I was there in the 80’s. It came out [aids]. It was talked about. It was diagnosed and means of transmission accurately described. Nobody was trying to hide anything except for the homosexual connection.
When the disease was first noticed it was called GRIDS (Gay Related Immunodeficient Disease). Because it was almost completely restricted to the homosexual community.
The name was quickly changed. Because it was too accurate.
Me too. Lost a classmate to AIDS that finally took him in the early nineties after he had moved away. As long as I live, I’ll never forget how that 30 yo man in the casket could look like a 110yo that had been dead for 10 years.
What’s scary, is that he was a surgical nurse during the late 80s
In 1983, the CDC first warned blood banks of a possible problem with the blood supply. The virus was spreading and patient #1 was not identified until a year later.
In 1984, US scientists discover the virus that causes AIDS; however, this is about a year after the French discovery. President Reagan introduces the topic shortly after.
I was aware in 1982 that there was something going around the gay community, but it was largely rumor and just not reliable. I was working with at-risk kids and in athletics, so we were cautious about anything that may have been transmitted through fluids. Numbers were (and still are) very hard to pin down, but the French started to look harder at it in 1983.
Given the reluctance to report it and the inability to track down solid information, RR acted responsibly. The gay crowd hated on him because he was not talking about it in public. He did not want to start a panic and possibly even more civil problems than they already saw heading for them. He openly addressed it in 1985, when he felt we were better prepared for it. It had NOTHING to do with gays. It was a health issue that had enormous and terrifying consequences attached.
This is typical liberal right-bashing. What better time to drag it out than on this day? They have no shame.
True. We all heard who was getting the disease, and; it was not anyone who I or any of us straight types knew. I seem to recall it started in Africa or so?