Doctor who co-authored first AIDS report dies

updated 6:23 p.m. ET July 23, 2009

LOS ANGELES - Dr. Joel Weisman, who co-wrote the first report on AIDS in 1981, has died. He was 66.

Weisman died Saturday at his Los Angeles home, the Los Angeles Times reports. His domestic partner, Bill Hutton, said Weisman had heart disease and was ill for several months.

Weisman was a private physician in 1980 when he saw three gay patients who had symptoms of what would become known as AIDS. Weisman referred two of the patients to an immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Weisman, along with UCLA immunologist Dr. Martin Gottlieb, wrote a brief report of what they learned.

Their paper appeared on June 5, 1981, in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was the first report on AIDS in the medical literature.

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