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Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: jimw on April 13, 2007, 04:37:49 pm

Title: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: jimw on April 13, 2007, 04:37:49 pm
There were some comments made in the Profiting from HIV thread that made me post this.

In June 1981, during Regan’s presidency, the CDC reported the first case of what would later be known as AIDS.  President Regan, however, did not publicly utter the word AIDS until 1985 and I believe it was another year before he “officially” mentioned AIDS in a speech – preferring rather to ignore the crisis.  Who knows how many people could have been saved had he not taken this approach and rather addressed the crisis head on when it first arose? 
 
Programs to prevent the spread of HIV are a crucial component of the long-term fight. Yet, President Bush, and the last Republican Congress specified that only 20% of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) could be spent on prevention and that one third of that money had to be used to promote abstinence until marriage.  More money has been spent in that area than on any other prevention activity. Given the increase in teen pregnancies and the increase in HIV infection rates among our teens, I think it is safe to say that “abstinence only” programs are ineffective.
 
Another program aimed at preventing the spread of HIV is needle exchange programs (NEDs).  However, a restriction forbids the use of taxpayer money to provide clean needles to injecting drug users on the theory that it encourages illegal drug use.  The US is the only country in the world to ban use of government money for NEPs.  Private non-profits and some state and local governments have been the main sources of funding for NEPs, which face other legal and regulatory hurdles on the state and city level as forty-seven states continue to classify syringes as drug paraphernalia, making them illegal to buy or own without a prescription.

The scientific evidence indicates that needle exchange programs work.  Seven federally funded studies during the 1990s, conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the CDC and the National Academy of Sciences among others, all reached similar conclusions that NEPs work in reducing HIV's spread among IV drug users, their partners and children, and that they do not encourage increased drug use.  On the international level, Congress and the Bush administration have extended the federal funding ban to any projects receiving funds from PEPFAR.  (I believe this is still the case but someone can correct me if I am wrong on this.)

The same is true for condom distribution in prisons.  It has been estimated that the prevalence of HIV infection is nearly five times higher for incarcerated populations than for the general U.S. population.  However, less than one percent of U.S. correctional facilities provide inmates with condoms.  Only prisons in Vermont, Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia provide condoms for inmates.  Some prisons in Mississippi allow distribution of condoms to married inmates during conjugal visits.  Most recently, Republican Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have allowed the distribution of condoms to prisoners in California at no cost to the taxpayers on the ground that it encouraged sexual conduct between prisoners, which was forbidden!  It has been estimated that as many as 65 - 71% of inmates engage is sexual intercourse while in prison.  Clearly, the institutional bans on sexual activity do not curb instances of sex between inmates or inmates and prison employees.

Finally, as if the above wasn’t enough, there is a federal restriction which requires that all antiretroviral medications be approved by the FDA.  This requirement blocks the use of more inexpensive generic antiretrovirals, even those approved by the WHO! 

So, yes, I blame President Regan and the Republican Congress for the state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: J.R.E. on April 13, 2007, 04:46:42 pm


I've posted this before :

http://www.aegis.com/pubs/atn/2004/atn040607.html


The following press conference is the first public mention of AIDS in the Reagan White House. At that time 200 Americans had died of a new infectious disease. Reagan himself did not mention AIDS for three more years.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

PRESS BRIEFING BY LARRY SPEAKES

October 15, 1982

The Briefing Room

12:45pm EDT

Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement ­ the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?

MR. SPEAKES: What's AIDS?

Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?

MR. SPEAKES: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)

Q: No, I don't.

MR. SPEAKES: You didn't answer my question.

Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President ­

MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)

Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?

MR. SPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.

Q: Does the President, does anyone in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?

MR. SPEAKES: I don't think so. I don't think there's been any ­

Q: Nobody knows?

MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.

Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping ­

MR. SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he's had no ­ (laughter) ­ no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.

Q: The President doesn't have gay plague, is that what you're saying or what?

MR. SPEAKES: No, I didn't say that.

Q: Didn't say that?

MR. SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn't you stay there? (Laughter.)

Q: Because I love you Larry, that's why (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKES: Oh I see. Just don't put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)

Q: Oh, I retract that.

MR. SPEAKES: I hope so.

Q: It's too late.

This transcript was quoted at the beginning of Jon Cohen's book, Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine, 2001.

040612
ATN040601


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright © 2004 - by John S. James. See "Permission to Copy" at: http://www.aidsnews.org/canhelp. How to help AIDS Treatment News: http://www.aidsnews.org/canhelp.

AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2004. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

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Ray
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 04:49:46 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: ACinKC on April 13, 2007, 04:52:35 pm
I'll blame the dutch and their blasted polio vaccine in Africa.


