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Author Topic: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic  (Read 32202 times)

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Offline DingoBoi

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gawd bless teh USA

Offline Boo Radley

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He did.

But ignoring embryonic crises until they reach the breaking point is a proud tradition of American presidents.

And that somehow justifies Reagan's apathy while thousands died?  I don't think so. 

The other examples you offer are certainly valid and you won't find me lionizing good old Ike or Hoover ("How can they tell?") or even FDR but their failures are not comparable.  It would be a disservice to all to compare the Nazi Holocaust to the AIDS holocaust.   They do not compare.  But, to take FDR as an example, he knew concentration camps were exterminating Jews and other social outcasts and remained silent.  He did so for inexplicable political reasons, one of those "big pictures" mistakenly used on many occasions to ignore atrocities.

Reagan had no big picture, unless it was to rid the USA of homos, but the evidence was in pretty early it wasn't only homos being offed.  "Innocent" people like hemophiliacs and those receiving blood transfusions, babies born to HIV+ mothers, and millions of heterosexuals around the world contracted HIV while doddering Ronnie waited for Nancy's next instructions in his earpiece. 
String up every aristocrat!
Out with the priests and let them live on their fat!





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Offline aupointillimite

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And that somehow justifies Reagan's apathy while thousands died?  I don't think so. 

The other examples you offer are certainly valid and you won't find me lionizing good old Ike or Hoover ("How can they tell?") or even FDR but their failures are not comparable.  It would be a disservice to all to compare the Nazi Holocaust to the AIDS holocaust.   They do not compare.  But, to take FDR as an example, he knew concentration camps were exterminating Jews and other social outcasts and remained silent.  He did so for inexplicable political reasons, one of those "big pictures" mistakenly used on many occasions to ignore atrocities.

Reagan had no big picture, unless it was to rid the USA of homos, but the evidence was in pretty early it wasn't only homos being offed.  "Innocent" people like hemophiliacs and those receiving blood transfusions, babies born to HIV+ mothers, and millions of heterosexuals around the world contracted HIV while doddering Ronnie waited for Nancy's next instructions in his earpiece. 


You're right.  Exactly.

Politicians are assholes who don't care about their constituents.  That was really my only point.  It's not like ignoring huge crises where people are dying is something unusual.  It's SOP for the American government.

Edited to add: I'm not offering it as a justification, I just don't find his actions... or inaction... to be all that unusual.  Hell, one can even look to Rwanda and Darfur for parallels... not on the same scope of course (in retrospect), but this is a government that traditionally sits on its hand when the common people suffer.

No justification... just a fact.

And one that I'm frankly surprised that people get worked up over.  As if a national government is going to be a force for good.  It's going to be a force for more power.  Nothing more.  I learned something from being a Marxist.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2007, 10:52:45 pm by aupointillimite »
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Offline whizzer

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Our government didn't sit on it's hands when the Legionnaires all got sick.  They isolated the sick, identified the pathogen, and tracked down its source.  All in very short order.

It shows what can be accomplished when the powers-that-be facilitate a response.

Offline bocker3

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Could Reagan have had a meaningful impact on the Epidemic -- maybe Yes, maybe NO -- the crime is that we will never know because he, in fact, did NOTHING.  For this a huge dose of blame for the current state of the Epidemic belongs to him and his administration.  There is, however, plenty of blame to go around.  Congress gets alot of it too (as much as I hate to say it -- not just the Republicans either).  Gays were "allowed" to die, because it was politically more palatable -- this was true for both parties.  Those that stood up and fought, did so because they were actually there to help others -- and took great risk, politically.

So, while it is true that Reagan couldn't have prevented the epidemic it was already here -- the problem is didn't try to help stop it at all.

Mike

Offline Boo Radley

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Quote from: aupointillimite
I am having a hard time conceiving of a personal intervention on the part of Reagan in the early 1980s that would have been little more than a Band-Aid solution.

Personal intervention?  He was the President of the USA and if he had acted when a handful of gay men were dropping in NYC and LA I have no doubt the rate and number of infections would have been lower.  Much more than a band aid could have been developed if funds had been available.  Several crucial years passed before researchers were able to begin investigating the epidemic.

