Is it the Government's fault we did not find AID's quick enough?

Question

AID's was originally called GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). My friend thinks that it was the Government's fault that so much of the homosexaul community died because they didn't notice the disease until straight people got it. Is there any truth to this? Please go into detail.

Answer 1

Nope.

Answer 2

No it wasn't just the government. Gay people were having sex without condoms, because the worst diseases back then were mostly treatable. The worst was hep or herpes I guess, the rest you took some pills and got better.

The fact that the disease would spread, and the people would maybe feel like they had the flu as they converted, then after would be normal until the HIV was too far along and showed other symptoms. There was no testing available as it was a new disease. So the slow amount of time for it to fully show, and the sexual practices of the time just allowed it to spread like wildfire. People would have sex not knowing they were infected. They also didn't know at first that it was an STD.

They were playing catch-up, it was totally new. This is the problem, not the government response. Even if they contained it, the time period until symptoms showed was too large, so it would still spread.

The worst thing about calling it GRID would be that I wouldn't be surprised if it was spreading like crazy in the heterosexual community, but because of the disease's name, heterosexuals were just marked as having caught it from homosexual acts, and were wrongly classified.

So basically, straight people were marked as gay, adding to the numbers, when in fact they never had gay sex.

Answer 3

Four of the eight Walmart heirs are in the top 10 most wealthy Americans. If they just increased the price of each item they sell by 2 cents, there would be enough money to give decent health insurance to all their employees. If people work full-time, but do not make enough money to sustain themselves, they will not have enough money to buy things. This is a big reason why our economy isn't growing fast enough - there is just not enough demand for products because people don't make enough money to buy them! In some towns, Walmart put all the other stores out of business, so Walmart is the ONLY job in town! They do not have a choice of where to work - and they do not have enough money to move or go to college. The ONLY reason an employer has to hire more workers is if their current employees can't keep up with the DEMAND!

Answer 4

yes, and no....the circumstances surrounding the beginning of AIDS created teh "perfect storm" for the epidemic. on one hand, you have a disease that starts from a virus with a relatively long incubation time before it makes you very sick. it's not like ebola or yellow fever. in that respect, it's insidious, b/c it's likely that HIV was being transmitted in the mid to late 70s before anyone knew better. the gay community was the perfect place for it to propagate b/c during the time, casual and unprotected sex was the norm. While the sexual revolution allowed for greater casual sex (and consequently greater chances for transmission) with straights and gays alike, gays seemed to excel here.
on the other hand, the political environment was such that there was a lot of fear in the scientific community to pursue it. Regan was slashing science budgets and America was swinging "rightward" in it's politics during the early 80s. it was scientific suicide to pursue the disease on a research end. Very few scientists who were concerned bothered to put their neck on the line to go after it, b/c in the end, they wanted to do fundable research. no regan administration NIH hack would have approved resources early on for the research. Adding to it, no government brass even wanted to utter the name GRID or AIDS. and in many ways, those that should have spoken up to protect people did not. The president didn't even acknowledge the epidemic until it was several years into the epidemic, and children and straights started contracting AIDS and HIV.

It's a very very sad case study in how public health administration is NOT working to help people. Even more sad, if another disease were to start today in a community that isn't seen as "worthy" in the eyes of the current administration, there probably would be a similar response.

Answer 5

I know people love to have conspiracy theories. Folks, this is the organization that delivers the mail. Unfortunately, most that government can do is throw your taxpayer dollars at the problem. Which never works, hello War on Poverty, and Cancer. Cancer still kills thousands every year. Is that a plot too? What about SARS and the Ebola virus, didn't discover those either. More plot? We've thrown a ton of money at the problem, are we closer to a cure? Cancers still out there too, should the government spend more money on that? I mean it kills more people annually. The government is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.

Answer 6

The book The Band Played On gives insight as to how during the Reagan years they failed to deal with issues of AIDS or as known as GRID. The lack of support and ignorance by those in power shows they had little concern for AIDS because it only affected gays.

Answer 7

Partly. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories. Yet clearly, the CDC has resources that were not mobilized for a very long time into the pandemic.

Ironically, the world owes us gay people a tremendous 'thank you', as it was the GLBT community that got the money and legislation for HIV research and AIDS treatment. Can you imagine how slow the straights would have been to respond? I mean-- look at how deadly cigarette smoking is, yet it took HOW long to BEGIN to get some action on it!

Answer 8

That and societies fault, it was different times a few years ago and today too it can be very conservative, gays were ignored frowned upon and shunned, like in Africa it's a taboo subject even when so many people are dying often not from relationships but needles at the hospitals etc, I think it's silly and wasn't and isn't acted upon fast enough

Answer 9

And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts. Great book, it describes it all in 600 pages of detail.

It's true. Reagan and other government officials are responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people, neglecting it because it was a "gay disease."

☼

Answer 10

You have to blame the government, the media, and our culture as a whole. The government for refusing to believe it was such a risk, the media for all the false reports and lack of serious coverage because it mostly happened to gays in the beginning, and our culture for believing we are invincible

Answer 11

aids reached epidemic levels due to the inadequencies of our cdc at tht time and the french and the american medical societies fighting over whom would get to nameit and get credits for discovering it . if the mediacl society and government would have been on their toes patient no 1 could have been isolated and the aids epedemic would never had happened .