But I blame the Republicans for EVERYTHING that is wrong in this country.  It only seems right.


Edited to change smallpox to polio vaccine.  Had to fact check.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: jack on April 13, 2007, 04:53:17 pm
You have no idea how silly that sounds but if you must blame someone,be my guest. Is he also to blame for the epidemic in other countries? Funny how a guy who didnt have HIV could be responsible for infecting so many. How was he supposed to stop it? People are still getting the virus today,who is responsible for that? W?
The Congress was democrat when Reagan was President, the senate republican.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: ACinKC on April 13, 2007, 04:54:44 pm
Reagan and Bush sure havent HELPED the situation much.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 04:58:00 pm
I have to stand wiith Jack on this one.  Stop the presses.

This is ridiculous.

So Reagan didn't mention AIDS.  Whoop dee shit.  Was The Gipper god-like in his ability to fix things when mentioning them by name?   

Would it have made everything better if he had?

I highly doubt it.

And Jack's right... I'm sure Reagan is responsible for all those dead AIDS babies in Africa, too.

No.

You wanna hold someone responsible?  Try the world's scientific community which ignored the increasing evidence throughout the 1970s that a new disease was coming.  They're the ones who are supposed to pay attention to to stuff like that.


Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 13, 2007, 05:00:44 pm
I blame those damn monkeys...everything else is the Republicans fault.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: ACinKC on April 13, 2007, 05:01:45 pm
I blame those damn monkeys...everything else is the Republicans fault.

The ones the Dutch used?
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: jimw on April 13, 2007, 05:03:24 pm
You have no idea how silly that sounds but if you must blame someone,be my guest.
As the leader of the free world, he chose to ignore the crisis rather than addressing it with leadership and compassion.  Before he even mentioned the word - tens of thousands of Americans had died.  Yes, I blame him and President Bush for the state of the epidemic and for hampering efforts to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS, and if that makes me silly, the please call me silly.!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: jack on April 13, 2007, 05:08:20 pm
leader of the free world? you mean of the United States. Fuck man, why is someone in Africa gonna put on a rubber for Reagan? I guess during those 8 years of Willy, the epidemic stopped? Like I said if it makes you feel better to blame your problems on a freaking politician, go right ahead.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: J.R.E. on April 13, 2007, 05:13:33 pm


Lets get back to the issues. 25 years later, no health care, millions of deaths due to aids, People in the United States  on waiting list for meds....
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 13, 2007, 05:16:03 pm
....and the right blames their problems on us.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: J.R.E. on April 13, 2007, 05:20:03 pm


The global HIV/AIDS Timeline :

http://www.kff.org/hivaids/timeline/hivtimeline.cfm




Ray
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 13, 2007, 05:46:42 pm
So Reagan didn't mention AIDS.  Whoop dee shit.  Was The Gipper god-like in his ability to fix things when mentioning them by name?   

Would it have made everything better if he had?

It's not that he didn't mention AIDS, it's that he flatly refused to fund any research into the obviously serious epidemic because the constituents affected were queers.  There is no denying that.   Research which could have helped was stymied from the very beginning and unfunded for several years. 

The epidemic grew for years before any real commitments were made to battle it.  All resources available were devoted to locate the cause of Legionnaire's Disease in 1976 (which I know was not during Reagan's term but if it had occurred on his watch do you think he would have ignored it as well?) but 4 years later a disease which was obviously as serious or more so was completely ignored.  ACT UP and GMHC and ASOs did not form in a vaccum, they rallied to support those afflicted and to shame an indifferent government and country into acting responsibly. 

Would it have stopped the epidemic?  Of course not, but swift action on the part of the federal government probably would have reduced the future number of infections, possibly even yours, Benj.   If Reagan had acted when AIDS first reared its head I think everything might be a little better now but we'll never know.  By the time the first AIDS cases were recognized thousands of gay men were already infected and no one blames that on Reagan, but how many thousands of infections could have been prevented if the federal government had funded crucial research in 1980, 81, 82, 83, etc.?   Sheer greed and indifference assured thousands of hemophiliacs and blood transfusion recipients were infected but the federal government took no action until most hemophiliacs using Factor VII had full blown AIDS.

I'm no Masters and Johnson but the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s was not the first period in U.S. history large segments of the populace were engaging in promiscuous sexual activities.  The Roaring Twenties were as spectacular in the commitment to ignoring sexual mores as the Free Love 60s. 
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: J.R.E. on April 13, 2007, 06:51:11 pm


So Reagan didn't mention AIDS.  Whoop dee shit. 




