Here's a poignant story...

[Goro]

Having lived through the start and the height of the AIDS pandemic, I was touched by this story from today's NY Times:

Dead of AIDS and Forgotten in Potter’s Field

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[DubbiDoctor]

“I said, ‘Why are they buried separately,’ and they said, ‘Because they had AIDS,’” recalled Ms. Butcher who is now a forensic consultant. “I said, ‘Do you think the other dead people will catch it from them?’ and they said, ‘Well, we didn’t know what to do.’”

Fear leads people to make irrational choices. It's a shame that so many people won't know where their loved ones are buried

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

I’m working the Inpatient HIV team right now for my medicine rotation. This article was an excellent read and really put the history of AIDS in prospective.

Even now there’s some residual stigma that I find surprising. Our team is called “special Immunology”, so when we show up to a patients room it’s not immediately clear to family/friends (who may not know the diagnosis) what we’re doing there.

 

[Goro]

I’m working the Inpatient HIV team right now for my medicine rotation. This article was an excellent read and really put the history of AIDS in prospective.

Even now there’s some residual stigma that I find surprising. Our team is called “special Immunology”, so when we show up to a patients room it’s not immediately clear to family/friends (who may not know the diagnosis) what we’re doing there.

Sad fact: The AIDS epidemic was first noticed in 1981 or so. It took President Ronald Reagan seven years before he first uttered the word "AIDS", only because Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV positive.

 

[bananafish94]

Our government's response to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s is, in my opinion, one of the more shameful episodes in modern American history. However, the fact that it's gone from a bewildering, misunderstood, universally fatal disease to one that is now extremely well-studied and essentially asymptomatic with proper treatment is one of the greatest triumphs of the medical field. If anyone is a fan of documentaries I highly recommend How to Survive a Plague.

 

[atomi]

Our government's response to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s is, in my opinion, one of the more shameful episodes in modern American history. However, the fact that it's gone from a bewildering, misunderstood, universally fatal disease to one that is now extremely well-studied and essentially asymptomatic with proper treatment is one of the greatest triumphs of the medical field. If anyone is a fan of documentaries I highly recommend How to Survive a Plague.

Shameful? What? The government spent an absolutely enormous amount of public funds in research for a disease that was only affecting a very small portion of the population resulting in an effective "cure." It's quite remarkable. The topic is controversial because other diseases/conditions did not receive a proportionate amount of funding in relation to the number of people they affected. It has been published on quite extensively. Regardless of the controversy in the lobbying for funding for AIDS, I absolutely would not call the government's response shameful. AZT was developed in a remarkably short timeframe.

 

[atomi]

Sad fact: The AIDS epidemic was first noticed in 1981 or so. It took President Ronald Reagan seven years before he first uttered the word "AIDS", only because Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV positive.

This is fake news. Reagan first mentioned AIDS publicly in 1985.

REAGAN DEFENDS FINANCING FOR AIDS

 

[Goro]

This is fake news. Reagan first mentioned AIDS publicly in 1985.

REAGAN DEFENDS FINANCING FOR AIDS

OK, it took four years for him to mention the word AIDS

 

[bananafish94]

I absolutely would not call the government's response shameful.

I don't know, I would call the president's press secretary laughing multiple times in the face of a reporter asking questions about a disease that had killed thousands of people shameful. But that's just me.

 

[atomi]

I don't know, I would call the president's press secretary laughing multiple times in the face of a reporter asking questions about a disease that had killed thousands of people shameful. But that's just me.

The fact is that the amount of public funding and intensity of research effort that went into producing AZT during the Reagan administration was unrivaled at the time and has not been approached since for any new disease. There is a deliberate smear campaign full of falsehoods against the Reagan administration and conservatives to try to shame them that has been propagated for a very long time, as evidenced by the post above. Most conservatives did not hate gay people and did not want them to die of AIDS. The anecdote you mention was from 1982, shortly after the disease was identified and little was known about it and its epidemiology. The reporter asked the press secretary about AIDS, and the press secretary did not yet know what AIDS was. After being told it was a gay disease by the reporter, he made some insensitive jokes (by the way, you should watch Eddie Murphy's standup routine Delirious from 1983 to get a picture of how homosexuality was joked about at that time -- you have to analyze these things through the lens of society at the time, not from 2018 -- joking about homosexual behavior back then didn't automatically mean you were intrinsically a bad person and hated them and just wanted to let them die of AIDS without helping them). To use that single incident as evidence to backup your original statement that the entire government's response was "shameful" is intellectually dishonest, to say the least.

