ. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  4. ^ Celia Farber (April 1989). "AIDS: Words from the Front". Spin. 5 (1). ISSN 0886-3032. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
  5. ^ Howard Lune (2007). Urban Action Networks: HIV/AIDS and Community Organizing in New York City. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 53–54, 106–107. ISBN 978-0-7425-4084-2. Retrieved 26 July 2014.