How do you account for SARS?  According to you the U.S. government should have ignored it.  Cholera.  Anthrax.  Bird flu.  Mad Cow Disease.  There are too many examples from before and after the AIDS epidemic began that refute your assertion SOP prevents the government from acting in response to a health crisis.

Quote
But it's not all him.  And it's not all Republicans.  That's where I'm taking issue with this.  It's easy to blame this all on one man or one group of people... but doing so isn't going to help anyone...

Who has "blame[d] it all on one man?"   Your refusal to acknowledge the historical fact Reagan's indifference to an epidemic severely hampered early efforts is just ignorant and stubborn-headed.  Early funding would probably have propelled faster discovery of the cause of AIDS and earlier development of drugs and treatments for OIs  With the right equipment researchers in the USA could have isolated HIV before the French but there was no money for research. 

Yes, the entire government and country failed but our LEADER took the lead by ignoring it and his lead was followed.  It also surprises me someone with as good a grasp of history is so ignorant of the political strength Reagan wielded and, admittedly, no one in Congress challenged him for far too long, but he controlled the federal budget almost unilaterally.  While slashing funding for social programs, education, scientific research, and virtually every other component of the federal budget he obscenely increased military spending year after year and no one could stop him or his American Agenda of whatever the BS was called.

Quote
because I don't think it's right... as in correct.  Not morally right.

Morally right?  I thought you went by ethics.  Maybe I misread.  You feel a moral duty to defend Ronald Reagan?  Why?

Benj, you've thanked me before for not playing the age card with you and, please believe me, I am not now.  You weren't there.  I was.  This discussion has nothing to do with your age but your personal experience.  Many of the people whose views you've dismissed were there.  Your vociferous complacency about that horrible episode of U.S. history is insulting to many of us who lived through it.  Your casual dismissal of deaths which only "exceeded deaths from food poisoning" in 1985 is truly beneath you.   You don't have a comparable experience in your life and as educated and intelligent as you are there is some knowledge you must gain firsthand.  I don't know what people who had their lives ruined during Joe McCarthy's reign of terror in the 50s experienced but I would never tell them it was SOP and of little real consequence.  That is what you have maintained throughout this thread.   

Quote
And one that I'm frankly surprised that people get worked up over.

You're frankly surprised people who know firsthand what happened take issue with your ignorance and pat dismissal of all claims contrary to the view you've latched onto and refuse to budge from? 

Quote
As if a national government is going to be a force for good.  It's going to be a force for more power.  Nothing more. 

Oh, come on, you're really pushing it -- typhoid, smallpox, tuberculosis, polio -- according to your premise all these diseases would still be raging among the populace.

Quote
I learned something from being a Marxist.

What did you learn?  How long were you a Marxist, comrade?  What credibility does your former affiliation with Marxism give you in this discussion?  I'm sincerely asking for an answer.

Quote
Gallo has been a rather elusive figure in all of my research on the early history of HIV... it's been rather hard pinning anything down.  My understanding now is that he's included because Reagan and Mitterand seemed to have reached a compromise to have both nations officially share the credit for the discovery of HIV.

Here you blow your credibility completely, my love.  Sorry to be so harsh but if you are ignorant of the facts about Gallo after your "research on the early history of HIV" you lightly skimmed the surface of the massive amount of documentation easily available.   You need to do more research on those early years because the vast majority of documents show the intentional negligence of the Reagan administration and none make excuses for such unforgivable cruelty.

As someone who knows you as the intelligent, witty, charming, and decent person you are I can't understand your stance or, actually, why you refuse to even permit the possibility your view on this one issue might not be accurate.   You're certainly a better person than that, I know.  You wouldn't tell a Holocaust survivor you know the Holocaust is a Zionist myth created to empower the Jews, would you?  In the statements you've used as arguments supporting your view about Reagan and HIV in the early 80s it is somewhat as if you are telling us survivors you know the truth and we are deluded.   