With all due respect to you benj...It's comments like this that make me very well aware of why we need a long term survivors forum.

I was already infected with HIV, along with many others on this site, before Reagan uttered "AIDS"



Sad-------Ray
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Joe K on April 13, 2007, 07:09:09 pm
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.


So Reagan didn't mention AIDS.  Whoop dee shit.  Was The Gipper god-like in his ability to fix things when mentioning them by name?   

Would it have made everything better if he had?

You wanna hold someone responsible?  Try the world's scientific community which ignored the increasing evidence throughout the 1970s that a new disease was coming.  They're the ones who are supposed to pay attention to to stuff like that.

I find these comments to be highly insulting and they would never be uttered by anyone who had lived through the horror of the first years.

It is apparent that you feel comfortable judging others and I would ask, just how did you become poz?  You seem to have no problem passing moral judgements on people and how refreshing that you can proclaim that it was our sexuality that has brought AIDS to the current crisis it is in the West.

You also have no clue on how hard it was to stand by, as your friends died, while the PRESIDENT refused to even acknowledge there was a disease killing gays by the hundreds.  The whole point is that if Ronnie could have uttered the AIDS word when he first took office, we would have had an additional five years to work on the virus, rather than the administration just making fun of our horror.

This last comment about doctors is so off base, again you do not have a clue.  I went to one of the first major AIDS clinics and if you think they were hiding anything, you are crazy.  What they could not hide was their abject horror as we just kept dying and they crawled across broken glass to do all they could for us.

I am with you Ray and some of you wonder why us Long-Termers needed our own forum.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 07:22:19 pm
Oh Jesus Christ.

I'm clearly not talking about doctors who treat patients.  Doctors aren't researchers who have to keep their eyes peeled for the next new disease.

It was the researchers and scientists who are supposed to keep an eye on this stuff, and they were the ones who dropped the ball.

And I'm sorry, I find it hard to believe that a politician mentioning a disease would have made anything better, emotionally or otherwise.  I really do.

Was the reaction of the Reagan administration criminal?  Yes.  Did it make things worse?  Perhaps.  Could it have improved anything?  Probably not. 

And yes, if people had used condoms in the 60s and 70s, would we be where we are now?  No.

If I had used a condom in 2004, would I have to deal with the clutched kleenex crowd on here?  No.  Was that stupid on my part?  Yes. 

And call me crazy... but I believe an American group based with the National Cancer Institute shares the credit with the Pasteur Institute for discovering HIV itself in 1983-1984.  So... there was federal money coming in somewhere for AIDS research.  So yes, while the American government could have done more in the early 1980s to find out what was going on... there were a whole bunch of cultural, scientific, and political circumstances unique to the time that conspired to make this the pandemic that it is today.

To blame Reagan for it entirely is ludicrous. 
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 13, 2007, 07:37:12 pm
To blame Reagan for it entirely is ludicrous. 


Who has made the "entirely" claim here?
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Joe K on April 13, 2007, 07:42:18 pm
No matter what you might think, you were not there and so do not tell me that the support of the president did not matter, because it did.  He could have started a public discussion (accelerating tolerance) and yet he did nothing.  If we had more funding in the early 80s, at least there would have been something to help our friends as they died.  Instead, the measly money from DC hardly covered much of anything and we had to pick and choose who we could help and who had to be turned away.

I am insulted that you would make such blanket statements when you have no direct knowledge of what transpired in the early 80s.  I never have blamed Ronnie for the state of HIV, but it is insulting to the memory of my friends, to deny that he could have done more, much, much more.  Then again, we were just a bunch of fags.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 07:48:13 pm
Philly,


So, yes, I blame President Regan and the Republican Congress for the state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.


I don't see anyone else called to task here.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: carousel on April 13, 2007, 08:00:40 pm
Sorry I don't understand Why did Reagen remain silent?

Did he miss a News Bulletin along the way?  Was he not aware that thousands/ millions Americans were dying of this?  Nobody could be stupid enough to argue that.  

At the end of the day, here was a virus affecting predominately Black people, Gay men and Drug users.  There's a vote winner.

He could have been brave and face up to what was happening to people around him.  He had a choice, stand up and acknowledge what was happening and make every effort to stop this epidemic growing or remain silent.  

You can argue that it would not have made a difference, but I go back to my first question, Why remain silent?

And if anybody mentions about me being anti-American, don't get me started on the Anti-Christ, Margaret Thatcher.

We still live with those first attitutudes of stigma, prejudice and lack of a clear undertaking to deal with HIV on a global level.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 08:11:17 pm
I know.

