 The council was suppressed effective 1 January 2017 with the creation of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development with Cardinal Turkson as the inaugural prefect.In November 1989 at the annual conference of the Pontifical Council at the Vatican, recognition was given to an American priest from Massachusetts, Rev James Martin Graham, who was the director of the Archdiocese of Hartford's Office of AIDS Ministry, who pleaded for better communication efforts between the Church and governmental health agencies to share information to better combat AIDS.As a result of his proposal, Graham was appointed by then Archbishop Fiorenzo Angelini as the director of the new International Christian AIDS Network (ICAN).