Henry B.
Mr. Arnold
Global Studies
April 30, 2014
The Response to HIV/AIDS
AIDS, Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, has had a substantial impact on the health of many nations. Since the first AIDS cases were reported in 1981, 75 million people have contracted HIV and 36 million have died of AIDS-related causes (Global AIDS Overview).The human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes AIDS, a condition in humans in which the immune system fails allowing life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers. In the 1980s and early 1990s, AIDS was a virtual death sentence, and people were terrified of contracting it. Without a known cause or treatments, the number of cases and deaths among persons with HIV/AIDS increased rapidly. HIV/AIDS mainly infected gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with other men, with only six countries not reporting a prevalence of HIV/AIDS in MSM (Beyrer, Chris, MD MPH). In the early years of the epidemic, since the people who were mostly infected were gays, bisexuals, and men who have sex with other men (MSM), the response to HIV/AIDS was delayed in America and worldwide.
The stigma associated with HIV was crushing because the people society depended on during an epidemic such as doctors and hospitals refused to provide services to HIV and AIDS positive people. The virus brought the ugliness of homophobia to light, and that homophobia even permeated into the medical research. Some researchers would not work on the disease because of its connotations, and others found themselves defending their work because people viewed HIV/AIDS as a lifestyle choice.
In 1981, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia was reported in 5 gay men in Los Angeles (The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program), later this would become kn...
... middle of paper ...
... past, people can still learn from the epidemic. From studying the HIV/AIDS epidemic people learn that ignorance and fear can drive the response to the disease. People can also learn that while the LGBT community is predominantly affected by AIDS, everyone can work to keep HIV/AIDS at bay. After learning that while a response to HIV/AIDS came eventually, it was delayed because of the groups it affected, one must think about the lives of the people in and out of the LGBT community that could have been saved. What would have happened if the president mentioned the word ‘AIDS’ before 1986? If governments around the world funded AIDS research sooner and more aggressively would less people have died a gruesome, horrific death? It is important to study the AIDS epidemic because if people don’t know what happened, people will repeat the mistakes of the generations before.
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).
Even after the disease and its modes of transmission had been correctly identified, fear and ignorance remained widespread. In the mid 1980s, “AIDS hysteria” became a well known term in the media and public life. For example, a magazine published details about how extensive AIDS/HIV related discrimination became. “Anxiety over AIDS in some parts of the U.S. is verging on hysteria,” the authors wrote; they later published this disturbing example:
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.
One important scene in the film ‘The Age of Aids’ is “Port Au Prince, Haiti”. In this scene it outlines the conditions in Haiti, which were very poor and it turn left the city defenseless against the new disease. In 70’s and 80’s the disease began to be seen by doctors and priests who were being sought after to cure a unseen disease which left the people with the “look of death, [making them] so skinny you could see their bones”. The scene then goes on to take a look at one of the first HIV clinics in Port Au Prince, which was opened in the roughest parts of town. One of the surprising things that this clinic found when they were looking at the patients coming in was that the mean they were analyzing had more contact with women then they had with men. This was extremely interesting because this was completely different from what the pattern of the disease had been in the US. The doctors believed this was because homosexual males had been coming into Haiti as tourists and where having sex with locals, who in comparison didn’t call themselves homosexuals because even though they had been having sex with men, the number of women they were having sex with greatly outnumbered the men. This was extremely important because it allowed people to open their eyes, and realize that this was not a homosexual disease, that anyone could get the disease. And that’s exactly what happened within the Haitian community. Within three years the disease had spread across the entire island effects all aspects of society. This scene was effective because it is able to change a viewer with little knowledge of the disease to understand how doctors were able to come to the conclusion that the disease was not in fact a homosexual ...
The AIDS epidemic did not have to happen. It was caused by the negligence from doctors that did not think the matter was a concern. It started out when one patient had the disease, and the doctors concluded that it was a mutated version of a disease. But it turned out that that was the first patient to suffer the HIV virus. If this situation was taken as an important matter, they could have taken that patient to a special institute so that the patient would not be capable of transmitting the disease. For the other patients who also contracted the virus, they could have also taken them to a special institute. Even when the government knew that there was a serious disease that was going to spread, they did not do anything about it. The reason for this is because they needed scientific evidence that the virus was...
HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a virus that eventually develops into AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) which is a deadly disease that was ravaging and still is ravaging the world at this time. Johnson, taking this into consideration, decided to educate the youth about this problem, “’ I want to educate the public…We have to make people aware of [HIV]” (Johnson 297). Johnson knew that the heart of this problem lie in the uneducated youth, so he thought the first step in the right direction would be to inform them about the situation. After his individual efforts to promote awareness for this cause, he was invited by the president to join the National Commission on AIDS. This was the next big step in spreading education throughout the country.
