Political And Social Response To The AIDS Crisis

Alexa Westlake- Period 4

Due Date: 28th of April

Social History AP Exam Review Project

Essay Brief: Analyze the political and social response to the AIDS crisis

In 1981 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report first rare cases of what is seemingly pneumonia in young gay men. These cases were then grouped together and the disease known as AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) takes its root in American Society. This disease spread quickly and the events following are responses to the spread of the disease in America known as the AIDS Crisis, where the response of both the people and the government would impact and change society and American culture and lead to emergence of a gay identity, persecution and fear of those with the disease, marketing of safe sex, and the deterioration of class barriers.

Most of the first people infected, like Robert Rayford a 16 year old Missourian, died very quickly and baffled doctors. When the news of the disease spread, so did the stigma that came with it: AIDS was known as a homosexual disease because the first cases were discovered in the smaller pool of partners. At first, people were extremely misinformed and there was widespread persecution of the gays and the gay community, known as homophobia. The disease was known as GRID, or gay related immune deficiency, in its early stages. But through the AIDS crisis, the gay community developed an identity that was not present before this time. They would respond with Gay activist groups such as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, National Association of People with AIDS, Project Inform, American Foundation for AIDS Research and would get involved at a government level to push for more research money and access to more drugs for the ...

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...ment for the sick. This received criticism but was nevertheless renewed and became a helpful resource for the sick. Even through all of the new programs that worked to stop the spread of AIDS and inform community and the sick, AIDS hit its 100,000 person dead in 1991. AIDS still surged up to the #1 leading death cause of men ages 25-44 in 1992 and then the #1 death cause of every all Americans ages 25-44 in 1995. The AIDS response also had conservative backlash because of the fact that sex and sexuality were more talked about, especially from Senator Jesse Helms (mostly blocking funding and stopping high school education), but criticism did not slow its efforts. The real AIDS solution was the discovery of new drugs in 1996. While the cost of these drugs was very expensive and out of reach for some, it led to the decline in AIDS death by 40% in 1997 compared to 1996.