For many watching Earvin “Magic” Johnson on television on Nov. 7, 1991, his words were tantamount to an announcement of his own death sentence. In a press conference hastily convened by Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers after a local media outlet got wind of the story, the 32-year-old NBA superstar revealed he was HIV positive.
Dr. Michael Mellman, then the Lakers team physician, remembers a last-minute conversation with Johnson, just before they walked out to face a sea of cameras: “He looked at me and said, I just want to get this straight, I have HIV, not AIDS, right?”
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Despite the unscripted nature of the moment, Johnson was calm and matter of fact. And he followed his disclosure with a second bombshell, announcing his retirement from basketball—a sport he had dominated for much of his 13-season career, racking up more than 17,000 points and helping propel the Lakers to five NBA Championships.
(Johnson’s career was in fact not over, on the court or off—just a few months later he played in the 1992 NBA All-Star game, and on the 1992 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team. He also returned to the Lakers during the 1995-1996 season.)
In the years that followed, Johnson was “extremely fortunate” in being able to live with and manage the virus with treatments available at the time, in particular before the 1996 release of a potent triple-combination therapy that has prolonged the lives of many with HIV, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“I knew many people, many of whom were friends of mine, who were infected at the same time—but their disease progressed so rapidly that by the time optimal therapy was available, they had already passed away,” says Fauci, who was among those who counseled Johnson after his diagnosis.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) which it can cause, had entered the mainstream American…
Source : time
