Dr. William Heyward: Man, Doctor, Legend
Dr. William Heyward was born simply William Heyward in Atlanta, Georgia in 1950. He attended numerous colleges in an effort to become a specialist in his field, beginning with his B.A. in Chemistry from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia that he received in 1972. He then went on to the Medical College of Georgia from 1972 until 1976. Eventually Dr. Heyward attended Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in Maryland.
Alaska
In 1979, Dr. Heyward went to work for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC. He moved to Anchorage, Alaska, in order to do research on botulism, the hepatitis B virus, and Haemophilus influenzae type B infections that threatened the lives of numerous infants and children in Alaska. Due to Dr. Heyward’s tireless efforts, hepatitis B in Alaskan Natives is extremely rare. He also began a program that was meant to help detect liver cancer in those that had hepatitis B. He did this by routinely drawing blood and checking for the alpha-feto protein, which is a marker for liver cancer. Because of his ingenuity, those that were at risk for receiving liver cancer were able to be treated quickly and before the disease spread, giving them a better chance at life.
Dr. Heyward was also the first person to be in on the Phase III trial of a vaccine that stops the deadly Haemophilus influenzae disease in Alaskan infants and young children. Because of these immunizations, the disease has been stopped in its tracks.
HIV/AIDS
When Dr. Heyward first began working for the CDC, AIDS was still a severely misunderstood disease. Many people believed that you contracted it only if you were a homosexual, and still others thought you had to be “dirty” or disgusting in order to get sick from the disease. In reality, AIDS does not care who you are or what you look like. It is transmitted from any bodily fluid through any open orifice in the body, whether it is a cut or a more private area. During the time Dr. Heyward worked for the CDC, AIDS was becoming a pandemic. People all over the world were contracting the terrible disease and no one knew everything about it.
Dr. William Heyward decided to learn. In 1986 he attended Johns Hopkins in order to learn more about the disease, and shortly after that he moved to Atlanta in order to establish a program known as the “International AIDS Program”. He traveled to a number of places, including Brazil, Honduras, Thailand, and many more in his quest to learn how to eradicate AIDS. He set up field stations for the CDC in the Ivory Coast and in Thailand.
Dr. William Heyward is a man who has a mission in life: to eradicate the AIDS virus. He is currently working with VaxGen, Inc in Brisbane, California in an effort to find a vaccine that will stop AIDS from destroying all humanity.