new what caused AIDS, which, at that time, primarily affected homosexual men. With the hope of discovering the disease's cause, NIAID launched a multicenter effort to enroll volunteers at risk for developing AIDS. When the discovery of HIV and its subsequent link to AIDS occurred shortly thereafter, the focus of the study shifted toward investigating how the disease progresses and how to prevent it. The MACS originally was composed of clinical research centers at the institutions mentioned above and at the University of California at Berkeley. The Berkeley center left the MACS in 1988 to pursue an independent NIAID-funded investigation, the San Francisco Men's Health Study.

MACS volunteers are evaluated every six months. Volunteer visits include an interviewer-administered questionnaire, a physical examination, and the collection of blood samples for analysis of the immune system and to monitor volunteers' HIV status.

"It's really comforting to have been a part of this research from the beginning," says Louis Hughes, Jr., a Baltimore resident who enrolled in the MACS at the Johns Hopkins University site in 1984. "It's been a bittersweet struggle, but to see the progress from knowing so little about HIV/AIDS to where we are today when people with HIV are living longer, better lives is very exciting." Mr. Hughes, who is HIV-negative, notes that he has lost many friends to AIDS. "But I know that other friends of mine are benefiting from this research," he adds.

The MACS has played a crucial role in HIV/AIDS research over the past 15 years. One of the first major MACS breakthroughs came in 1988, when John P. Phair, M.D., and colleagues at Northwestern University reported that HIV-infected individuals' risk of contracting Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) dramatically increased once their CD4+ T-cell levels dropped below 200 cells per cubic millimeter (mm3) of blood. This discovery provided a rational basis for initiating treatment to prevent PCP
'"/>

Contact: John Bowersox
jbowersox@nih.gov
301-402-1663
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
20-Apr-1999

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