Reflecting on the AIDS epidemic, 40 years after the first reported cases in the U.S.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on June 5, 1981 described a Pneumonia-like disease in five previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. While the disease was a mystery with no name back then, today the study is regarded as the arrival of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

Dr. Michael Gottlieb, who published the paper 40 years ago, says the report sparked an "uncomfortable feeling" in the LGBTQ+ community about what would happen next.  "People tell me, particularly people in the LGBTQ community, tell me that they remember where they were when they read this publication, and they had an uncomfortable about what was coming on," he told CBS News' Elaine Quijano. "But the reaction of the general public was basically flat."