 

[atomi]

OK, it took four years for him to mention the word AIDS

The term AIDS was not used by the CDC until late 1982.
The virus that causes AIDS was not discovered until 1983 and published in 1984.
Magic Johnson also announced he had HIV in 1991, not 1988.

 

[Goro]

The term AIDS was not used by the CDC until late 1982.
The virus that causes AIDS was not discovered until 1983 and published in 1984.
Magic Johnson also announced he had HIV in 1991, not 1988.

Gawd, my memory is awful!

OK, then it was Rock Hudson' death I was thinking of.

 

[bananafish94]

Reagan's own surgeon general wasn't even allowed to issue a report on AIDS until his second term. The Reagan administration routinely fought any appropriations to AIDS research with tooth and nail.

There is a deliberate smear campaign full of falsehoods against the Reagan administration and conservatives to try to shame them that has been propagated for a very long time, as evidenced by the post above.

I don't think he's evil, I'm not trying to shame anyone with "falsehoods." I think that on this particular issue he demonstrated an astonishing lack of leadership and foresight, and almost seemed to embrace willful ignorance on the topic.

Most conservatives did not hate gay people and did not want them to die of AIDS.

I never said anything like this in my original post, and the fact that you are using "most" as your qualifier here is a little disturbing.

The anecdote you mention was from 1982, shortly after the disease was identified and little was known about it and its epidemiology.

I'm not buying your argument here. AIDS was established at this point. People knew, at the bare minimum, that it was a deadly disease that affected predominantly gay people and the person directly responsible for conveying the administration's policies to the public had this to say about it. I think this speaks volumes about the tone that was established in the White House from the top down in handling this issue.

joking about homosexual behavior back then didn't automatically mean you were intrinsically a bad person and hated them and just wanted to let them die of AIDS without helping them).

Yeah, once again, I never said anything like that. I don't understand why you keep circling back to that.

 

[atomi]

Alright, lets really circle back here. Your comment was, "Our government's response to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s is, in my opinion, one of the more shameful episodes in modern American history." I'm going to take a wild guess here that you were born well after 1981, probably well into the 90s.

The most shameful episode is modern American history is without a doubt the Vietnam War. Anybody who wants to claim otherwise can go F themselves. If you want to go back before 1950, dropping the atomic bomb (twice).

Yet, curiously, out of nowhere, you claim Reagan didn't get personally get riled up enough about AIDS, and this is one of the most shameful things our government did, effectively on par with the Vietnam War. I'm sorry, but no. The reality is that there was a massive scientific undertaking fueled by enormous public funding to bring a novel use of a drug- AZT (approved in 1987 only 25 months after it demonstrated activity against HIV in the lab -- the shortest time for drug approval in recent history), for a novel disease in a very short amount of time. It was an overwhelming victory that came at a huge, never-before-seen cost. Your comments demonstrate an ignorance of the history of the disease and evolution of both public and scientific understanding in the early to mid 1980s. I'll leave it there, but you need to read a lot more about this topic.

 

[Med Ed]

Alright, lets really circle back here. Your comment was, "Our government's response to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s is, in my opinion, one of the more shameful episodes in modern American history." I'm going to take a wild guess here that you were born well after 1981, probably well into the 90s.

The most shameful episode is modern American history is without a doubt the Vietnam War. Anybody who wants to claim otherwise can go F themselves. If you want to go back before 1950, dropping the atomic bomb (twice).

Yet, curiously, out of nowhere, you claim Reagan didn't get personally get riled up enough about AIDS, and this is one of the most shameful things our government did, effectively on par with the Vietnam War. I'm sorry, but no. The reality is that there was a massive scientific undertaking fueled by enormous public funding to bring a novel drug, AZT (approved in 1987 only 25 months after it demonstrated activity against HIV in the lab -- the shortest time for drug approval in recent history), for a novel disease in a very short amount of time. It was an overwhelming victory that came at a huge, never-before-seen cost. Your comments demonstrate an ignorance of the history of the disease and evolution of both public and scientific understanding in the early to mid 1980s. I'll leave it there, but you need to read a lot more about this topic.

You are conflating "one of the more shameful" with "the most shameful".