I'm sorry for making this personal but, honestly, I am somewhat hurt by your words or, more truthfully, your vehemence in defense of your view.  I probably should have sent a PM but I hope on a new day you will re-think this entire thread and at least concede our collective knowledge on this issue may be valid and your second-hand knowledge may not be valid, just on this one point.  If you can review and stand by your opinion then do as you see fit.  I'm not asking for a personal favor.

No matter what I wish you'd make it to Atlanta, but there's no pressure on that issue, either.  That's what's so great about living in the free-est, bestest country in the whole fucking world.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2007, 07:33:28 am by Boo Radley »
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Offline Central79

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I think a lot of mistakes were made early in the epidemic.

I definately think Regan takes some of the blame. There is little doubt in my mind he was slow to take action because he believed that HIV would remain confined to the homosexual community. I have no doubt that he, and some of the prominent scientists investigating HIV initially, were homophobic. Why else would they call it "Gay Related Immuno Deficiency"? Where else in the history of medicine has a disease been linked perjoratively to a behaviour in this way? It's like saying "Smoker's Lung Cancer".

I think the Regan administration's homophobia meant that gay men weren't very trusting of the initial reports of AIDS. Surely, this can only be the fault of a government? It's a government's job to be a trusted advocate for each and all of its citizens. The Regan administration was divisive, before and after the beginning of the epidemic.

I also think the scientific bun fight between Montagnier and Gallo was pretty disappointing. I have little doubt that Gallo was to blame, and was obsessed with HTLV causing AIDS, a virus he'd investigated before and which had been discounted by Montagnier. He was slow, and his ego had to be massaged before the process could move on. I'm not sure what Benj means when he says that the scientific community ignored evidence of an emerging disease. Surely we're still working out where HIV came from, and how it jumped into the human population?

The debate about HIV today is still marred by bad science, prejudice and homophobia. Abstinence programs do not work - which is why the US has the highest prevalence of HIV of any developed nation. The recent ads telling gay men to "own" HIV in San Francisco pandered to a popular perception still hanging over from Regan. There are other examples, too numerous to cite - from the erosion of Ryan White and ADAP to the deliberate hampering of research on medicinal cannabis for PN in HIV sufferers.

M.

Diagnosed January 2006
26/1/06 - 860 (22%), VL > 500,000
24/4/06 - 820 (24.6%), VL 158,000
13/7/06 - 840 (22%), VL 268,000
1/11/06 - 680 (21%), VL 93,100
29/1/07 - 1,020 (27.5%), VL 46,500
15/5/07 - 1,140 (22.8%), VL not done.
13/10/07 - 759 (23.2%), VL 170,000
6/11/07 - 630 (25%), VL 19,324
14/1/08 - 650 (21%), VL 16,192
15/4/08 - 590 (21%), VL 40, 832

Offline aupointillimite

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Boo,

Regarding Robert Gallo... here is what I'm up against in my research.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060806/14hiv.htm

The information one can get is conflicted, contradictory, and filled with remnants of this ignoble scientific spat.  It's hard to pin anything down... some people lionize him, others loathe him... and they all write articles. 

What I learned from being a Marxist is not to expect anything good from those in power.  In fact, I would say that the inaction of the US government regarding a new disease in the early 1980s that affected gays, Haitians, and drug users in't surprising in the least.  Cruel?  Yes.  Callous?  Yes.  Expected? Definitely.

Regarding Legionnaire's disease... a pneumonia caused by a bacteria that initially caused disease in people staying in one hotel in Philly is much more easily identified and dealt with than HIV.  It is treatable with antibiotics.  There was no huge paradigm shift in the way people had to view infectious disease. 

A disease which compromised patients' immune systems with no known causative agent is a completely different animal.  Medicine was paralyzed in the face of it... you know this.

My mentioning of the fact that it took a number of years for more people to die of AIDS than of food poisoning was not meant to be callous.  It was meant to show the small numbers of people who were, in fact, dying of this disease.  You probably paid more attention because you're gay, and the people dying were mostly gay men, and you would have been angered by the lack of response on the government's part.  But most people aren't gay.  They might have worried, but I find it extremely difficult to find many examples of Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual Suburbanite who were concerned about AIDS in the early years of the epidemic.  They didn't care.  Plain and simple.  Not a lot of people were dying, and those that did were mostly homosexual.  Hell, if the population's mostly indifferent, how do you expect their president to give a shit?  Blame your neighbors, too. 