We can't say anything about the culture that preached "penicillin cures all" in regards to STDs that prevailed during the 1960s and 70s as perhaps encouraging just a wee smidge of sexual irresponsibilty, could we?

Even if all the money in the government had been made available, regardless of the recession the US faced at the time, hundreds of thousands of people still would have died. 

Do you know how absolutely insane people go during biomedical crises?  Calls for calm and tolerance cannot override public panic like that which inevitably occur in the face of scientific and public ignorance of a new disease.  It wasn't until 1985 that 1) there were AIDS tests and 2) more people died of AIDS than of food poisoning... no one knew what the hell was going on... nor was it, in terms of the entire population, a lot of people who were being felled.  It's sad, but true.

And I didn't have to be there to know that.


 

Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: mjmel on April 13, 2007, 08:12:17 pm
I agree with your statement Benj, when you say, "To blame Reagan for it entirely is ludicrous." True. It would be ludicrous.

Here was the one of the most powerful men of the world leading a powerful and wealthy country. Reagan was well respected and people looked up to him and listened. Yes sir, he could have got research underway, if he wished. If he would have acknowledged this dreadful disease in it's early beginnings the amount of funding would have been phenomenal, I do believe. He wouldn't even acknowledge reporter questions posed to him. I remember feeling just amazed how craftily he avoided questions that were being posed to him ON AIR.

As Boo and Killfoile accurately stated, we were only faggots and this was a perv related problem. It felt like the whole administration was saying,"Screw 'em. We will not dignify their existence with compassion." I am not quoting Reagan. I said that's how it felt.
xxx,
Mike
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 13, 2007, 08:14:46 pm
To blame Reagan for it entirely is ludicrous. 

No one blames Reagan exclusively but as the President he should have acted in a way that would make us proud of him today -- he behaved with unconscionable obliviousness to a serious public health concern as more people became ill and died.  Of course those assholes in Congress and state legislatures and regional/local governments ignored the problem for ages but many acted far sooner that Reagan.  The NIH and CDC and other federal research centers asked for funding year after year and were denied and in that period, the great pre-fall of Communism, Reagan was in control of the federal budget, and he hocked this country 100 times over to fund his Star Wars delusion and numerous other military funding requests.  Hell, they didn't have to request because he kept slashing "welfare" programs and socking billions more into the DOD.   On September 17, 1985, President Reagan publicly addressed AIDS in answer to a question at a press conference.  By the end of 1985 approximately 16,000 U.S. Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and at least half were dead..

Although the official history books state Bob Gallo and Luc Montagnier co-discovered HIV the scientific fact is HIV was discovered by Montagnier and staff at the Institut Pasteur and Gallo stole the virus from the French and claimed it as his own.  Why the Institut Pasteur allowed the falsehood to remain officially valid speaks more to the superiority of true scientists who did not want research and treatment to be held up by years of litigation over the credit or, more importantly, use of the first HIV antibody test.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 08:14:54 pm
I agree with your statement Benj, when you say, "To blame Reagan for it entirely is ludicrous." True. It would be ludicrous.

Here was the one of the most powerful men of the world leading a powerful and wealthy country. Reagan was well respected and people looked up to him and listened. Yes sir, he could have gotten research underway, if he wished. If he would have acknowledged this dreadful disease in it's early beginnings the amount of funding would have been phenominal, I do believe. He wouldn't even acknowledge reporter questions posed to him. I remember feeling just amazed how craftily he avoided questions that were being posed to him ON AIR.

As Boo and Killfoile accurately stated, we were only faggots and this was a perv related problem. It felt like the whole administration was saying,"Screw 'em. We will not dignify their existance with compassion." I am not quoting Regean. I said thats how it felt.
xxx,
Mike

Oh, I agree.  Reagan was a douche.

But do you really expect anyone in political power to view your life, existence, or death with dignity and compassion?

Do you seriously and truly expect them to do that?
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: J.R.E. on April 13, 2007, 08:15:11 pm

If I had used a condom in 2004, would I have to deal with the clutched kleenex crowd on here?  No.  Was that stupid on my part?  Yes. 



First of all, nobody's stupid...

But I have to ask, Is that what we are, the "Clutched Kleenex Crowd" ?  Once again.... Respectfully, Denial is terrible thing. And the day will come, when you you won't be able to find enough Kleenex to clutch. You may not like to hear that, but you can count on it.


I am not ashamed to say I "clutched a few kleenex's." It's hard not to do, when your looking at the faces of your friends in an open box., or while attending countless memorial services with the ashes in the urn., or giving eulogies., to those that have passed on, these past 25 years.