I was born well before 1981, and can personally attest to the fact that the Reagan administration's response to the emerging epidemic was, in a word, anemic. Because it seemed to be affecting mostly gay people it was largely written off as a public health threat that was not consequential to the majority.

All the efforts you mention, the scientific discoveries, the public health measures, etc., could have happened earlier than they did. Considering the natural history of HIV their sluggishness on the disease response has no doubt cost many lives.

 

[atomi]

You are conflating "one of the more shameful" with "the most shameful".

I was born well before 1981, and can personally attest to the fact that the Reagan administration's response to the emerging epidemic was, in a word, anemic. Because it seemed to be affecting mostly gay people it was largely written off as a public health threat that was not consequential to the majority.

All the efforts you mention, the scientific discoveries, the public health measures, etc., could have happened earlier than they did. Considering the natural history of HIV their sluggishness on the disease response has no doubt cost many lives.

I disagree completely. It was understood quickly that the virus could be transferred through means other than anal sex. The efforts happened extraordinarily quickly. There is a longstanding deliberate smear campaign full of outright lies to paint one of the most successful infectious diseases successes in history as a monumental failure caused by a prejudiced president.

Please cite, specifically, what Ronald Reagan did that prevented AZT being approved for treatment earlier than it was.

 

[Med Ed]

I disagree completely. It was understood quickly that the virus could be transferred through means other than anal sex. The efforts happened extraordinarily quickly. There is a longstanding deliberate smear campaign full of outright lies to paint one of the most successful infectious diseases successes in history as a monumental failure caused by a prejudiced president.

Please cite, specifically, what Ronald Reagan did that prevented AZT being approved for treatment earlier than it was.

The AIDS Research Program at the National Institutes of Health (1991)

The AIDS epidemic was first recognized in early 1981, a time of severe fiscal stringency in the federal budget that constrained the initial federal response (Office of Technology Assessment, 1985; Lee and Arno, 1986; Panem, 1988) and continues to affect federal action. The NIH budget for fiscal year 1981 was $3.57 billion, just 4.2 percent higher than the previous year's, and it increased only 2 percent—to $3.64 billion—in fiscal year 1982. After inflation, NIH's research purchasing power, using the biomedical research and development price index, actually declined by 5.6 percent in 1981 and by 6.1 percent in 1982, regaining its 1980 level only in 1984 (NIH, 1989a: Table 7). Yet despite the constraints on funding, some researchers in NIH's intramural programs and extramural projects and centers found AIDS to be an urgent medical problem, as well as an interesting scientific puzzle, and they began to study it.

The syndrome was first recognized and described by NIH grantees in mid-1981, and the first AIDS patient was admitted to the NIH clinical center in September 1981. Before the end of that year, NCI viral epidemiologists began studies; NCI held a national conference on Kaposi's sarcoma and AIDS-related opportunistic infections; general clinical research centers supported by the National Center for Research Resources became involved in AIDS studies; and NIAID supplemented grants to its extramural sexually transmitted disease centers and other researchers to study AIDS. In the first several years, support for AIDS research had to be reprogrammed from other areas of research. Congress first appropriated additional funding for AIDS research at NIH in a supplemental appropriations bill in July 1983, which provided about $9 million of the $21.7 million that NIH spent on AIDS in fiscal year 1983. The recent substantial growth in AIDS funding started in 1986 when Congress began "earmarking" AIDS funding in the regular appropriations to the institutes (Figure 4.1).

Essentially there was a five year gap (1981-1986) between the first recognized case of AIDS and a significant, sustained allocation of funding to understand and combat HIV. Part of this was bad luck for Reagan; he rode into office on a promise to slash, consolidate, or eliminate 83 federal programs, and until the last year of his presidency his NIH budget proposals did not keep up with inflation. The body that stepped in to actually tackle the problem was Congress. The progress that occurred on the research and treatment fronts therefore occurred in spite of the White House, not because of it.

 

[Goro]

The AIDS Research Program at the National Institutes of Health (1991)

The AIDS epidemic was first recognized in early 1981, a time of severe fiscal stringency in the federal budget that constrained the initial federal response (Office of Technology Assessment, 1985; Lee and Arno, 1986; Panem, 1988) and continues to affect federal action. The NIH budget for fiscal year 1981 was $3.57 billion, just 4.2 percent higher than the previous year's, and it increased only 2 percent—to $3.64 billion—in fiscal year 1982. After inflation, NIH's research purchasing power, using the biomedical research and development price index, actually declined by 5.6 percent in 1981 and by 6.1 percent in 1982, regaining its 1980 level only in 1984 (NIH, 1989a: Table 7). Yet despite the constraints on funding, some researchers in NIH's intramural programs and extramural projects and centers found AIDS to be an urgent medical problem, as well as an interesting scientific puzzle, and they began to study it.

