evidence: NIDA meeting calls for research into the poppers-Kaposi’s sarcoma connection [...] When the first cases of AIDS, or the predecessor cases of GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) were identified in 1981, the nitrite inhalants known as ‘poppers’ were high on the list of etiological suspects. Here was a drug used heavily and almost exclusively by the people getting sick: a subset of gay men. It was especially plausible that the nitrites, as powerful mutagens, might be responsible for Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), which was then believed to be a rare form of cancer. [...] Lauritsen, J. (1996). NIDA meeting calls for research into the poppers-Kaposi’s sarcoma connection.