Peter Staley

Peter Staley was diagnosed with AIDS-related complex in 1985 while working as a bond trader at JP Morgan on Wall Street. He joined ACT UP New York shortly after its founding in 1987, and chaired its fundraising committee for three years. In 1988, he left his Wall Street job to become a full-time AIDS activist, joining ACT UP's Treatment & Data Committee (T&D). In 1989, Staley led ACT UP's campaign to force Burroughs Wellcome to lower the price of AZT. He organized activists to infiltrate their North Carolina headquarters and seal themselves in a third-floor office, and led a demonstration on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, disrupting trading and resulting in a price reduction of AZT three days later. In 1990, Staley was an opening plenary speaker at the VI International Conference on AIDS in San Francisco. In 1992, Staley and other members of T&D founded the Treatment Action Group (TAG), and he became its Founding Director. TAG's first action and "art project" involved cove