I asked a professor of mine, who had begun practicing medicine in the late 1970s, what the causative agent of AIDS was thought to be before the discovery of HIV.  I heard everything from poppers to the body's reaction to too much anal sex to too much drug use in general.  I'm not joking.  When these theories are being tossed about... when no one knows what's even causing it... when the disease compromises the immune system, but the immune system was so poorly understood at the time... it all points to a monumental task.  One that has shown itself to be without parallel in the history of modern medicine.

Were there fuck ups?  Oh God, yes.  Should there have been more initial research?  Fuck yes.  But I think far too many events and cultural considerations at the time came together to virtually guarantee that the first years of the AIDS epidemic were going to be handled horribly.  I feel no duty to defend Ronald Reagan in this... but I am concerned that placing all the blame on a dead man or a political party is a very convenient out.  One which prevents us from looking at our own issues as a culture that might be encouraging the spread of HIV.  That's why I feel strongly about this.  If the blame can be laid at someone else's doorstep, and at a doorstep that's 26 years old, then cultural introspection (and not as gay men... but the West as a whole) is not required.

I lived outside of Washington when there was an outbreak of Ebola virus in Reston, Virginia among some monkeys in 1989.  Did the government mention that the fucking Ebola virus was in the area before eradicating the monkeys?  No.  And they weren't too keen on telling lots of people after the fact either.

Why?  Because they wouldn't have been able to do a goddamn thing if there'd been an outbreak into the human population. 

In times of biomedical disaster, the worst always comes out in people... especially from those in power.  One only has to look to the reactions of European monarchs and nobility during the Black Death for if not an excuse, than a parallel.  They fled the scene and left everyone to their own devices.  Much like the US government did in the early 1980s.   
« Last Edit: April 14, 2007, 11:37:56 am by aupointillimite »
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Offline bear60

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Regarding Legionnaire's disease... a pneumonia caused by a bacteria that initially caused disease in people staying in one hotel in Philly is much more easily identified and dealt with than HIV.  It is treatable with antibiotics.  There was no huge paradigm shift in the way people had to view infectious disease. 
quote Benj

I shudder to think what this "disease"  would have been called had it affected a convention of  Gay Activists.

Modified to add:  It was at a convention of American Legions convention  that the deadly bacteria made its debut.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2007, 11:58:15 am by bear60 »
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Offline aupointillimite

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I shudder to think what this "disease"  would have been called had it affected a convention of  Gay Activists.

They probably would've called it Gay Related Something Something... oh wait.

Never mind.
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Offline gerry

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Hi Benj,

If you haven't read the book "And The Band Played On" by the late Randy Shilts, I would recommend you include it in your research regarding how it was during the early years of the epidemic.  It is very eye-opening.

Gerry

Offline aupointillimite

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Hi Benj,

If you haven't read the book "And The Band Played On" by the late Randy Shilts, I would recommend you include it in your research regarding how it was during the early years of the epidemic.  It is very eye-opening.

Gerry

I saw the movie.

It's infuriating.
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Offline gerry

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I saw the movie.

It's infuriating.

The movie does not do justice to what was chronicled in the book by this journalist.  It even has the details of what went on between Gallo and Montagnier.  Read through it and you'd get a lot of perspective, including all the funding shenanigans that went on that made people believe there was money being funnelled into unlocking the AIDS mystery when in fact it was very misleading.  I'd be happy to send you a copy if you want.

Offline aupointillimite

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The movie does not do justice to what was chronicled in the book by this journalist.  It even has the details of what went on between Gallo and Montagnier.  Read through it and you'd get a lot of perspective, including all the funding shenanigans that went on that made people believe there was money being funnelled into unlocking the AIDS mystery when in fact it was very misleading.  I'd be happy to send you a copy if you want.

I'll have to pick up my own copy... I keep meaning to check it out... but I always get distracted, or someone doesn't have it.  Bah.

I remember watching the movie thinking of the adage about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. 

Bureaucracy... gotta love it.
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Offline Miss Philicia

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I saw the movie.

