Spencer Cox (activist)

Patrick Spencer Cox (March 10, 1968 – December 18, 2012) was an American HIV/AIDS activist. He was involved in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power and the Treatment Action Group. He helped facilitate the production of protease inhibitors.

Cox was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He came out as gay while he was in high school.^[1] He attended Bennington College for three years, where he studied theater and literature. He moved to New York City in 1989, hoping to become an actor. He joined the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) that year. He was soon after diagnosed with HIV.^[2]

In 1992, Cox joined with other ACT UP members to form the Treatment Action Group, which worked to further treatment advances in HIV. He worked with the Food and Drug Administration's Anti-Viral Advisory Committee to hasten the approval time for new HIV medications, including the new drug class of protease inhibitors. Cox designed a human drug trial for ritonavir, which led to its approval.^[2][3] Cox founded the Medius Institute for Gay Men's Health, with the mission of researching issues related to aging gay men, in 2006. With a lack of funding, Cox abandoned the effort and began using methamphetamine. He moved back to Atlanta to recuperate.^[1] He returned to New York in 2012, and appeared in the documentary How to Survive a Plague.^[1] He also wrote for POZ.^[2]

Cox died at Allen Hospital in Upper Manhattan on December 18, 2012, of AIDS-related causes, after going off of his HIV medications.^[1][2][4]

St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center renamed their HIV clinic, formerly the Center for Comprehensive Care, as the Spencer Cox Center for Health, in June 2013.^[5]