First person cured of HIV honored with new bench at Palm Springs park
Palm Springs, CALIF. - A man who beat the odds after becoming the first person to be cured of HIV was remembered Friday afternoon in Palm Springs. Family, friends, and those closest to Timothy Ray Brown gathered at Desert Healthcare Wellness Park on North Via Miraleste and East Tachevah Drive for a new bench dedicated to Brown. He’d be very pleased and have a big smile on his face, said Brown s partner, Tim Hoffgen.
Brown was known as The Berlin Patient after being given the name at the 2008 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, where his cure was first announced. He contracted the virus while studying abroad in Berlin in 1995. Brown later was diagnosed with leukemia. He underwent a stem cell procedure which ultimately made him HIV-free in 2007.