It's infuriating.

You saw the movie and still didn't "get" the Gallo story?  Fascinating.
"I’ve slept with enough men to know that I’m not gay"

Offline aupointillimite

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You saw the movie and still didn't "get" the Gallo story?  Fascinating.

I did.  But there's a lot of conflicting information out there about him.
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Offline Miss Philicia

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If you say so
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Offline Dachshund

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They probably would've called it Gay Related Something Something... oh wait.

Never mind.


....or, gays are not allowed to be a Legionnaire....disease.

Offline aupointillimite

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If you say so

As Boo has said, "official" reports say he's a co-discoverer.

Dig a little deeper, and you'll read a number of things which say he's an obsessive genius or an evil fucker.

And this is scientists, not just any asshole with a webpage jumping into the fray... so it's hard to know who or what to believe.
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Offline Dachshund

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Read the book grasshopper.

Offline aupointillimite

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Read the book grasshopper.

I shall.

But all the rancor surrounding the discovery of the damn thing has made it hard to figure out what happened. 

It's like trying to figure out who invented calculus or the radio or who really came up with natural selection.  These arguments are very nasty and some of them quite convincing... sifting through priority disputes in science is lots of fun... but there's usually of nastiness that goes into them. 

It makes it difficult to learn, objectively, what happened.
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Offline gerry

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I shall.

But all the rancor surrounding the discovery of the damn thing has made it hard to figure out what happened. 

It's like trying to figure out who invented calculus or the radio or who really came up with natural selection.  These arguments are very nasty and some of them quite convincing... sifting through priority disputes in science is lots of fun... but there's usually of nastiness that goes into them. 

It makes it difficult to learn, objectively, what happened.

I don't think you'd find a more detailed account of what happened than what's been written in this book.  We won't spill the beans so you'd have to find out for yourself...

Offline Dachshund

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I like where this is going...but there was major hysteria at the time. Without using the Googles a big, wet, kiss for the first person to tell me who was Gaetan Dugas?

Offline aupointillimite

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I don't think you'd find a more detailed account of what happened than what's been written in this book.  We won't spill the beans so you'd have to find out for yourself...

That would be very nice.

The Pasteur Institute mentions him only as the discoverer of HTLV and takes all the credit for the discovery of HIV.  The NIH says he's a co-discoverer...Reagan and Mitterand got involved... and so and so forth.

It's annoying.
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Offline aupointillimite

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I like where this is going...but there was major hysteria at the time. Without using the Googles a big, wet, kiss for the first person to tell me who was Gaetan Dugas?

Flight attendant.

Alleged Patient Zero.
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Offline Boo Radley

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I like where this is going...but there was major hysteria at the time. Without using the Googles a big, wet, kiss for the first person to tell me who was Gaetan Dugas?

Patient Zero.

Jesus, that was easy.  No google here
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Offline aupointillimite

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Kiss for me!
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Offline Miss Philicia

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damn flight attendants

Flying mattresses, all of them!
"I’ve slept with enough men to know that I’m not gay"

Offline aupointillimite

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Sheila: Time's have changed
Our kids are kids are getting worse
They wont obey their parents
They just want to fart and curse!
Sharon: Should we blame the government?
Liane: Or blame society?
Dads: Or should we blame the images on TV?
Sheila: No, blame Canada
Everyone: Blame Canada
Sheila: With all their beady little eyes
And flappin heads so full of lies
Everyone: Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Sheila: We need to form a full assault
Everyone: It's Canadas fault!
Sharon: Don't blame me
For my son Stan
He saw the darn cartoon
And now he's off to join the Klan!
Liane: And my boy Eric once
Had my picture on his shelf
But now when I see him he tells me to fuck myself!
Sheila: Well, blame Canada
Everyone: Blame Canada
It seems that everythings gone wrong
Since Canada came along
Everyone: Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Some Guy: There not even a real country anyway
Ms. McCormick: My son could've been a doctor or a lawyer it's true
Instead he burned up like a piggy on a barbecue
Everyone: Should we blame the matches?
Should we blame the fire?
Or the doctors who allowed him to expire?
Sheila: Heck no!
Everyone: Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Sheila: With all their hockey hubbabaloo
Liane: And that bitch Anne Murray too
Everyone: Blame Canada
Shame on Canada
The smut we must stop
The trash we must smash
Laughter and fun
must all be undone
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before someone thinks of blaming uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!
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Offline Dachshund

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Big sloppy for you...not only was he a flight attendant...he was Canadian.

