Storm the N.I.H.

On May 21, 1990, ACT UP targeted the National Institutes of Health in a "Storm the N.I.H." demonstration. The activists' criticism of the agency's slow research progress (voiced on this placard as well as other material prepared for the event) was coupled with three demands: that the agency include more women and minorities in their clinical drug trials, that they develop additional AIDS treatments, and that they create a Women's Health Committee in conjunction with the AIDS clinical trials. ACT UP's demonstrations against the N.I.H., the FDA, and the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome were effective tools in speeding access to drugs that benefited people with AIDS.