AIDS: Looking Back and Forward AIDS research has come a long way in the two decades since the infamous dispute between American Robert Gallo and Frenchman Luc Montagnier (both virologists claimed to have discovered the HIV virus). Throughout the Eighties and Nineties, citizens rallied for better research, education, and treatment against the disease, and by 1997, drug "cocktails" reduced AIDS deaths by 40% in the United States. Today, over 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, as scientists work fervently to develop a vaccine to eradicate the virus.