60 minutes did an expose on patient zero...the man who started the aids epidemic. Correct me if I am wrong but in the book, though not saying it outright even Shilts alludes to a patient zero theory. I don't have a copy handy so maybe someone can check that out.

Offline way.out.west

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who was Gaetan Dugas?

Wasn't he the French Canadian flight attendant identified as "patient zero" by health authorities, because many of the early HIV infections had been tracked back directly to him based upon the virus subtype and other characteristics?  And wasn't he the man whom the same authorities had difficulty restraining because he would go into the bathhouses worldwide and have indiscriminate sex even though he knew he was HIV positive?   And didn't he always say "I'm still the prettiest"?
« Last Edit: April 14, 2007, 02:19:51 pm by way.out.west »

Offline Dachshund

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Oh, and must viewing for the diseased...the Canadian musical Zero Patience. You gotta love the mo's...debunking the patient zero myth with a musical. It is available on dvd at all of your finer video stores and Netflix. Well worth it!

Offline Miss Philicia

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Well, Gaetan was rather charming and cute in a perverse way in the movie.
"I’ve slept with enough men to know that I’m not gay"

Offline Dachshund

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See Benj...and who said learning couldn't be fun? :-*

Offline Boo Radley

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60 minutes did an expose on patient zero...the man who started the aids epidemic. Correct me if I am wrong but in the book, though not saying it outright even Shilts alludes to a patient zero theory. I don't have a copy handy so maybe someone can check that out.

Before his death Shilts admitted his ignorance of epidemiology led him to place "blame" on Dugas, Patient Zero, but the truth is the reason Dugas was Patient Zero is he was the subject of the original cluster study demonstrating that HIV was sexually transmitted.  Patient Zero meant nothing more than that he was the first subject who was linked to other AIDS cases in men he'd had sex with or men who had sex with him spread it to other men. 

Dugas did not bring HIV to the USA.  It was here.

P.S. Thanks for promptly responding to my PM.  I really appreciate it.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2007, 02:24:53 pm by Boo Radley »
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Offline gerry

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Big sloppy for you...not only was he a flight attendant...he was Canadian.

60 minutes did an expose on patient zero...the man who started the aids epidemic. Correct me if I am wrong but in the book, though not saying it outright even Shilts alludes to a patient zero theory. I don't have a copy handy so maybe someone can check that out.

Yes, that was accounted for in the book.  But it was taken way out of context.  It was one of the tools the epidemiologist and other scientists involved in the very early stages of the epidemic used to prove that the mysterious illness was caused by an infectious agent...long before the actual virus was isolated and named.  That was also the time in which other etiologies were being thrown in, such as poppers, which did not make sense epidemiologically.  So there already was epidemiologic evidence of an infectious etiology even before there was actual viral isolation.

Offline aupointillimite

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See Benj...and who said learning couldn't be fun? :-*

So everything's not Canada's fault?

Damn.

I knew that the "Dugas as Patient Zero" idea was bullshit. 

From what I can tell by looking on teh Internets... It would appear that book refers to him as such...

Interesting.

I got the nickname "Typhoid Mary" in college due to my small role in a teensy strep outbreak.  That was fun.   
Your tastebuds can't repel flavor of this magnitude!

Offline Dachshund

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Before his death Shilts admitted his ignorance of epidemiology led him to place "blame" on Dugas, Patient Zero, but the truth is the reason Dugas was Patient Zero is he was the subject of the original cluster study demonstrating that HIV was sexually transmitted.  Patient Zero meant nothing more than that he was the first subject who was linked to other AIDS cases in men he'd had sex with or men who had sex with him spread it to other men. 

Dugas did not bring HIV to the USA.  It was here.


