In 1991, the world learned that one of the most iconic players in the history of basketball had tested positive for HIV (Johnson). Earvin “Magic” Johnson stood with his wife by his side and announced to the world that he had contracted this disease as a result of having unprotected sex. Johnson stated that he contracted disease from having unprotected sex and because of this, he now has to live with a disease that has changed his entire life (Johnson). During this time, many people were uneducated about the disease and some were afraid to be in contact with anyone carrying the virus. Even a few of his fellow players protested against him playing, because they were afraid they would contract it.
Many people thought that the disease only existed in people who lived a homosexual lifestyle; however many people can contract the disease by sharing needles for habitual drug use or receiving blood transfusions. Twenty-two years later, this disease has taken the world by storm. HIV/AIDS is steadily rising in the United States population because people are having unprotected sex, sharing needles, and are not getting tested.
AIDS, which stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is the final stage of HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus. In HIV the virus attacks CD4 positive T cells (“HIV Infection”). These T cells are very important to maintaining the function of the immune system and when attacked the person is less capable of fighting off diseases. Then it turns into AIDS because the person’s immune system is officially weakened (“HIV Infection”).
Max Essex discovered that HIV/AIDS originated in monkeys from Africa (Weeks & Alcamo 14). “Essex’s research resulted in recovery of a virus called the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) ...
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...acting HIV/AIDS.
Works Cited
Donatelle, Rebecca J. Health: The Basics. 10th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013.
Donovan, Mark C. Taking Aim: Target Populations and the Wars on AIDS and Drugs. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001.
“HIV Infection in Minority Populations.” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 10 Sept 2008. Web. 4 Oct 2013.
Johnson, Earvin. “20 Years after HIV Announcement, Magic Johnson Emphasizes: “I Am Not Cured.” Sarah Moughty. Frontline 7 Nov. 2011.
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Robles, Aymarah M., and Gene Stringer Jr. “HIV-AIDS in Minorities.” The Clinics in Chest Medicine 27. 3 (2006): 511-19.
Rosenberg, Tina. “The Needle Nexus.” The New York Times 17 Nov. 2009: MM20.
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Weeks, Benjamin S. and I. Edward Alcamo. AIDS: The Biological Basis. 4th ed. Sudbury; Jones and Bartlett PI, 2006.
In a year were so many great athletes are no longer with us, Payne Stewart, Wilt Chamberlain, Joe DiMaggio, Walter Payton, the man we thought would have passed away first is still among us, Magic Johnson. Rick Reilly does a remarkable job on this praising article on Magic. Reilly talks about how fit magic is. "He can bench 325 pounds. Weighing 245, he's about 20 pounds heavier than he was in his prime, but now he's ripped." He is still playing basketball in different celebrity appearances, and plays quite well in them although he is way older than everyone there. What really impressed me the most about Magic is influence as a black businessman. Reilly showed me, as well as America, a different side of Magic that is not seen on Sports Center. "He owns five Starbucks and has plans to open 10 more, nearly all of them in black neighborhoods, including one in Crenshaw and one in Harlem." Magic is willing to put money into the ghettos when other white investors are not. He owns many different businesses, from a TV company to a bank. What is truly amazing is he hires all black people to build and work his businesses. "Magic feels like many black athletes forget where they came from, I try not to." When I read this I was really stunned. He made a fortune taking risks that many other people won't try. He is living his life to the fullest and using his HIV experience to educate great number of people.
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
that transmitted the HIV virus to humans through bites (Forsyth). As people migrated it reached Haiti and then spread to America (Clark p. 65).
The 1980’s in America were a very iconic time period for the country. Music, films, and history were created that will never be forgotten. But during the 1980’s the AIDS epidemic became a very serious matter. According to Macionis, AIDS, first identified in 1981, is an incurable, deadly disease transmitted through bodily fluids including blood, semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk. The Dallas Buyers Club portrays what happened during the AIDS epidemic, and the social issues that people were faced with. Sexuality and AIDS were seen as directly linked, drug abuse and AIDS were also linked, and AIDS patients experienced difficulties with healthcare facilities.
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.
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).
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 ...
HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic that threatens lives all over the world. It is important to understand exactly what this disease is and how it affects societies globally. Although HIV, in severe cases, leads to AIDS, there is a distinct difference when defining both terms.
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
time as well as forward. They determined that the first cases of AIDS in the
“Basic Facts about HIV/AIDS.” The Foundation for AIDS Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2012. .
Magic Johnson once stated, “You can’t get AIDS from a hug or a handshake or a meal with a friend.” AIDS and HIV is not something you can receive by touching someone’s outer skin. AIDS and HIV can only be transmitted when an infected persons; fluids meets with another person. AIDS and HIV is one of the most deadliest disease in the world that already has killed 1.6 million civilians. People need to understand the facts behind AIDS and HIV so people do not treat others who are infected like they are going to kill them. Everyone has possibility of contracting AIDS and HIV; it can change one’s world in a heart beat.
It is a virus AIDS is a fatal disease which renders the body helpless against other diseases. Patients lose the ability to defend themselves against viri. and die from infections.