Ray


Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 08:17:49 pm
No one blames Reagan exclusively but as the President he should have acted in a way that would make us proud of him today -- he behaved with unconscionable obliviousness to a serious public health concern as more people became ill and died.  Of course those assholes in Congress and state legislatures and regional/local governments ignored the problem for ages but many acted far sooner that Reagan.  The NIH and CDC and other federal research centers asked for funding year after year and were denied and in that period, the great pre-fall of Communism, Reagan was in control of the federal budget, and he hocked this country 100 times over to fund his Star Wars delusion and numerous other military funding requests.  Hell, they didn't have to request because he kept slashing "welfare" programs and socking billions more into the DOD.

Although the official history books state Bob Gallo and Luc Montagnier co-discovered HIV the scientific fact is HIV was discovered by Montagnier and staff at the Institut Pasteur and Gallo stole the virus from the French and claimed it as his own.  Why the Institut Pasteur allowed the falsehood to remain officially valid speaks more to the superiority of true scientists who did not want research and treatment to be held up by years of litigation over the credit or, more importantly, use of the first HIV antibody test.


I didn't know that about Gallo.

Who, pray tell, passed those federal budgets for Reagan?

What political party in Congress wrote them up?

Please tell me.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 13, 2007, 08:18:36 pm
Philly,

I don't see anyone else called to task here.

I just want to make sure that blaming "the state of the epidemic" is different the blaming Reagan  for AIDS itself.

It seemed that the distinction was getting muddy.  And you need not get smart with me, missy... just because you are being slapped silly by others.  Focus!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: mjmel on April 13, 2007, 08:21:07 pm
Oh, I agree.  Reagan was a douche.

But do you really expect anyone in political power to view your life, existence, or death with dignity and compassion?

Do you seriously and truly expect them to do that?

I never believed that was something politicians would consider, until Bill Clinton. And now that I've experience what it feels like for a United States President to go to bat for us gays.....well, do I have to finish this sentence.....
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: carousel on April 13, 2007, 08:21:16 pm
First of all, nobody's stupid...

I am not ashamed to say I "clutched a few kleenex's." It's hard not to do, when your looking at the faces of your friends in an open box., or while attending countless memorial services with the ashes in the urn., or giving eulogies., to those that have passed on, these past 25 years.


Ray




Isn't that it.  When you are seeing so many people suffering and dying, whether you are a politician or not, to ignore the suffering of so many is beyond the pale.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 13, 2007, 08:24:00 pm
And that "Clutched Kleenex Crowd" comment was just so, so tired.

wtfbbq!!111!one!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 08:24:51 pm
I never believed that was something politicians would consider, until Bill Clinton. And now that I've experience what it feels like for a United States President to go to bat for us gays.....well, do I have to finish this sentence.....

Clinton went to bat for gay people?

How?

Was it between "don't ask, don't tell" and signing DoMA or what?

Jesus... if homos as a group are gonna be satisfied with the crumbs that Bill Clinton gave us politically... we might as well steel ourselves to never making progress ever.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 13, 2007, 08:25:49 pm
Can we not shift the goal posts to Clinton and stay on topic?
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 08:27:01 pm
I just want to make sure that blaming "the state of the epidemic" is different the blaming Reagan  for AIDS itself.

It seemed that the distinction was getting muddy.  And you need not get smart with me, missy... just because you are being slapped silly by others.  Focus!

I'm having fun.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: whizzer on April 13, 2007, 08:29:07 pm
The Reagan administration also contributed to the considerable stigma surrounding HIV by not allowing the surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, to say the word 'semen.'  Instead, he had to use the term 'bodily fluids', which people took to mean saliva, sweat, tears, hell, practically every body fluid BUT semen, as a mode of transmission of the virus.

The Reagan administration could have increased funding to find the source of the syndrome, but chose not to.  It had cut the CDC budget from the get-go, which probably had a lot to do with the resources not being directed to find out what this thing was.  It cut the NIH budget as well.  Plus, it was only killing homos, so no one got bent out of shape about it.

Even when it became clear it was some sort of infectious disease, resources were still not allocated by the government.  The disease simply killed the wrong people.  Don't think for a minute that if HIV had been found to primarily infect white country-club Republicans, every available resource the government had would have been directed it's way.

There's plenty of blame to go around.  The doctors who weren't interested in a disease that only killed homos, the blood bank industry, including the Red Cross, the sex clubs, the queers who saw any suggestion that they shouldnt' be allowed to fuck like bunnies as an affront to their hard-earned sexual freedom, the government who didn't give a shit until what they regard as 'decent people' started to be affected by the virus - all of them.

