Rupert Whitaker

Dr Rupert Whitaker (born 1963) is a psychiatrist, immunologist, and patient-advocate. He is one of Europe’s longest-surviving people with HIV, having contracted the disease in 1981. Following the death of his partner, Terrence Higgins, from AIDS in 1982, he co-founded the Terrence Higgins Trust, a charity set up to provide services for people with HIV. In 2007, Dr Whitaker’s professional and personal experiences led to his founding the Tuke Institute, an international organisation researching the health-effectiveness of medical services.

Rupert came out as gay in 1978. He graduated from the Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire in 1980 aged 17 years old. In 1981, he attended St. Hild and St. Bede College at Durham University to study philosophy and psychology and during this period his partner Terry Higgins became one of the first people to die from AIDS in the UK. Rupert became ill and transferred to the University of London and was not expected to live longer than 12 months.

In 1982, Rupert Whitaker became involved in raising awareness of a little-known disease referred to at the time as Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (subsequently HIV). Following his involvement in a conference organised by Gay Switchboard, London, he worked primarily with Martyn Butler and Tony Whitehead to develop the Terrence Higgins Trust into a registered charity, helping to establish its educational, mental health, and buddying services, and raising awareness in the media. The Trust was the first European HIV charity to be founded and is currently one of the leading HIV charities in Europe.

Following the completion of his first degree in 1984, Rupert Whitaker was awarded a fellowship to the University of Toronto to train in psychiatry and biobehavioural science around HIV. He received a scholarship and fellowships to continue university education and training in Canada and the USA for a further 11 years. He received his doctoral qualifications in psychiatry, neurology, and immunology with a 100% grade point average. This was followed by three post-doctoral fellowships in immunology, neurological and social psychiatry at Tufts New England Medical School, University of Michigan Medical School, and the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.

Dr. Whitaker continued his work in social justice around health during his studies and led the international response to anti-HIV immigration and travels laws in the USA. Based on his published research in public health with Richard Edwards, he prompted the International AIDS Society to boycott the USA as the location of any future IAS conferences until the laws were changed. The bans were lifted in 2009 and the subsequent IAS conference was held in Washington, DC.

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