IN HER OWN WORDS

Elizabeth Taylor's Remarks at Opening Ceremony

Elizabeth Taylor’s legacy of AIDS advocacy—and her continuing commitment to helping those infected with HIV live longer, and live better—in her own words:

"In the 20 years since I helped found amfAR, it has raised more than $233 million to support more than 2,000 researchers, many of them right here at UCLA. I particularly remember that in 1999 amfAR made grants to three members of the faculty of the UCLA AIDS Institute—because at the time that was a record number of research grants allocated to a single institution.

In the 14 years that the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation has been in existence, with no overhead— I take care of that—it has provided more than $10 million to improve the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS. In a very real sense, the CARE Center at UCLA is the bridge between amfAR and my foundation—it is the place where the scientific breakthroughs that amfAR makes possible are translated into better treatments for people living with HIV/AIDS. And what we all want, after all, is for everyone infected with this virus to live longer—and live better.

The full name of this clinic is the UCLA Clinical AIDS Research and Education (CARE) Center, and that exactly describes what happens here. The patients at the CARE Center receive the best treatment available anywhere— which is why the CARE Center has one of the best survival rates of any HIV clinic in the country. And the dedicated staff of the clinic conducts education programs—for other doctors and nurses, to keep them abreast of new developments in HIV therapy, and for patients themselves, to help them take the best possible care of themselves. But most of all, the people who work at the CARE Center really do care— about their patients, about overcoming the fear, stigma, and ignorance that is associated with this terrible virus, and about helping us find a cure for AIDS. For all of these reasons I am proud to lend my name to their campaign to establish an endowment that will allow the CARE Center to continue its crucial work, because this will not end until there is a cure."


—Dame Elizabeth Taylor