There is plenty of blood on plenty of hands.  But, as leader of the country at the time it was happening, the Actor-in-Chief should get the lion's share of the blame, because he ignored it and let it happen, repeat, LET IT HAPPEN, on his watch.

Damn, Benj, for a guy that's up on practically everything else (except perhaps money management), you sure are in the dark about your HIV history.  There was a point in time where, with the appropriate interventions, the exponential spread of this disease could have been greatly curtailed.  Even without the existence of an HIV test.

-Whizzer
(who is passionate about this subject)
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: mjmel on April 13, 2007, 08:32:26 pm
Crumbs is what he was left with when a Congress got tired of his embarrassing behavior of trying to get Gays in the Military (with honor)! Indeed!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 08:38:46 pm
Whizzer, I agree with you.

But I think that time to prevent the rate of infections from increasing at such a rapid rate was over before Reagan put his hand on that Bible in January 1981.

Given the average time from infection to death, tens of thousands in the United States alone were more than likely infected by that point.

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.

Could the US government as a whole done a lot more?  You bet.

That includes a Congess controlled by a party who was supposed to care about exactly these sorts of things. 

And a jackass President who decided he looked better in front of the Berlin Wall than on the inside of a free clinic.   

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... because I don't think it's right... as in correct.  Not morally right.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 13, 2007, 08:50:38 pm
Every year when nothing was done is another year extended on this entire epidemic.  That's basically the bottom line.

But your right, certainly Democrats in Congress could have been much, much more vocal.  I do seem to recall though that the few voices that were being vocal in Congress at the time were, in fact (*gasp!*) some Democrats.  Were there many?  Certainly not enough.  But comparing the powers of a lone individual or even a block within one party to the bully pulpit of the Presidency is horribly disingenuous.

Anyway, like I said in the other thread that gave birth to this thread, we'll never know if a Democrat (in this case Carter would he have been re-elected) would have performed better regarding this subject.  If he'd been equally as miserable I'm sure you'd have seen the gay community somewhat, if not significantly, more Republican now.  This event was incredibly formative in gay politics and why there's still majority support of Democrats within the gay community, or at least that's the way I see it.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 13, 2007, 08:58:19 pm
I didn't know that about Gallo.

Check any decent book about the history of the epidemic.  Bob Gallo is a piece of shit.

Quote
Who, pray tell, passed those federal budgets for Reagan?

What political party in Congress wrote them up?

Please tell me.

Benj, I freely stated assholes of all parties at all levels of government ignored AIDS but what you don't acknowledge is Reagan held the budget with an iron fist and he vetoed anything he didn't like and for years the bastards in Congress did nothing to override him.   That's just the way it was, and nothing was done about it because he was winning the war on communism by outspending them Ruskies by billions of dollars on military projects.  We won the Cold War but a few thousand faggots died because we couldn't spend money on anything but Caspar Weinberger's new toys.

Complacency about modern medicine as panacea certainly played a role in the history of AIDS but it didn't take long for medical professionals dealing firsthand with AIDS patients to know modern medicine was about as helpful as voodoo with this public health crisis.   

I cannot find the statistics to back me up, and if someone finds corroboration or refutation please post, but for some reason I want to claim the rate of STD transmission has been high in population segments of the USA since at least the 20th century.  The sexual revolution and condomless sex of the 60s and 70s may have changed the segments but I don't think the overall STD transmission rate was greatly different, especially if adjusted for the increase in gay sexual activities during the coinciding gay sexual revolution.  You must remember a mantra of many gay men was "sex is my right and I'll do it when and where I want."  (it still is)   Until Stonewall and long after man gay men lived closeted lives and were not as sexually active as men became in the late 70s and early 80s.  The timing could not have been worse.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 13, 2007, 09:00:39 pm
First of all it is divisive and frankly intellectually dishonest to use the you weren't there argument. Second, I didn't think the long-term survivor thread was created to protect anyone from others honest opinions. I am a long-time survivor and I will put my horrifying experiences with "aids" up against anyone. However, I will not use it as a bully pulpit.

The spread of aids may have began as early as the fifties and was patiently waiting for the best and fastest mode of infection...and no one here can deny that it found it. I myself became infected before I had heard of the word and long before That senile ol' coot Reagan ever said the word. So to argue that Reagan was the cause of aids is ludicrous.

Since I was there I do remember many things during that time...Jesse Helms blocking legislation...homosexuals in SanFrancisco fighting tooth and nail against any regulations against the baths...including condoms. My best friend's food being left outside his door at Baptist Hospital because no hospital staff would enter his room. Poppers cause aids. You name it and I have heard it. I was there in the middle of it all and I sure as hell didn't know what to believe or what not to believe.

