Loss of a pioneer: The passing of Dr. Mathilde Krim

The Board of Directors and staff of San Francisco AIDS Foundation mourn the passing of Dr. Mathilde Krim, pioneering AIDS researcher, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, founding chairperson of amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, and advocate for civil rights and the LGBTQ community.

“Dr. Krim devoted her life to ending the AIDS epidemic, standing up against misinformation and discrimination,” said San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Joe Hollendoner. “Our progress would not have been possible without Dr. Krim’s leadership of the scientific and philanthropic responses to the HIV pandemic. Her legacy is reflected in every member of our community who is living today and in those who continue her work.”

Dr. Krim dedicated herself to increasing the public’s awareness of AIDS and to a better understanding of its cause, its modes of transmission, and its epidemiologic pattern, according to amfAR. Soon after the first AIDS cases were reported in 1981, Dr. Krim recognized that the new disease would raise grave scientific and medical questions with important socio-political consequences.