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On October 11, 1988, ACT UP members from all over the country descended on the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration in Rockville, MD, in an action they called “SEIZE CONTROL OF THE FDA.”

ACT UP activists demanded that the FDA make its drug approval process faster and more ethical in order to get more experimental drugs into the bodies of people who needed them. They demanded that drug trials include women, people of color, IV drug users, and all other people with AIDS who had traditionally been excluded from trials and therefore denied access to new drugs.

As a result of the action and ACT UP’s continued lobbying, the FDA adopted ACT UP’s proposed structure for drug trials, Parallel Track, which greatly expanded access to experimental medicines.

Read more about the action here.