The syndrome was first recognized and described by NIH grantees in mid-1981, and the first AIDS patient was admitted to the NIH clinical center in September 1981. Before the end of that year, NCI viral epidemiologists began studies; NCI held a national conference on Kaposi's sarcoma and AIDS-related opportunistic infections; general clinical research centers supported by the National Center for Research Resources became involved in AIDS studies; and NIAID supplemented grants to its extramural sexually transmitted disease centers and other researchers to study AIDS. In the first several years, support for AIDS research had to be reprogrammed from other areas of research. Congress first appropriated additional funding for AIDS research at NIH in a supplemental appropriations bill in July 1983, which provided about $9 million of the $21.7 million that NIH spent on AIDS in fiscal year 1983. The recent substantial growth in AIDS funding started in 1986 when Congress began "earmarking" AIDS funding in the regular appropriations to the institutes (Figure 4.1).

Essentially there was a five year gap (1981-1986) between the first recognized case of AIDS and a significant, sustained allocation of funding to understand and combat HIV. Part of this was bad luck for Reagan; he rode into office on a promise to slash, consolidate, or eliminate 83 federal programs, and until the last year of his presidency his NIH budget proposals did not keep up with inflation. The body that stepped in to actually tackle the problem was Congress. The progress that occurred on the research and treatment fronts therefore occurred in spite of the White House, not because of it.

This is what happened. I lived through it as well.

 

[hallowmann]

From my memory, it was not the governmental allocation of funding, but rather the joint efforts of multiple international medical research centers that isolated and developed treatments for HIV quickly - when the funding came it was helpful, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the allocation of public funds is the main reason for "speedy" development of treatments. I will also say, that like conditions that typically affect the more affluent and, quite frankly, whiter populations of the world, it did receive a lot of private (and later public for that matter) funding in the 80s and 90s, especially in light of celebrities succumbing to the illness.

The idea that this was a disproportionate allocation of funds/manpower, is in my opinion short-sighted, as it was (and this is demonstrated by the speed with which it has spread through and devastated other countries and continents) a disease that without clear intervention and education would have spread widely (it kind of did) affecting most likely millions more in this country than it had.

Also, the response speed also had a good deal to do with the collaborative nature and the expansion of communication methods available in the 80s/90s that simply weren't available prior to that. Its one of the success stories that really demonstrated the power of international and collaborative medical research.

That all said, I do agree that there were quite a few "shameful episodes in modern American history," and while this itself was shameful, I don't know that I would say it necessarily was "one of the more" shameful examples (although that's pretty subjective, and I could see the argument) we have from our modern history. After all, there are plenty to choose from, but that also means there are plenty of ways to improve our country and legacy.

And with that, Happy 4th of July everyone!

EDIT: So I read the article. Honestly, I didn't expect that I had forgotten some of things from my childhood surrounding the AIDs epidemic, but they started rushing back while reading. I take back what I said. This episode in our history was pretty shameful, and not just from a standpoint of how our government responded to the epidemic, but how we as a country, communities, individuals, and even within the medical community responded. We as humans respond to fear in scary ways and its made us justify a lot of shameful actions.

 

[intubesteak]

How's the moral superiority thing working out for you guys, btw?

 

[Lawpy]

How's the moral superiority thing working out for you guys, btw?

I think people’s political biases are swaying them to make inaccurate claims

 

[lingmed]

I'll leave it there, but you need to read a lot more about this topic.

I disagree completely. It was understood quickly that the virus could be transferred through means other than anal sex. The efforts happened extraordinarily quickly. There is a longstanding deliberate smear campaign full of outright lies to paint one of the most successful infectious diseases successes in history as a monumental failure caused by a prejudiced president.

Please cite, specifically, what Ronald Reagan did that prevented AZT being approved for treatment earlier than it was.

