On the evening of the Remember AIDS candlelight vigil on June 5, heavy rain clouds hung over a crowd of more than 200 people.

ore than 200 people gathered in West Hollywood on June 5 in observance of the 30th Anniversary of AIDS. (photo by Matt Wilhalme)

But while the group gathered together and began to light their candles, sprinkles of rain could not snuff out the fire in the hearts of the crowd who were there to mark the 30th anniversary of the disease that took the lives of more than 10,000 members of the West Hollywood community.

Undeterred and a little wet, they began the march down Santa Monica Boulevard from the Matthew Shepard Memorial Triangle to the West Hollywood Park. Members of the group shared memories of the chaos and fear they felt more than three decades ago, as well as the stories of friends and family members who became some of the 30 million victims of the epidemic worldwide.

“I just remember way back in the day it used to be a death sentence,” said Tod Macofsky, 47, a 10-year resident of West Hollywood. “I am here to commemorate a milestone … and also celebrate the life of a friend who passed away three years ago.”

Nearly 30 years ago, the first reports of a mysterious disease that affected gay men began making headlines.

“I read about it, but I didn’t really understand what it was all about it, but it was scary because people were dying,” said Ray Montoya, who was 19-years old at the time.

Across the country, hospitals were filled with patients carrying the disease with the newly designated name of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In Los Angeles, Olympia Medical Center became one of the first and only AIDS wards in the country, with San Francisco and New York having the only other two locations.

“People were afraid, and hospitals were not set up for AIDS … they didn’t know anything at the time,” said Steve Rosenthal, Olympia Medical Center marketing manager.

Still known today as the immune suppressed unit (ISU), the ward at Olympia has retained much of the same staff of nurses and physicians from its inception.

During the 1980s and 1990s, there could be anywhere from 20 to 30 patients in the ward suffering from a life threatening infection or Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a form of cancer that became associated with AIDS, according to Dr. Michael Gottlieb, staff physician at Olympia Medical Center and one of the first to diagnose the disease.

“There was a sofa bed pulled out, and partners were there all the time and were able to bring patients food from the outside and it really was a community,” Gottlieb said. “In the bad days, the worst days, doctors and patients were in the same boat. We were feeling powerless, often in the face of one life threatening infection after another. I remember patients being very understanding that we as doctors were frustrated as well. Patients faced these infections with remarkable strength, they weren’t angry with us for failing to save their lives, they understood it was a tall order.”

But after 30 years, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who organized the event, President Michael Weinstein noted that possibly the most important discovery in the battle against HIV/AIDS has come in the last month.

A study conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has recently shown that “antiretroviral treatment can prevent sexual transmission of HIV among heterosexual couples in whom one partner is HIV-infected and the other is not.” The study revealed a 96 percent reduction in the risk of transmission.

The study confirms what has already been documented in uncontrolled studies, Gottlieb said. Treatment is a needed public health intervention.

As people participating in the AIDS anniversary walked on, they passed underneath AHF billboards encouraging HIV testing, and passed many West Hollywood bars full of people who turned to snap pictures and stare at the hundreds of lighted candles.

“Twenty-two years ago, I was twenty-two years old,” Rebekka Armstrong said. “I was given an HIV diagnosis. The next five years I was filled with fear, it was a very dark time for me. I witnessed discrimination, fear, death, anxiety. I fought medical battles, and I won. For those of you out here tonight who fight the fight with me, we are still here thirty years later. It’s a beautiful thing.”

As the group gathered in West Hollywood Park, a screen cycled through an endless list of the names of those who died from the disease.

“This evening is about remembrance of our friends, lovers, the guy who worked at the store, the woman who delivered our mail,” West Hollywood City Councilmember John D’Amico told the quiet crowd.

D’Amico asked the crowd to yell out the names of people who had died, and may have participated in the event. Slowly at first, people began to shout out the names of their loved ones, until almost the entire crowd was yelling out different names.

For those living with HIV and those affected by the disease, the event was a time for recommitment to the fight.

“I am now on a new journey that doesn’t have as much fear,” Armstrong said. “It wears a different kind of face to prevent the young people who didn’t get to witness what we saw in the ‘80s. We saw the AIDS face, we know what it smelled like, we looked at it and we saw death. We saw a lot of very frightening things.”

Watching the names of the victims continue to tick by on the screen, the crowd looked on in silence for a few moments until a single voice began a solemn chorus of “This Little Light of Mine”.

“This little light of mine, I’m going let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”