Dr. Jonathan Mann: champion for human rights in the fight against AIDS

On September 2, 1998, a Swissair jetliner headed to Geneva, Switzerland, crashed off the coast of Canada. Among the passengers on board were Jonathan Mann and his wife, both highly respected and renowned researchers who were headed to a United Nations AIDS vaccine conference. Jonathan Mann had held many high-level positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) before establishing the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Global Programme on AIDS, which he ran from 1986 to 1990. This article presents a brief biography of Mann, with emphasis placed on his contributions to the progress that has been made in treating children with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), as well as on his efforts to protect individuals with AIDS and to establish appropriate attitudes toward them when the disease was still an emerging and frightening one that sparked controversy and fear.