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New York|Michael Seltzer, Who Raised Millions to Fight AIDS, Dies at 78
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/nyregion/michael-seltzer-dead.html
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In the 1980s, when government lagged in its response to the disease, he solicited private support for prevention and treatment.
Sept. 8, 2025, 6:35 p.m. ET
Michael Seltzer, whose bedside vigil for a friend who was dying of AIDS transformed him into a prodigious fund-raiser who rallied individuals, foundations and corporations to support the prevention and treatment of the disease in the 1980s, when it was largely neglected at all levels of government, died on July 31 at his summer home on Governor Island, near Branford, Conn. He was 78.
His husband, Ralph Tachuk, said the cause was cardiac arrest. His death was not widely reported at the time.
“Michael’s pursuit of a world without AIDS was personal,” Kevin Jennings, the chief executive of the civil rights advocacy group Lambda Legal, said in an interview. “After witnessing a friend’s battle with AIDS in the 1980s, he felt a profound responsibility to act. ”
Mysterious at first, and with no proven treatment, AIDS was met largely with fear, neglect and a blame-the-victim response. Research into prevention, treatment and palliative care was not a popular cause.
In 1985, Mr. Seltzer spent two weeks in Paris with Bob White, a California man he had befriended in Philadelphia after college, who was being treated at the Pasteur Institute.
“Bob eventually went back to San Francisco and died,” Mr. Tachuk said. “Michael continued working in the fight against AIDS.”
