The CDC published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on June 5, 1981 describing cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), accompanied by other unusual infections, in five young, previously healthy, gay men in Los Angeles. By the time the report was published, two of the men had died. This marked the first official reporting of what is now known as the AIDS epidemic. It wasn’t until September 24, 1982, however, when the CDC used the term AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) for the first time. The San Francisco Chronicle covered the story the very next day; just days later, Doctors around the nation swarmed the CDC with reports of similar cases. It wasn’t until November of 1985, after the epidemic had claimed …show more content…
Eventually he falls ill and seeks medical attention. The paramedics refuse to carry him to the hospital because of who he was and what he had. After the death of a friend the protagonist met in the hospital who also had AIDS, a nurse is shown throwing his possessions into a garbage bag out of fear of contamination by such items. This movie accurately depicts the both rational and irrational fear of contracting HIV/AIDS that many had around the time of the epidemic as well as the views many health care providers have now, often ignoring their duties as such; as a result, health care providers were and still are often refusing service or hesitant toward patients with …show more content…
Same-sex marriage is now legal, spouses now have rights to pension benefits, continued insurance coverage, immigration laws are applied, as well as the right to tax filing status. Most people are allowing themselves to be more educated when it comes to homosexuality. Nurses who are more empathetic and compassionate tend to be those who work among PLWHA, or people living with HIV and AIDS, and are associated with lower feelings of psychological distress. There are also several studies that depict the more negative attitudes of health care providers towards patients with HIV/AIDS for reasons such a general fear of working with the terminally ill, perceptions of personal risk, being professionally adjudicated upon, fear of contracting the disease, and the unwillingness to work with patient populations including but not limited to homosexuals and intravenous drug users. These findings are consistent with Allport’s social psychology theory of intergroup contact (SOURCE), a theory that describes a weakened prejudice caused by increased contact with “an out-group” leading to a more positive attitude toward that group. In regards to nurses, it was found that the perception of stigma related to HIV influences their job satisfaction significantly. Research has also shown that
In the early 1980’s, reports were appearing in California and New York of a small number of men who appeared to have rare forms of cancer and pneumonia (Blumberg). The men were young and in very good health (Blumberg). These men were alike because they were homosexual (Blumberg). They had a disease known as AIDS, which is caused by HIV (Blumberg). The virus slowly attacks the immune system which makes the human body more prone to infections (Blumberg). They did not know what the disease was for a while (Blumberg). It was believed to be “gay-related” because homosexuals were many of the first reported cases (Blumberg). That belief was abolished when scientist found out that heterosexuals could be infected too (Blumberg).
Carl Zimmer the guest speaker of this broadcast states that in 1981 doctors described for the first time a new disease, a new syndrome which affected mostly homosexual men. The young men in Los Angeles were dying and the number of cases was growing faster and faster. The number of deaths was increasing from eighty to six hundred and twenty five in just the first few months. After the first few cases in LA, AIDS was declared to be one of the deadliest pandemics the world had ever seen after the plague in the Middle Ages.
...ysterious illness affecting a few gay men in 1981, becoming the epidemic that would forever change the way in which we all live?
The gay community was given no mercy in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. There was very little access to care, hence the reason blood work and some research was done out of a motel room. The CDC had no access to funding which made it hard for studies and research to be done without the right equipment.
The Seven Five is a documentary that frivolously reexamines the crimes of Officer Michael Dowd and his team of dirty cops. Dowd is a former New York police officer who was stationed in the 75th Precinct in Eastern New York. The film presents the nefarious deeds of these officers via original interviews with Dowd and his former comrades as they recount their crimes and explain the reasoning behind their unethical behaviors. While working as a cop, he embellished his income through criminal exploits which include stealing guns, drugs, money, and eventually he began working in drug rings selling cocaine. Dowd’s felonious activities were extremely lucrative and earned him approximately $4,000 a week. Dowd was eventually arrested in 1992,
HIV has many psychological aspects which can impact on the way a patient behaves. Stigma and non-adherence are just two aspects associated with the disease. Many individuals have negative attitudes towards people with HIV and this can result in HIV patients suffering from discrimination. Bad quality healthcare and patients being fearful of seeking treatment are just two of the outcomes of stigma (Mandal, 2013). It has been known for healthcare professionals to withhold treatment, breach confidentiality and isolate HIV patients when not necessary (Engenderhealth, 2004a). Homosexual men have always been at the forefront of HIV stigma and in 1985 Dougal et al conducted a study about homophobia on 128 nurses and physicians. The results showed that ten per cent felt that homosexual men were responsibl...
The medical community had much trouble in the progress of researching the disease. In the beginning and for a period of time, the disease had no name. This was partly because no one really wanted to announce that a new disease had been discovered. After being dubbed “GRID”, an acronym singling out gays, it was changed when it was finally discovered that AIDS could be transmitted though blood transfusions and IV drug use. There was also an amazing display of medical misconduct as the head of one laboratory in the US engaged in a competition-like struggle with a lab in Paris in the research of the disease. When he finally agreed to collaborate with the French, he announced discoveries ahead of time and took all the credit for himself. This led to a long legal action that delayed much of the research of AIDS and caused many people to “die of red tape.”
