Robert Rayford (February 3, 1953 – May 15 or 16, 1969), sometimes identified as Robert R. due to his age, was a teenager from Missouri who has been suggested to represent the earliest confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America based on evidence which was published in 1988 in which the authors claimed that medical evidence indicated that he was "infected with a virus closely related or identical to human immunodeficiency virus type 1." Rayford died of pneumonia, but his other symptoms baffled the doctors who treated him. A study published in 1988 reported the detection of antibodies against HIV. Results of testing for HIV genetic material were reported once at a scientific conference in Australia in 1999; however, the data has never been published in a peer-reviewed medical or scientific j