Wow, if this isn't gaslighting, I don't know what is...the history is everywhere, readily available when googling like anything related to the Reagans and AIDS:

• C. Everett Koop, Reagan's Surgeon General, indicates that he was excluded from the Executive Task Force on AIDS established in 1983; despite feeling that "if ever there was a disease made for a Surgeon General, it was AIDS...[he was] for the first four years in office prevented from addressing the nation's most urgent health crisis...because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs."..."The president's advisers, Koop said, "took the stand, 'They are only getting what they justly deserve.'"

This is fake news. Reagan first mentioned AIDS publicly in 1985.

No, what's "fake news" is your disingenuous gaslighting...as @Goro recalled, he was referring to the fact that Reagan waited until 1987 to mention AIDS in a speech, which should have been a ready inference for you given the context and the dates...

Speaking of--let's not forget Rock Hudson's dying plea to Nancy Reagan for help, and her lovely reply declining to do anything; or President Reagan's change in Dr. Koop's language when he finally did give the speech, from "Passing moral judgments is up to God" to "Final judgment comes from God..." Perhaps he had listened to the advice of his advisor, Carl Anderson, who wrote in a memo contemporaneously, "Failure to make moral judgments on this behavior is why we have this epidemic. To my knowledge, the President has never said that we are to abandon moral judgment on these types of matters”

 

[atomi]

No, what's "fake news" is your disingenuous gaslighting...as @Goro recalled, he was referring to the fact that Reagan waited until 1987 to mention AIDS in a speech, which should have been a ready inference for you given the context and the dates...

Perhaps you missed it.
RE: REAGAN DEFENDS FINANCING FOR AIDS

You and others are pushing this big lie with wildly inaccurate information and absurd claims (e.g., Reagan only felt comfortable mentioning AIDS after a heterosexual like Magic Johnson demonstrated to the public that it wasn't just a gay disease -- you know because being gay is icky and it was just too icky for him to mention things that involved butt sex) that Reagan and other conservatives hated homosexuals and didn't want to do anything about AIDS because he was glad it was getting rid of them. Listen, Reagan was by no means perfect and did some really screwed up things in his presidency, namely in central America, but it is completely ridiculous to extend his personal statements on the AIDS epidemic, or paucity thereof, to the entire government's response, which demonstrably produced an effective treatment in very rapid timeframe, and throw this alongside the other "more shameful" episodes of America's recent history.

I think people’s political biases are swaying them to make inaccurate claims

Ya think?

 

[Goro]

Wow, if this isn't gaslighting, I don't know what is...the history is everywhere, readily available when googling like anything related to the Reagans and AIDS:

• C. Everett Koop, Reagan's Surgeon General, indicates that he was excluded from the Executive Task Force on AIDS established in 1983; despite feeling that "if ever there was a disease made for a Surgeon General, it was AIDS...[he was] for the first four years in office prevented from addressing the nation's most urgent health crisis...because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs."..."The president's advisers, Koop said, "took the stand, 'They are only getting what they justly deserve.'"

No, what's "fake news" is your disingenuous gaslighting...as @Goro recalled, he was referring to the fact that Reagan waited until 1987 to mention AIDS in a speech, which should have been a ready inference for you given the context and the dates...

Speaking of--let's not forget Rock Hudson's dying plea to Nancy Reagan for help, and her lovely reply declining to do anything; or President Reagan's change in Dr. Koop's language when he finally did give the speech, from "Passing moral judgments is up to God" to "Final judgment comes from God..." Perhaps he had listened to the advice of his advisor, Carl Anderson, who wrote in a memo contemporaneously, "Failure to make moral judgments on this behavior is why we have this epidemic. To my knowledge, the President has never said that we are to abandon moral judgment on these types of matters”

Good to know my memory isn't completely gone!

 

[lingmed]

You and others are pushing this big lie with wildly inaccurate information and absurd claims (e.g., Reagan only felt comfortable mentioning AIDS after a heterosexual like Magic Johnson demonstrated to the public that it wasn't just a gay disease -- you know because being gay is icky and it was just too icky for him to mention things that involved butt sex) that Reagan and other conservatives hated homosexuals and didn't want to do anything about AIDS because he was glad it was getting rid of them

Ah yes, my big lie and wildly inaccurate information and absurd claims coming straight from Reagan's Surgeon General and Special Assistant/Office of Public Liaison. The quotes and documents are in the post. I'm sorry, but I am not going to continue a discussion with a conversational partner who is incapable of basic honesty.

