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.
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
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) targets the immune system and weakens people 's defense systems against infections and some types of cancer. As the virus destroys and impairs the function of immune cells, infected individuals gradually become immunodeficient. Immune function is typically measured by CD4 cell count. Immunodeficiency results in increased susceptibility to a wide range of infections and diseases that people with healthy immune systems can fight off. The most advanced stage of HIV infection is Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), which can take from 2 to 15 years to develop depending on the individual. AIDS is defined by the development of certain cancers, infections, or other severe clinical manifestations.
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.
Children with AIDS were prevented from going to school; infected adults lost their jobs, their families, and were shunned by a fearful society. Available testing for AIDS was underutilized by the gay population for fear of further social consequences. The government was finally forced to take action through media channels to manage the global threat to all people that AIDS not presented. Out of necessity to manage the virus and provide reassurance to those infected the government implemented privacy laws that protected the individuals who tested positive for the AIDS.
There are four letters, that when put together can spell out a lifetime of agony, despair, prejudice and constant indignation; AIDS. Over the years the disease has been called GRID, Gay Cancer and finally came the name that is commonly accepted today, AIDS. Multiple theories are present as to the origin of this deadly virus, all of them are unique but no matter what the origin or name, AIDS is a terrible epidemic that needs to come to an end. People have suffered long enough, and too many people have been discriminated against something that’s not entirely their fault. The medicine for AIDS only prolongs the inevitable, and suffering of the poor people cursed with the disease. AIDS as of now is a death sentence and it currently has no cure; it targets people of every race, age, and gender from all walks of life but despite AIDS only being been around for less than a century, it has managed to leave an immense impact on American history, individuals, society and culture.
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a slow moving retrovirus that eventually causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome commonly called AIDS. This combo disease known as HIV/AIDS is labeled as a pandemic and has caused controversy throughout the whole world. The disease begins when a person infected passes on the HIV virus through sexual secretions, blood transfusions, and using dirty needles. The virus enters through vaginal or anal openings and through open cuts, once the virus enters a person’s blood stream they are infected with HIV however they may not necessarily have AIDS (WEBMD). Symptoms of HIV include lethargy or sleepiness, weight loss, and flu like symptoms after a while AIDS eventually develops and is the finally or most advanced stage of the disease the symptoms are the same as HIV and also includes vision loss, weight loss, memory loss, and eventually organ failure (AIDS.gov) The first reports of AIDS came from young gay men in New York and San Francisco.
AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is a disease in which the body's immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off certain infections. When a person is infected with HIV, the virus enters the body and lives and multiplies primarily in the white blood cells. These are the immune cells that normally protect us from disease.
Nine years. It took nearly a decade, and more than two hundred thousand Americans’ deaths until a brave soul spoke up to encourage people to speak up about AIDS. “A Whisper of AIDS” was written to encourage people to “lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS” (Fisher). The effectiveness of this speech lies in its addressing of a problem that has affected many people not only in the 1980s, more than thirty years ago, but has continued to even in the 21st century, and through its use of many rhetorical devices it makes for a convincing and heart wrenching speech.
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus which is a virus that attacks the human immune system. Once the body is unable to continue fighting the infection, the disease is more severe and known as AIDS. It usually takes more than 10 years to progress from the HIV virus to AIDS which is a deadly disease that has killed over than 25 million people around the world. HIV can be transmitted between people many different ways. Any kind of unprotected sexual intercourse is a very common way for HIV to be passed on. As well sharing needles, unsterilized tools for tattoos or piercings and exposure in health care settings. HIV can even be passed on to an infant during birth by their infected mother.
Rwanda, Salem, and Mccarthyism were witch hunts because people were falsely accused of crime, and people were discriminated or killed because of their ethnic values. Over 200 people were falsely accused of witchcraft in Salem. Communists were discriminated because of the fear of hysteria in America. Hutus and Tutsi were killed because of their ethnics, culture or appearance. Witch hunts leads to nothing, but chaos and
Many people that are infected with HIV do not know. HIV symptoms don't show up until ten years. HIV is a sexual transmitted disease which attacks the lymphocytes of the immune system. Lymphocytes help defend the body from infections. As the HIV attacks the lymphocytes, the immune system will decrease in strength. When people have a weaker immune system, they will eventually get more infections that can be more harmful and deadly. There is no ultimate cure for HIV, but medicines, provided by doctors, can slow down the process. HIV later becomes AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
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
Western Middle School in Russiaville was faced with a tough predicament in which divided an entire country. Concerned parents, as well as the school’s faculty, who were afraid that this child might infect their children with the “gay man’s disease” rallied together in order to put enough pressure for the principal to do this, resulting in his expulsion and unnecessary ban from the school. Keep in mind that in the 1980s, people did not fully perceived the syndrome very well due to the people’s fear and ignorance of the disease. People’s ignorance became more than prevalent through this when the community as a whole started to agree that this poor child who was born with a disease that needed blood transfusions in order to carry on with his life, actually deserved this. People’s discrimination towards this child took an extreme turn when people out of nowhere appeared screaming that he is getting punished for things he did not do, and even people holding signs that read “Students Against AIDS” were present at the entrance of the school in the form of an angry mob. Not only were this, but threats that held not even death thrown at him too. Even after the school became informed by one of the best doctors at the time, Dr. Woodrow Meyers, that he was eligible to go to school even with this illness and bared absolutely no risk to other individuals at the school he still was ruled out of attending the Western Middle School by the school’s own board. White was eventually readmitted into the school resulting in families pulling their kids out of the school. Feeling desperately unhappy because of his inability to make friends, his family moved from Kokomo to Cicero, Indiana where he was finally greeted like a decent human being because of the education about
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.