(Allen et al., 2000) The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a clinical situation that requires the ethical principle Justice to be implemented. AIDS can be transmitted by sexual activity, intravenous (IV) drug use, and passed from mother to child. Due to the judgments and fears from the general population and some healthcare professionals, patients who have this disease may find themselves suffering from discrimination in many ways of their lives. This discrimination comes from the stigma placed by the factors in which AIDS is mainly spread. These factors are poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, prostitution, human-trafficking, which create the labels like the “drug user” or “homosexual”.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). These two conditions have caused so much heartache and pain since the 1980s. One of the first signs of AIDS in America was in 1981, and was found in a homosexual man that was inflicted with Pneumocystis pneumonia, a fungal pneumonia. Upon inspection, the doctor observed that the man did not have any helper cells; cells that would help the ailed young man fight the infection. Following this several other young homosexual men were admitted to hospitals with the same problem. The following year hemophiliacs were observed to have been inflicted with the same problem and this disease was finally given a name, AIDS. The year 1983 brought about the identification of the virus, HIV. Even to this day many AIDS is still a problem that continues to affect many people.
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.
Few modern health issues have received as much media interest and controversy as the AIDS virus. The AIDS virus was first named in 1981 to explain a collection of diseases that developed as a result of a compromised immune system. Individuals who were young and apparently healthy were showing signs of conditions that were typical of those with a severely depressed immune response. It was also noted, at the time, these conditions were limited to the gay community. As the disease became more prevalent, individuals, groups, and communities responded in fear and hatred toward the population they believed to be responsible for this epidemic, the gay community. Because the issue of gay rights was politically controversial and our president’s platform was essentially anti-gay, AIDS was ignored by the administration. The political and media response in the early days of the AIDS virus was essentially nonexistent. Prejudice by the American people prompted politicians, who were concerned for their reputations, to step back. The media, also influenced by a political agenda, kept their coverage benign and low key. The impact of this slow media response to the AIDS epidemic would have disastrous consequences.
In the year 1981, the condition known as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), had a considerable impact on the health of many Americans. It was until the actual discovery of the syndrome in the early 80s that doctors suddenly gained noticed of a new form of cancer, the likes of which they’ve never encountered before, and since the syndrome’s first public outing in the United States on the summer of 1981, the number of reported cases and human casualties greatly increased due to doctors’ and health officials’ inability to understand what was actually killing them. The rise of this illness became prevalent in the 1980s because even when though it was originally thought that the disease only affected homosexual men who encountered in anal
It is very reasonable to conclude that research on depression of those who identify as gay, lesbian or transsexual is not accurate; there is an underreporting of people who identify as these sexual orientations because of the fear of being different. It is understood that those apart of the LGBTQ community actively hide their identity in hopes to avoid being rejected or abused (Bird, 2013). Once the reporting issue of having a smaller percentage of the actual representation of the LGBTQ population is put aside, there is evidence that highly suggests that lesbians and gay men are at higher risk for psychiatric disorders than heterosexuals (Cochran, 2001). Even after underreporting, there is still enough information to conclude that sexual discrimination can have harmful effects on the quality of life. Common factors that have been observed in lesbians and gays that can potentially increase depression during Cochran's study are anxiety and mood disorders and decreased self esteem. Cochran and her partner also noted that dissatisfaction with how one is treated beca...
In the early 1980s, AIDS was first discovered, but the doctors and scientists at the time did not know how it was being spread. Multiple cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and Kaposi’s syndrome were being diagnosed in gay men who were immunodeficient, meaning they couldn’t fight off a simple infection. The disease then quickly spread to drug users and hemophiliacs (“Natural History of HIV/AIDS”). Many possible causes were considered, but none of them were correct. The sexually transmitted disease HIV was soon discovered to be the cause of AIDS, but even then, people were mistaken by how AIDS was truly spread. A doctor at Elmhurst General Hospital in New York City in 1985 believed AIDS could be spread by a few
In 1981, a new fatal, infectious disease was diagnosed--AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome). It began in major cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. People, mostly homosexual men and intravenous drug users, were dying from very rare lung infections or from a cancer known as Kaposi’s sarcoma. They have not seen people getting these diseases in numerous years. Soon, it also affected hemophiliacs, blood recipients, prostitutes and their customers, and babies born from AIDS-infected women. AIDS was soon recognized as a worldwide health emergency, and as a fatal disease with no known cure, that quickly became an epidemic. When high-profile victims began to contract the virus, such as basketball star Magic Johnson, the feeling spread quickly that anyone, not just particular groups of people, could be at risk. AIDS impairs the human body’s immune system and leaves the victim susceptible to various infections. With new research, scientists think that the disease was first contracted through a certain type of green monkey in Africa, then somehow mutated into a virus that a human could get. AIDS is a complicated illness that may involve several phases. It is caused by a virus that can be passed from person to person. This virus is called HIV, or Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. In order for HIV to become full-blown AIDS, your T-cell count (number of a special type of white-blood cells that fight off diseases) has to drop below 200, or you have to get one of the symptoms of an AIDS-induced infection.