For many years, one of the mainstays of the National Urban League’s annual “State of Black America” was Dr. Beny Primm’s report on health issues. Even when he didn’t have the lead article, he was certainly cited by whomever had the assignment. Primm, who started the first methadone clinics to treat heroin addicts, died Oct. 16 in New Rochelle, N.Y. He was 87.
His death was confirmed by his daughter Annelle Primm.
Primm gained national attention in the early 1960s, when the rampant spread of drug addiction turned him from his work in anesthesiology at Harlem Hospital to dealing with the heroin epidemic and the number of cases he witnessed. In 1969, he co-founded the Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation that began as a methadone clinic in Brooklyn. By the mid-1970s, he had opened several treatment centers in New York City.
The success of the clinics put him in the national spotlight, and his life story was in demand by mainstream publications.
Born May 28, 1928, in Williamson, W.Va., Primm was the son of an educator and a mortician. With a mother as the principal of a local elementary school, education was a subject unavoidably stressed in the household. In 1941, his mother moved the family, including his brother, to the Bronx so they could attend integrated schools.
From a very early age Primm expressed a desire to be a doctor. After graduation from DeWitt Clinton High School, he received a basketball scholarship to attend Lincoln University. However, the academic pressure and other issues forced him to leave the school after a couple of years. He returned to West Virginia and graduated from West Virginia State University.
He next ventured to the military, where he was a paratrooper. An injury in the service hampered his ability to gain admission to medical schools in the U.S., so he went abroad, first to Germany in 1953 and then to the University of Geneva in Switzerland, where he received his medical degree in 1959.
It was during his tenure in Geneva that he began to search for opportunities to practice in the U.S. and landed an externship at Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx in obstetrics and gynecology. This position was a pleasurable experience, unlike a subsequent one at Meadowbrook Hospital on Long Island, where he encountered many white patients not interested in being treated by a Black doctor.
These racist encounters played a role in his switch to anesthesiology, which led him to a job at Harlem Hospital in 1963. Six years later, his life was dramatically changed with his work on people afflicted with drug addiction and his later involvement with HIV/AIDS.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed Primm to the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic. One of his additions to the report issued by the commission was the recommendation that addicts who used needles be given treatment on demand. His expertise was also sought by President George H.W. Bush, and he served on his National Drug Abuse Advisory Council.
According to his interview with HistoryMakers, since 1983, Primm has been “president of the Urban Resource Institute, an umbrella organization that supports various community-based initiatives and social service programs for battered women, the developmentally disabled, substance abusers and those infected with HIV and AIDS.” He has also been a member of the World Health Organization’s conference in Geneva and the International Conference for Ministers of Health on AIDS prevention in London.
Along with his annual reports for the NUL, Primm has authored numerous articles in medical texts and scientific journals.
“Dr. Primm served as vice chair of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS for almost two decades,” said Debra Fraser-Howze, founder and former president of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS. “He was my constant advisor, a champion for people with HIV/AIDS, addictions and battered women and a revolutionizing spirit, presence and defender for those who had no voice. Dr. Primm changed the world as we know it for millions around the globe. Dr. Primm was sounding the alarm on AIDS to Black leaders before we knew there was a problem in our community.”
Primm is survived by his daughter Annelle Primm of New Rochelle and two daughters from his marriage to the former Annie Delphine Evans, who died in 1975: Martine Primm and Jeanine Primm Jones. Other survivors are a daughter from a later relationship, Eraka Bath Fortuit; his fiancee, Ellena Stone Huckaby; and two granddaughters.
Funeral services for Primm were held Wednesday, Oct. 21 at Abyssinian Baptist Church.