We know that now...but at the time it was deemed a fact. Hell, after watching Mike Wallace interview Dr. Krim I believed it.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2007, 02:28:58 pm by Dachshund »

Offline milker

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It would be interesting to have a HIV/AIDS history on aidsmeds.com don't you think? Something like http://www.aegis.com/topics/timeline/ ?

Milker.
mid-dec: stupid ass
mid-jan: seroconversion
mid-feb: poz
mar 07: cd4 432 (35%) vl 54000
may 07: cd4 399 (28%) vl 27760
jul 07: cd4 403 (26%) vl 99241
oct 07: cd4 353 (24%) vl 29993
jan 08: cd4 332 (26%) vl 33308
mar 08: cd4 392 (23%) vl 75548
jun 08: cd4 325 (27%) vl 45880
oct 08: cd4 197 (20%) vl 154000 <== aids diagnosis
nov 2 08 start Atripla
nov 30 08: cd4 478 (23%) vl 1880 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
feb 19 09: cd4 398 (24%) vl 430 getting there!
apr 23 09: cd4 604 (29%) vl 50 woohoo :D :D
jul 30 09: cd4 512 (29%) vl undetectable :D :D
may 27 10: cd4 655 (32%) vl undetectable :D :D

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Offline bimazek

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randy Shilts was a friend of mine in 1982 1983 etc

but up to the present

even one month ago when i spoke with a top top hiv viral vaccine researcher in a top USA university in the pacific northwest, i will not be more specific as to where,

he said i a 25 min conversation

there is NO money for HIV research

he said there is NOT enough money for HIV research

he said his entire budget was cut because of the iraq war, that all money is going into the war not into hiv research

he said he would be closed down completely if (i forget who) but gates foundation or something wouldnt have came in, and still he is not where he was year before with funding

this is a huge huge crisis money for research




Offline bimazek

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Ronald Reagan responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler. This is fact.
« Reply #90 on: April 15, 2007, 07:37:44 pm »
by Larry Kramer   http://www.poz.com/articles/776_11492.shtml

Remarks on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of ACT UP  NYC's LGBT Community Center
March 13, 2007

 Every single treatment against HIV is out there because of activists who forced these drugs out of the system, out of the labs, out of the pharmaceutical companies, out of the government, into the world. It is an achievement unlike any other in the history of the world. All gay men and women must let ourselves feel colossally proud of such an achievement. Hundreds of millions of people will be healthier because of us. Would that they could be grateful to us for saving their lives.

So many people have forgotten, or never knew what it was like. We must never let anyone forget that no one, and I mean no one, wanted to help dying faggots. Sen. Edward Kennedy described it in 2006 as “the appalling indifference to the suffering of so many.”

Ronald Reagan had made it very clear that he was “irrevocably opposed” to anything to do with homosexuality. It would be seven years into his reign before he even said the word “AIDS” out loud, by which time almost every gay man in the entire world who’d had sex with another man had been exposed to the virus. During this entire time his government issued not one single health warning, not one single word of caution. Who cares if a faggot dies. I believe that Ronald Reagan is responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler. This is not hyperbole. This is fact.
     
These are just a few of the things ACT UP did to make the world pay attention: We invaded the offices of drug companies and scientific laboratories and chained ourselves to the desks of those in charge. We chained ourselves to the trucks trying to deliver a drug company’s products. We liberally poured buckets of fake blood in public places. We closed the tunnels and bridges of New York and San Francisco. Our Catholic kids stormed St. Patrick’s at Sunday Mass and spit out Cardinal O’Connor’s host. We tossed the ashes from dead bodies from their urns on to the White House lawn. We draped a gigantic condom over Jesse Helms’ house. We infiltrated the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in its history so we could confetti the place with flyers urging the brokers to “SELL WELLCOME.” We boarded ourselves up inside Burroughs-Wellcome, (now named GlaxoSmithKline), which owns AZT, in Research Triangle so they had to blast us out. We had regular demonstrations, Die-Ins we called them, at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, at City Halls, at the White House, in the halls of Congress, at government buildings everywhere, starting with our first demonstration on Wall Street, where crowds of us lay flat on the ground with our arms crossed over our chests or holding cardboard tombstones until the cops had to cart us away by the vans-full. We had massive demonstrations at the FDA and the NIH. There was no important meeting anywhere that we did not invade, interrupt, and infiltrate. We threatened Bristol-Myers that if they did not distribute it immediately we would manufacture it ourselves and distribute a promising drug some San Francisco activists had stolen from its Canadian factory and had duplicated.   We utterly destroyed a Hoffmann-LaRoche luncheon when they delayed a decent drug’s release.