Randy Shilts set out to make monumental changes in the world’s perspective of AIDS. He planned to enlighten, motivate, and educate the population on this tragic disease that has already claimed so many lives. He believed that virtually all the misconceptions about AIDS would be corrected and the public would insist that more be done to stop the epidemic. "I had hoped to effect some fundamental changes. I really believed I could alter the performance of the institutions that had allowed AIDS to sweep through America unchecked" (220). Shilts’s immense expectations positioned him for his inevitable sense of failure. He did not accomplished all that he had planned. AIDS was still spreading and people were still dying. "The bitter irony is, my role as an AIDS celebrity just gives me a more elevated promontory from which to watch the world make the same mistakes in the handling of the AIDS epidemic that I hoped my work would help to change"(220).
The Movie “And the Band Played On” is the framework of the earliest years of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Also known as the Gay disease. The movie examines HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States in the earlier 1980’s and emphasizes on three crucial components. An immunologist with knowledge in eradicating smallpox and containing the Ebola virus, joins the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to attempt and recognize just what this disease is. The film also deals the administration and government side that does not seem to care. The homosexual community in San Francisco is separated on the nature of the disease but also want to know what should be done
As a result of the discovery of AIDS, the gay community suffered greatly at the hands of social alienation. “AIDS” was not called “AIDS” until the CDC changed the different name that singled out the gay community as the only ones that could acquire the disease. After some major controversy the gay bathhouses were closed down, because it was believed that the AIDS virus was spreading greatly in these places. The gay community also suffered major emotional trauma as very little was known of the disease and little could be done about it. ___
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a new disease in 1981 when increasing numbers of young homosexual men succumbed to unusual opportunistic infections and rare malignancies (Gallant49).During this time, many people were contacting this disease because it was not discovered yet and people did not have knowledge about it.Scientists believe HIV came from a particular kind of chimpanzee in Western Africa. Humans contracted this disease when they hunted and ate infected animals. A first clue came in 1986 when a morphologically similar but antigenically distinct virus was found to cause AIDS in patients in western Africa (Goosby24). During this time, scientists had more evidence to support their claim about this disease. Once discovered this disease was identified as a cause of what has since become one of the most devastating infectious diseases to have emerged in recent history (Goosby101). This disease was deadly because it was similar to the Black Death, it was killing majority of the population. Since its first identification almost three decades ago, the pandemic form of HIV-1 has infected at least 60 million people and caused more than 25 million deaths ...
"Demanding that life near AIDS is an inextricably other reality denies our ability to recreate a sustaining culture and social structures, even as we are daily required to devote such time to the details of the AIDS crisis." -Cindy Patton
In the movie “And the Band Played On”, illustrated the origin of the AIDS virus, how it was spread across the world quickly. It began with a scene in 1976, Central Africa, shows how the Ebola disease affected a village and was contained before it was spread. This was to show the beginning of another serious disease called AIDS. The world was not prepared to handle such a contagious plague. Doctors treating people with this virus thought that the first cases of the HIV virus was just an abnormality disease. The disease started to spread all over, especially gay men. Throughout the movie, I was able to see different points, such as the beginning of AIDS, the misconceptions it had, and the anguish it brought to the doctors as well as people around the world.
The AIDS virus is the most common disease, and with no cure, an infected person will die. It is estimated that 90 to 95 percent of AIDS infections occur in developing countries where the world’s worst living conditions exist.
In many societies people living with HIV and AIDS are often seen as shameful. In some societies the infection is associated with minority groups or behaviours, for example, homosexuality, In some cases HIV/AIDS may be linked to 'perversion' and those infected will be punished. Also, in some societies HIV/AIDS is seen as the result of personal irresponsibility. Sometimes, HIV and AIDS are believed to bring shame upon the family or community. And whilst negative responses to HIV/AIDS unfortunately widely exist, they often feed upon and reinforce dominant ideas of good and bad with respect to sex and illness, and proper and improper behaviours.
The emergence of HIV/AIDS is viewed globally as one of the most serious health and developmental challenges our society faces today. Being a lentivirus, HIV slowly replicates over time, attacking and wearing down the human immune system subsequently leading to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) at which point the affected individual is exposed to life threatening illnesses and eventual death. Despite the fact that a few instances of this disease have been accounted for in all parts of the world, a high rate of the aforementioned living with HIV are situated in either low or medium wage procuring nations. The Sub-Saharan region Africa is recognized as the geographic region most afflicted by the pandemic. In previous years, people living with HIV or at risk of getting infected did not have enough access to prevention, care and treatment neither were they properly sensitized about the disease. These days, awareness and accessibility to all the mentioned (preventive methods, care etc.) has risen dramatically due to several global responses to the epidemic. An estimated half of newly infected people are among those under age 25(The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic). It hits hard as it has no visible symptoms and can go a long time without being diagnosed until one is tested or before it is too late to manage.