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History In the
early 1980s, doctors in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco began
seeing young men with Kaposi's Sarcoma, a cancer usually associated with
elderly men of Mediterranean ethnicity.
Eventually these men died. These
men were gay, or at least had male-male sex. As the
realization that men who had male-male sex were dying of an otherwise rare
cancer began to spread throughout the medical communities, the syndrome
began to be called by the colloquialism "gay cancer". As
medical scientists discovered that the syndrome included other
manifestations, such as pneumocystis pneumonia, (PCP), a rare form of fungal
pneumonia, its name was changed to "GRID", or Gay Related Immune Deficiency. This
had an effect of boosting homophobia and adding stigma to homosexuality in
the general public, particularly since it seemed that unprotected anal
intercourse seemed to be the prevalent way of spreading the disease. Within
the medical community, it quickly became apparent that the disease was not
specific to gay men (as blood transfusion patients, heroin users,
heterosexual women, bisexual people and newborn babies became added to the
list of afflicted), and the CDC renamed the syndrome AIDS (Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome) in 1982.
Public perception A
popular misconception holds that the disease was introduced by a gay flight
attendant named Gaetan Dugas, referred to as "Patient Zero".
However, subsequent research has revealed that there were cases of AIDS much
earlier than initially known. It has
also been theorized that a series of inoculations against hepatitis that
were performed in the gay community of San Francisco were tainted with HIV.
Although there was a high correlation between recipients of that vaccination
and initial cases of AIDS, this theory has never been proven. One of
the best-known works on the history of HIV is And the Band Played On, by
Randy Shilts. Shilts
contends that Ronald Reagan's administration dragged its feet in dealing
with the crisis due to homophobia, thus allowing the disease to spread and
hundreds of thousands of people to needlessly die. This
resulted in the formation of ACT-UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power by
Larry Kramer. Shilts
also details the fact that the Red Cross refused to ban bisexual and gay men
from donating blood at the request of the Centers for Disease Control early
in the discovery of the epidemic to keep the blood bank industry from
suffering shortages. Thus,
tens of thousands of hemophiliacs and transfusion recipients were infected
and died.
Activists and critics of current AIDS policies allege that another
preventable impediment to the attack on the disease was the academic elitism
of "celebrity" scientists. Robert
Gallo, an American scientist who was one of many to try to attempt to figure
out if there was some kind of new virus in the people who were affected with
the disease, became embroiled in a legal battle with French scientist Luc
Montagnier trying to do the same thing. Gallo,
too, appeared hung up on the possible connection between the virus causing
AIDS and HTLV, a retrovirus that he had worked with previously. Critics
claim that because some scientists (and biological research companies)
wanted glory and fame, this held up progress on research and more people
needlessly died.
Eventually, after meeting, the French scientists and Gallo agreed to "share"
the discovery of HIV.
Publicity campaigns were started in attempts to counter the often vitriolic
and homophobic perception of AIDS as a "gay plague". In
particular this included the Ryan White case, the red ribbon campaigns, the
celebrity dinners, the film of And the Band Played On, sex education
programs in schools, television advertisements, etc.
Announcements by various celebrities that they had contracted AIDS
(including basketball star Magic Johnson and tennis player Arthur Ashe) were
significant in making the general public aware of the dangers of the disease
to people of all sexual orientations.
Current status The CDC
reports that of all AIDS cases in 2003 in the United States, • 48%
were tracked back to male-to-male contact, (60% African-American men, 15%
Caucasian men)
•27%
were tracked back to male-to-female contact and intravenous drug use,
• 7%
were tracked back to male-to-male contact and intravenous drug use,
• 16%
tracked back to male-to-female contact, and
• 2%
were tracked back to other causes, including hemophilia, blood transfusion,
perinatal, and risk not reported or not identified. As of
2005 HIV cases in the United States are disproportionately high among the
African American community, according to the CDC. A
recently released report stated that 52 percent of new cases involved
African-Americans while according to the 2000 Census they make-up about 12
percent of the general population.
African-American men are four times more likely to be infected with HIV
during male-male contact compared to their Caucasian counterparts, of the
48% of new cases traced back to such contact 60% occurred between
African-Americans, whereas Caucasians accounted for 15% (CDC). Black women account for 72% of the female cases in the United States
regardless of infection method, while white women make up 18% and Hispanic
women 8.5%.[3]
President George W.
Bush asked Congress for increased spending on HIV education focusing on the
African American community during his 2005 State of the Union address:
"African-Americans make up 54 percent of annual new infections, though they
are just 13 percent of the population.
African Americans account for two-thirds of new AIDS cases among teens, but
are only 15 percent of the national teen population."
A
recent study by Rand Corp. and Oregon State University reported that half of
African-Americans in the United States believe AIDS was man-made, more than
one-quarter said they believed AIDS was produced in a government laboratory
and 12 percent believed it was created and spread by the CIA. The
study was published in the February 1, 2005 edition of the Journal of
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. |
