As a composer, singer, writer and AIDS activist, Michael Callen played a major role in shaping America's response to the epidemic. Callen was an AIDS activist before there was an AIDS movement. From the time of his diagnosis with Gay Related Immune Deficiency in 1982, he was involved in virtually all of the positive responses to the epidemic, including the self-empowerment of People with AIDS; the invention of safer sex; the community-based research movement; development of prophylaxis for major opportunistic infections; and the establishment of buyer's clubs providing low-cost access to both experimental and approved AIDS treatments. Callen coined the term "people with AIDS" (PWAs) to replace the early characterizations of PWAs as AIDS victims, thus laying the foundation for the PWA "self-empowerment movement." Callen emphasized that people could live with AIDS and continue to make significant contributions to society despite their diagnosis. Callen was a founding board member of the People with AIDS Coalition, the Community Research Initiative, the National Association of People with AIDS, the PWA Health Group, the New York City Mayor's Interagency Task Force on AIDS, and the New York State AIDS Institute. He testified before the President's Commission on AIDS, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the New York State Legislature, the New York City Council and the Australian AIDS Council. In the spirit of the PWA Coalition principles, he projected activism, indep