Daniel Defert is a prominent French AIDS activist and the founding president (1984-1991) of the first AIDS awareness organization in France, Aides. He started the organization after the death of his companion, the French philosopher Michel Foucault. The Red Ribbon symbol is used internationally to represent the fight against AIDS. AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, formerly known as GRIDS, rarely written Aids) is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus HIV, a lentivirus [1]. By leading to the destruction and/or functional impairment of... Michel Foucault Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 – June 26, 1984) was a French philosopher and held a chair at the Collège de France, a chair to which he gave the title The History of Systems of Thought. His writings have had an enormous impact on other scholarly work: Foucault...

A professor of sociology, Daniel Defert has been Assistant (1969-1970), Maître-assistant (1971-1985), then Maître de Conférence (from 1985) at the Centre Universitaire of Vincennes, which became in 1972, Université de Paris VIII Vincennes. He has been a member of the scientific committee for human sciences of the International Conference on AIDS (1986-94); member of the World Commission for AIDS (World Health Organization) (1988-93); member of the National Committee for AIDS (1989-98), of the Global AIDS Policy Coalition of Harvard University (1994-1997), and of the French "Haut Comité de la Santé Publique" (from 1998). WHO flag The World Health Organization (WHO) is an agency of the United Nations, acting as a coordinating authority on international public health, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ...

Daniel Defert is author of numerous articles in the domain of ethno-iconography and public health. He has been awarded the decoration of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and received in 1998 the Prix Alexander Onassis for the creation of Aides. Public health is an aspect of health services concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis. ... French Legion of Honor The Légion dhonneur (Legion of Honor (AmE) or Legion of Honour (ComE)) is an Order of Chivalry awarded by the President of France. ...

Life with Foucault

Daniel Defert met Foucault while he was a philosophy student at the University of Clermont-Ferrard in France and their relationship lasted from 1963 until Foucault's death in 1984. They described their relationship as a "state of passion". It was Foucault's death of AIDS, a disease about which little was known at the time, that led Defert to enter the field of AIDS activism. He also co-edited with François Ewald volume 4 of Dits et Ecrits of Michel Foucault (1994), a posthumous collection of Foucault's thought.

Links

• AIDES official website
• "Les Derniers jours" Interview with Daniel Defert in Libération, 19 June 2004