Senator Ted Kennedy called Terry "The 101st Senator on AIDS" and said "He probably accomplished more than all of the other hundred together."

S. 1594 (102nd): Terry Beirn Community Based AIDS Research Initiative Act of 1991 - A bill to honor and commend the efforts of Terry Beirn, to amend the Public Health Service Act to rename and make technical amendments to the community-based AIDS research initiative, and for other purposes.

Terence U. Beirn, an executive of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, died on Tuesday at Roosevelt Hospital. He was 39 years old and lived in Washington and Manhattan.

In 1986 amfAR Program Officer Terry Beirn joined the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and helped craft major AIDS legislation for the next four years.

1988 - amfAR's Terry Beirn helped muster support for, and Congress passes, the first comprehensive AIDS legislation—the Hope Act of 1988.

1990 - With crucial help from amfAR's Terry Beirn, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects individuals with disabilities, including both people with HIV/AIDS and those suspected of being infected, from discrimination. Elizabeth Taylor and Jeanne White testified before Congress, and amfAR's Terry Beirn rallied support for passage of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act of 1990.

He died of AIDS-related brain cancer, said Paul Corser, his companion and a colleague at the foundation.

Mr. Beirn, a native New Yorker and a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale College, was a news correspondent for television station KGO in San Francisco until 1984, when he tested positive for the HIV virus, which causes AIDS.

He joined in efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic, organizing fund-raising events, creating a quarterly directory of medical treatment for AIDS and helping to gain passage of legislation providing funds for research and clinical trials of experimental drugs to treat the disease. At his death, he was assistant executive director for programs at the research foundation.

He is survived by his father, F. Kenneth Beirn of Bridgeport, Conn.; a sister, Sarah Jennings of El Paso, and a brother, Christopher, of Goleta, Calif.

~ New York TIMES obituary, July 19, 1991 and amfAR
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Ter­ence Beirn was born in New York City in 1952. Before attend­ing Yale, Beirn grad­u­ated from Phillips Exeter Acad­emy. After earn­ing his Bach­e­lor's in 1974, Beirn pur­sued a career in broadcast journalism, becom­ing a cor­re­spon­dent for KGO in San Fran­cisco until 1984.

That same year, he was diag­nosed with AIDS.

Fol­low­ing his diag­no­sis, Beirn began work­ing with Sen­a­tor Ted Kennedy on AIDS pol­icy. In 1986, Beirn com­mit­ted him­self entirely to the orga­ni­za­tion of major AIDS leg­is­la­tion by join­ing the staff of the US Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Labor and Human Resources. Dur­ing his time there, Beirn gar­nered sup­port for the first com­pre­hen­sive piece of AIDS leg­is­la­tion, the 1988 HIV Organ Pol­icy Equity Act. The HOPE Act, which was renewed by Pres­i­dent Obama in 2013, is a law that mod­i­fied rules regard­ing organ dona­tion between HIV-pos­i­tive indi­vid­u­als. Two years later, Beirn was instru­men­tal in the pas­sage of the Ryan White Care Act, for which he advo­cated directly with Pres­i­dent Bush.

Beirn was a fierce AIDS activist; he was respon­si­ble for com­pil­ing quar­terly direc­to­ries of AIDS treat­ment for doc­tors and patients, fund-rais­ing for AmFAR and other research orga­ni­za­tions, and push­ing leg­is­la­tion to fund clin­i­cal tri­als of exper­i­men­tal treat­ments and drugs.

Beirn died at the age of 39 in 1991 from AIDS-related brain can­cer.

~ Source: YAMP

see also: https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/1594