     another hateful murderer, our closeted mayor, Edward I. Koch. 3000 of us picketed that monster at City Hall. And, always we protested against our ignoble presidents: Reagan. We actually booed him at a huge AmFAR benefit in Washington. He was not amused.

And Bush. 2500 of us actually tracked him down at his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, which did not know what had hit it.

Offline izprince1984

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It was too late by that point, wasn't it though?

Personally, I blame all the allegedly consequence-free fucking that occured in the 1960s and 70s for the state of HIV/AIDS in the West.

How do you blame that?

As long as there are new infections, people only have to look as far as the mirror for who to blame, I suppose there's a few exceptions, like the occasional healthcare worker who accidentally sticks themselves with a needle, but other than that, how do you really catch or spread HIV unless you're going around fucking everything that moves without a condom (OK, it CAN break, but other than that).
ryan@ryan-desktop:~$ apt-get moo
         (__)
         (oo)
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  / |    ||   
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Offline Boo Radley

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Hallelujah, I've seen the light!!

How could anyone try to lay blame for any aspect of the AIDS crisis at the feet of the late Saint Ronnie of Raygun?  Any Marxist can explain the error of your ways if you are still so misguided.

It matters not that Reagan pledged to veto any funding requests from Congress dealing with gay cancer or that he refused, year after year, to provide emergency funds to the NIH and CDC even though they foolishly kept submitting requests.  So what if only 29,000 people were dead by the time the Gipper even spoke the word AIDS in public?

As you can see from the attached graph, known infections had reached only 55,000 and the death toll was a mere 29,000 by the end of 1986.  Yes, as U.S. Americans we can all be proud knowing our national leader took the bull by the horns and grappled mightily once his pal Rock kicked the bucket and innocent victims like Ryan White and the three Ray brothers were all infected  (Ricky (1977 - December 13, 1992), Robert (1978 - October 20, 2000) and Randy Ray (b. 1979) (Ryan White December 6, 1971 - April 8, 1990 ).



[attachment deleted by admin]
String up every aristocrat!
Out with the priests and let them live on their fat!





Everything I do, say, think, excrete, secrete, exude, ooze, or write © 2007 Sweet Old Boo, Inc.

Offline jimw

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I started this thread on Friday afternoon because I was curious about how others felt about how this epidemic was handled by Regan and his administration when it was first recognized.  I have never said I blamed Regan for HIV or AIDS (or my infection) and my question specifically had to do with the state of the epidemic. 

I find it hard to believe that anyone could seriously doubt that the delay in recognizing the looming epidemic of HIV/AIDS had and continues to have a serious impact on the state of the AIDS epidemic (I also find it hard to believe that there are gay Republicans but that is another post for the Off Topic Forum.)  Rather than addressing what the CDC identified as a looming crisis, Regan choose to bury his head in the sand and ignore it, allowing his administration to make light and joke of the situation publicly.  I firmly believe that had it not been a bunch of fags dying of this disease that Regan and the Government  would have reacted differently.  Following are some interesting dates which show the lack of response of the Regan administration.

On June 5th, 1981 the CDC reports on the first cases of what would later become known as AIDS.

On October 15, 1982, Larry Speakes, President Reagan's press secretary JOKES about AIDS during press briefing.

On September 17, 1985, US President Ronald Reagan mentions the word "AIDS" in public for the FIRST TIME in response to a reporters questions.

On February 6, 1986, President Reagan mentions AIDS in his Message to the Congress on America’s Agenda for the Future.

Some say it was October 1987 that President Regan publicly spoke for the first time about the epidemic.  By that time, in the US, over 41,000 people had died and over 71,000 people had been diagnosed with AIDS.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2007, 02:26:37 pm by jimw »

 


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