Success Story

In 1981, Elizabeth Glaser contracted HIV through a blood transfusion while giving birth to her first child, Ariel. She unknowingly passed the virus to Ariel through her breastmilk and, three years later, to her son, Jake, while pregnant.

When Elizabeth discovered she and her children were HIV positive, people didn't know AIDS affected children, or that it affected them differently than adults. Elizabeth and her friends Susan DeLaurentis and Susie Zeegan created the Pediatric AIDS Foundation to get money into the hands of researchers to find answers right away.

The Foundation's work came too late to help Ariel, who died at age seven. But Jake, now a teenager, remains healthy. Jake and others living with HIV are hopeful because, as the Foundation moves forward, new drugs are tested, new therapies are found, and lives are lengthened.

Elizabeth died on December 3, 1994. The Foundation remains dedicated to continuing her vision and her work.