[4] Co-founder Larry Kramer was asked to speak as part of a rotating speaker series, and his well-attended speech focused on action to fight AIDS.

[2][6] Inspired by this new approach to radical, direct action, other participants in these events returned home to multiple cities and formed local ACT UP chapters in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Rhode Island, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and other locations.

[9] On March 24, 1987, 250 ACT UP members demonstrated at Wall Street and Broadway to demand greater access to experimental AIDS drugs and for a coordinated national policy to fight the disease.

[13] On September 14, 1989, seven ACT UP members infiltrated the New York Stock Exchange and chained themselves to the VIP balcony to protest the high price of the only approved AIDS drug, AZT.

[14] ACT UP held their next action at the New York City General Post Office on the night of April 15, 1987, to an audience of people filing last minute tax returns.

[2] In January 1988, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article by Robert E. Gould, a psychiatrist, entitled "Reassuring News About AIDS: A Doctor Tells Why You May Not Be At Risk.

"[2] The main contention of the article was that in unprotected vaginal sex between a man and a woman who both had "healthy genitals" the risk of HIV transmission was negligible, even if the male partner was infected.

[16] Additionally, filming the action itself, the preparation and the aftermath were all consciously planned and resulted in a video short directed by Jean Carlomusto and Maria Maggenti, titled, "Doctor, Liars, and Women: AIDS Activists Say No To Cosmo."

[17] Following their participation in the Cosmopolitan protest, ACT UP's Women's Caucus targeted the Center for Disease Control for its narrow definition of what constituted HIV/AIDS.

As historian Jennifer Brier noted, "for men, full-blown AIDS often caused Kaposi's sarcoma, while women experienced bacterial pneumonia, pelvic inflammatory disease, and cervical cancer."

"[18] In October 1990, attorney Theresa McGovern filed suit representing 19 New Yorkers who claimed they were unfairly denied disability benefits because of the CDC's narrow definition of AIDS.

Rather, McGovern, along with the ACLU and the New Jersey Women and AIDS Network, called for adding fifteen conditions to the list of the CDC's surveillance case definition, which was eventually adopted in January 1993.

The handbook, edited by Maria Maggenti, formed the basis for the ACT UP/New York Women and AIDS Book Group's book titled Women, AIDS and Activism, edited by Cynthia Chris and Monica Pearl, and assembled by Marion Banzhaf, Kim Christensen, Alexis Danzig, Risa Denenberg, Zoe Leonard, Deb Levine, Rachel (Sam) Lurie, Catherine Saalfield (Gund), Polly Thistlethwaite, Judith Walker, and Brigitte Weil.

[22] Members of the original Women and AIDS Handbook Group included Amy (Jamie) Bauer, Heidi Dorow, Ellen Neipris, Ann Northrop, Sydney Pokorney, Karen Ramspacher, Maxine Wolfe, and Brian Zabcik.

[citation needed] The AIDS activists shut down the large facility by blocking doors, walkways and a road as FDA workers reported to work.

"[27] A few dozen activists interrupted Mass, chanted slogans, blew whistles, "kept up a banchee screech," chained themselves to pews, threw condoms in the air, waved their fists, and lay down in the aisles to stage a "die-in.

[41] On May 21, 1990, around 1000 ACT UP members initiated a choreographed demonstration at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, splitting into sub-groups across the campus.

The Washington state legislature subsequently passed a "Harmful to Minors" law making it illegal to distribute sexually explicit material to underage persons.

[45][46] "In January 1988, [ACT UP/Boston] held its first protest at the Boston offices of the Department of Health and Human Services, regarding delays and red tape surrounding approval of AIDS treatment drugs.

The organization held die-ins and sleep-ins, provided freshman orientation for Harvard Medical School students, negotiated successfully with a major pharmaceutical corporation, affected state and national AIDS policies, pressured health care insurers to provide coverage for people with AIDS, influenced the thinking of some of the nation's most influential researchers, served on the Massachusetts committee that created the nation's first online registry of clinical trials for AIDS treatments, distributed information and condoms to the congregation at Cardinal Bernard Francis Law's Confirmation Sunday services at Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston, and made aerosolized pentamidine an accessible treatment in New England.

[52] Some of their more local work focused on policy regarding the migration of HIV-positive people into the U.S., pushing for AIDS clinical trials, promoting needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users, and surveying speaking out against discrimination by health care and insurance providers.

Lauren Leary was an integral in the organization because her work revolved around gathering existing research about HIV and AIDS in women and men and current treatment options.

Helms had actively passed laws stigmatizing the disease, and his staunch attempts to block federal funding for, and education about, HIV and AIDS had significantly increased the death toll.

[67] The first ACT UP event took place in Robson Square as a public display of art in which three mummies wrapped in linen hung upside down to depict the inaction and neglect of the provincial government on those affected by AIDS.

ACT UP worked to end the AIDS pandemic and to combat the extreme homophobia that gay men faced as a result of stigma and stereotypes.

It called on the government to end the 6 month delay for social security benefits for newly diagnosed people living with AIDS, and to improve the rate.

Edinburgh ACT UP's first protest was on 1 December 1989, World AIDS Day  After a march along Princes Street ending in a rally where balloons were released.

Its founding members are Catherine Gund, Ray Navarro, Ellen Spiro, Gregg Bordowitz, Robert Beck, Costa Pappas, Jean Carlomusto, Rob Kurilla, George Plagianos.

Although less as a "collective" after 1990, DIVA TV continued documenting (over 700 camera hours) the direct actions of ACT UP, activists, and the community responses to HIV/AIDS, producing over 160 video programs for public access television channels - as the weekly series "AIDS Community Television" from 1991 to 1996[99] and from 1994 to 96 the weekly call-in public access series "ACT UP Live"; film festival screenings; and continuing on-line documentation and streaming internet webcasts.

[105] Restraining orders have been granted after ACT UP/SF members physically attacked AIDS charities that help HIV-positive patients,[106] and activists associated with the chapter have been found guilty of misdemeanor charges laid after threatening phone calls to journalists and public health officials.