For anyone who's interested, there are extensive primary source documents in the NIH article that I linked to previously; the documents are here. Here's an article from the Boston Globe in 1986 discussing exactly what we have been talking about--amazing how the Boston Globe got wind of our big lie 31 years ago!--here's another documenting a Dept. of Education Memo saying that the Secretary of Education opposed Dr. Koop's public health recommendations because "irresponsible sexual behavior is the main cause of the spread of AIDS."

Here's the NIH's description of Koop's preparation of the report and protection from the politics of the Reagan administration:

"Koop drafted the report himself at a stand-up desk in the basement of his home on the NIH campus, with only a handful of trusted staff members as advisers, including Fauci. Concerned that an in-depth review by Reagan's domestic policy advisers would lead to the removal of crucial public health information from the report, such as on condom use, Koop submitted numbered copies of the final draft to the Domestic Policy Council, which he collected at the end of the meeting with the explanation that he sought to prevent leaks of the report to the media."

The documents speak for themselves...ta ta for now, have a happy 4th.

 

[atomi]

opposed Dr. Koop's public health recommendations because "irresponsible sexual behavior is the main cause of the spread of AIDS."

Blank stare. If you actually read it, you'll see that the complaint was that the plan didn't discuss teaching children that having multiple sexual partners instead of a monogamous relationship (marriage) increases risk of contracting AIDS. This is self-evident and does nothing to add to your goal to demonstrate that Reagan and conservatives were homophobes who wanted to see gays die.

The quotes and documents are in the post. I'm sorry, but I am not going to continue a discussion with a conversational partner who is incapable of basic honesty.

ta ta for now, have a happy 4th.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

If its any consolation, the smearing and head in the sand posturing haven't abated elsewhere.

A thoughtful and well reasoned article was written by an historian on the Global AIDS history published by the NYTimes with mostly positive comments on NYT page
Opinion | The End of Safe Gay Sex?

Yet the response at POZ Magazine was nothing short of pandemonium

About That Awful AIDS Op-Ed in The New York Times…

It was a throwback to the 1980s Reagan canard and very disturbing.

Facts are troubling things and while PrEP was initially well received, compliance is falling, STDs rising with PrEP users, condoms are being ridiculed and HIV undetectable patients are seeing alarming syndromes that decrease their mortality when comapared to HIV neg patients who have the typical comorbid conditions (obesity, hypertension, T2D, etc).

What did the Obama administration do?

Obama and Hillary had a pathetic and late metanoia on all things LGBT, for expediency but they laughably get a pass. Pathetic

thankfully dedicated Cardiologists like Dr Priscilla Hsue at UCSF and Dr Wendy Post at Yale and ID physicians like Dr Lance Okeke at Duke are doing everything they can to address the ongoing alarming cardiovascular problems for HIV undetectable patients with little to no support from any Federal/State Government or medical body.

Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), Boston, Massachusetts March 4-7, 2018

I’m no ID expert but I think you’re really conflating apples and oranges here. I don’t think there’s been a physician in history that thinks there’s no long term effects of HIV, even when treated. It’s a terrible terrible disease, and continued research is needed.

But to somehow compare the response Obama (and Hillary, the Secretary of State, who has literally no role in public health) to news that HIV has long term health effects to the initial public terror surrounding AIDS is absurd.

Do not forget that when aids surfaced in the early 80s, the fear was not that you’d be at increased risk of heart disease. It was a 100% fatal infection that could be spread to partners and killed people in a very gruesome way. Let’s not mince words, it was a death sentence.

Today HIV is a chronic disease. A terrible chronic disease, no doubt, but not an immediate public heath disaster. AIDS in the 80s was a disaster of the 1st order. And an initially anemic response to the disease when it was only seen in gay men was replaced fairly quickly with public terror when we realized anyone could get it.

As for criticism of prEP, a few small studies out of Australia do not negate the fact that thousands of people who may have gotten HIV in the past can now be safe. Condom use falling is an issue, but no other major STD is potentially fatal and incurable like AIDS. Let people get syphillis and herpes. I’ll be standing by with penicillin and ganciclovir, thanking god they’re not rolling in with a CD4 count in the teens and a chest full of fungus.

 

[Med Ed]

I'll just leave this here...

A disturbing new glimpse at the Reagan administration's indifference to AIDS

 

[wholeheartedly]

This is better suited to the topics in health forum. Moving.