AIDS isn’t a disease people have known about since the 1800s. In fact, it wasn’t even known as AIDS until a couple years after its discovery in the 1980s. Before, it was called Gay Related Immunodeficiency Disease, or GRID (“Natural History of HIV/AIDS”). And because of the fact it wasn’t discovered until the 1980s, people feared the disease and still do to this day. It’s been thirty years and many are still not properly educated about AIDS (Hawkins 16). The fear, stigmatization, and discrimination of people with AIDS and the disease in general have many underlying factors. People have feared and still fear AIDS today because of their misunderstanding of how AIDS is spread, their dislike of homosexuality, and their preexisting prejudices against many of the groups affected by AIDS.
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
drops of urine on a toilet seat (Rimer). Some of the public believed the virus “was spread through the air, in food of by casual contact at home, at work or in school” (Rimer). The misunderstanding and not knowing how AIDS was being spre...
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Parker, Richard, Peter Aggleton, Kathy Attawell, Julie Pulerwitz, and Lisanne Brown. "HIV/AIDS-related Stigma and Discrimination:A Conceptual Framework and an Agenda for Action." USAID.GOV. Horizons Program. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. .
Parmet, Wendy E. "Stigma, Hysteria, and HIV." Hastings Center Report 38.5 (2008): 57. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Oct. 2011. .
Rimer, Sara. "FEAR OF AIDS GROWS AMONG HETEROSEXUALS - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. The New York Times Company, 30 Aug. 1985. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. .
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:
...cused of being patient zero and the one who purposely and knowingly infected as many as 250 men a year on both sides of the Atlantic was nothing but one of the many wrong hypotheses made in this process of finding the origin of the HIV/AIDS virus. The fact that he had single handedly started the epidemic, today is largely discredited by most scientists. With time computer models estimated that the first human infection occurred around 1930, give or take 20 years. The earliest known infection of an identified human dates back to 1959 which was found in a plasma sample taken from an adult male living in the Belgian Congo. Many assumptions and hypotheses were made and a human eating a chimp seems to be the likeliest form the infection occurred.
2) Moore, J. (2004). The puzzling origins of AIDS: Although no one explanation has been universally accepted, four rival theories provide some important lesson. American Scientist, 92(6), 540-547. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/stable/27858482
McNeil suggests, there are still epidemics out there which have not developed human to human status yet. For example, AIDS is identified in 1981, which is after the publication of Plagues and Peoples. Because of AIDS relevancy to this book, McNeil writes a Preface in 1997 including his thoughts on the epidemic. Humans only thought that scientific medicine "had finally won decisive victory over disease germs" (9). With the discovery of the AIDS virus a social change occurred in American and similar societies.
Davey, Graham. "Mental Health & Stigma." . Psychology Today, 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 20 Apr.
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.”
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 ...
Spink, Gemma. "AIDS." AVERTing HIV and AIDS. 23 Dec 2009. Web. 11 Jan 2010. .
Claire Henderson, Sara Evans-Lacko, Clare Flach, Graham, Thornicrofi. "Responses to Mental Health Stigma Questions: "The Importance of Social Desirability and Data Collection Method." Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Mar 2012. Vol 57, No3. Nursing/Academic Edition. Web. 01 Apr 2014.
In the movie And the Band Played On, stakeholders’ interests stymied public health efforts to research and implement health policy to control the rapidly emerging disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The stakeholders within the movie, those whose interest would be impacted by policy change, included the affected populations, scientists, state and federal public health officials, and organizations including blood banks. Early in the epidemic, the Center for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were tentative in disclosing vital information – many homosexual men were becoming infected in the bathhouses (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). Despite having the supporting evidence of patient zero and a sexual cluster
Introduction Labeling and stigmatization, no matter if it is due to illness or difference in race, social status, occupation, etc., is a huge and complex problem and common in history which causes many conflicts and even wars in the world. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), not only applied to the labeling theory, it suffered the most. People find AIDS more severe than other infectious diseases. Stigmatization induces discrimination, which is more painful and stressful than physical discomfort of the illness itself. People infected with AIDS cannot gain sympathy but criticism instead.
Thorpe, David (2004). The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine: The Advocate Spotlighting AIDS p.4. Online at: , consulted on March 29, 2004
Gould, Stephen Jay. “The Terrifying Normalcy of AIDS.” The McGraw-Hill Reader. 8th ed. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 594-597
Stigma is a powerful tool of social control. Stigma can be used to marginalize, exclude and exercise power over individuals who show certain characteristics. While the societal rejection of certain social groups (e.g. 'homosexuals, injecting drug users, sex workers') may predate HIV/AIDS, the disease has, in many cases, reinforced this stigma. By blaming certain individuals or groups, society can excuse itself from the responsibility of caring for and looking after such populations. This is seen not only in the manner in which 'outsider' groups are often blamed for bringing HIV into a country, but also in how such groups are denied access to the services and treatment they need.