Did government do enough back then? Hell no, and they don't do enough now and they won't do enough in the future. Lecturing someone who is HIV+ won't change that fact.

Believe me I despise Reagan for not saying the word...or Heckler announcing a cure was two years away, and myself for being lucky and powerless and my friends dying horrible deaths. However it does no good to scold others that I know to be compassionate and without agenda.

Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 13, 2007, 09:01:16 pm
Obviously he's not even bothered to watch "And the Band Played On"... what kind of AIDS infected homo are we dealing with here? :)
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 13, 2007, 09:04:27 pm
So to argue that Reagan was the cause of aids is ludicrous.

Who said he was the "cause"???  People are using the term "STATE of AIDS"

There is a difference in that line of argument, which I've already tried to point out.

I can't argue with people on web forums who move goal posts.  I just won't do it.

Life is too short.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 09:10:10 pm

Benj, I freely stated assholes of all parties at all levels of government ignored AIDS but what you don't acknowledge is Reagan held the budget with an iron fist and he vetoed anything he didn't like and for years the bastards in Congress did nothing to override him.   That's just the way it was, and nothing was done about it because he was winning the war on communism by outspending them Ruskies by billions of dollars on military projects.  We won the Cold War but a few thousand faggots died because we couldn't spend money on anything but Caspar Weinberger's new toys.

Complacency about modern medicine as panacea certainly played a role in the history of AIDS but it didn't take long for medical professionals dealing firsthand with AIDS patients to know modern medicine was about as helpful as voodoo with this public health crisis.   

I cannot find the statistics to back me up, and if someone finds corroboration or refutation please post, but for some reason I want to claim the rate of STD transmission has been high in population segments of the USA since at least the 20th century.  The sexual revolution and condomless sex of the 60s and 70s may have changed the segments but I don't think the overall STD transmission rate was greatly different, especially if adjusted for the increase in gay sexual activities during the coinciding gay sexual revolution.  You must remember a mantra of many gay men was "sex is my right and I'll do it when and where I want."  (it still is)   Until Stonewall and long after man gay men lived closeted lives and were not as sexually active as men became in the late 70s and early 80s.  The timing could not have been worse.

This is what I'm talking about. 

An issue as horribly complex as this can't have blame laid solely at the feet one one man or one group.

I was watching something on the History Channel last night about engineering disasters and was struck by something one engineer said.

He said that disasters usually result from a set of circumstances that no one thinks are potentially problematic at the time... but when a bunch of little things go wrong in succession... kaboom.  That's what happened in the years leading up to this pandemic. 

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's something rather interesting about STD infection rates from the 1950s on.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/26/health/main669589.shtml

It suggests that the rising and falling rates of syphilis and gonorrhea are cyclical and related to population immunity rather than sexual behavior.  Of course, I would imagine that HIV is exempt from this... given its incurability. 

   
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 13, 2007, 09:12:23 pm
Then don't do it and I am not trying to move anything...to say Reagan caused the state of aids is ludicrous. That better?
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: DingoBoi on April 13, 2007, 09:36:00 pm
To say he caused it?  NO.

To say he could have done a whole lot more to prevent it?  YES.

Reagan can suck my hiv-ridden cock.

Of course, then I'd be breaking at least 3 laws in my home state.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 13, 2007, 09:43:54 pm
This is what I'm talking about. 

An issue as horribly complex as this can't have blame laid solely at the feet one one man or one group.

Once more, no one lays blame solely at Raygun's feet but his position as the preeminent leader of the free world and prez of the best darn country in the world placed him in a truly unique position.  He fucked up big time with a PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS that a decent President would have addressed as the serious issue it was.

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.

Gallo was persuaded, reluctantly, to begin work when it was suggested his very own retrovirus might be the cause of AIDS.  It was this hypothesis he began work on and in an apparent fluke or lab accident discovered 2 AIDS patients with HTLVI/II (I forget and am too lazy to look it up...) so for some time he assiduously pursued his work.  Gallo and his lab were having the same problems Montagnier and his lab, and virtually all early researchers had, the inability to keep a culture viable long enough to do anything with it.  Finally the Pasteur researchers tried a new, successful approach and then real work was done and progress swiftly made.    Gallo, however, was still stymied by the inability to maintain a "live" culture.  He accomplished nothing.  After the French had isolated HIV (which they called lymphadenopathy-associated virus, or LAV) as a professional courtesy they sent isolates to Gallo.  Some time later Gallo claimed to have discovered the cause of AIDS, which he called HTLV III, and said it was not the same virus the French had discovered.  Later DNA tests showed Gallo's virus was virtually identical to LAV and such a phenomenon is impossible -- it was exactly the same virus the French had sent Gallo.  He was reprimanded and given a slap on the wrist but later the most serious charge against him was dropped and he was allowed to claim "lab error"  caused the LAV sample to contaminate HTLV III isolates, or some crap like that.  I'm sure Tim Horn or newt or Rich would be able to explain everything more scientifically than I have, but it's pretty close to the truth.  Bob Gallo is, I repeat, a piece of shit.

Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 09:49:39 pm
Once more, no one lays blame solely at Raygun's feet but his position as the preeminent leader of the free world and prez of the best darn country in the world placed him in a truly unique position.  He fucked up big time with a PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS that a decent President would have addressed as the serious issue it was.

He did.

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

See:

"Eisenhower and Civil Rights movement."

"Hoover and Great Depression."

"FDR and Holocaust."

"Buchanan and South Carolina Secession."

"Clinton and Osama B."
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: edfu on April 13, 2007, 10:16:26 pm
I'm having fun.

Well, good for you.

I, for one, did not clutch Kleenexes; I grabbed at boxes of Kleenexes.  How dare you mock and ridicule the terror, despair, and hopelessness I and so many others experienced for over a decade.  Your cruelty is beyond disgusting.  Your youthful (adolescent) cynicism and black humor, which you continuously exhibit on this board so often, as now, are  completely inappropriate and vile.   As you oh, so wittily pointed out in another thread here, you were not even born when I was infected with a virus that no one knew even existed. 

Your ignorance is appalling.  Anyone who finds Robert Gallo to be "elusive" in the history of this epidemic does not know the history of this epidemic.  Anyone who does not know how scientists (the ones you so blithely blame) such as James Curran and Don  Francis at the national C.D.C. went begging for money for research from Ronald Reagan's government, beginning in 1982, does not know the history of this epidemic.  Anyone who suggests that condoms should have been used in the 1960s and 1970s is a complete naif. 

I do not attempt to change your opinions.  You are young and know it all.  I do try to have pity on you, and I do fear for you.  I sincerely hope your one act of virus-infecting "stupidity," when it was known how the virus was transmitted, does not cause you intolerable suffering.  You are extremely lucky to have been born when you were, you know, and to have come of sexual age when you did.  To ask you for a soupcon (I know a little French, too, mon ami) of human compassion and care would be fruitless at this stage of your psychological development.  Love or what you will....
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: bimazek on April 13, 2007, 10:17:34 pm
Not just reagan was and is a monster, bush jr. sr. but all republicans everywhere and ones back then and now,
it was all the republicans as a great ugly movement over the country, of greed, and profit at others expense, and tax cuts for themselves and corp. welfare for their giant corps., that have created the now

the lack of any kind of co-heirent health care system ... or even sane system...

Not just reagan  bush jr. sr. but all republicans everywhere, that helped him get elected, I know one gay republican who worked to get him into gov. office and what a disaster of a human he is, hiding and having only sex with marines cause he is so paranoid of disease, that he knows they are clean

it is the mindset of these self serving evil men, insiders, inside deals and trades, and lies...

denying others their sexuality

creating mortgage bubbles and housing bubbles that ignores the real housing needs of living human beings

the war like mania and paranoia that afflicts the republicans

always war profits always war

money for their uncreative cronies to make war

today i thought

yes the difference between iraq and vietnam is

the vietnamese were buddists and forgave and let go and moved on...
the iraqis are islamists and we have created an enemy that will be with us for 100 years

and

we could have cured aids and 5 other diseases with the money

but it had to go into cheneys friends pockets

into texas millionaire's pockets

today on a gay website i saw a cute young x-military guy with a picture with machine gun taken in iraq (this is a meeting site)

and in the work he listed

war profiteer

i am sure it feels like that

they paid $3 billion in bonuses to the troups

u should see the car lots in military towns full of new used cars

for them to buy

and these people will become the police of every city in usa

Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: DingoBoi on April 13, 2007, 10:19:50 pm
gawd bless teh USA
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 13, 2007, 10:45:20 pm
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. 
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 13, 2007, 10:49:57 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: whizzer on April 13, 2007, 11:05:38 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: bocker3 on April 13, 2007, 11:55:19 pm
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
Title: Re: Is ***Reagan*** and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS
Post by: Boo Radley on April 14, 2007, 06:14:50 am
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Central79 on April 14, 2007, 09:02:17 am
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.

Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 11:36:22 am
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.   
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: bear60 on April 14, 2007, 11:46:26 am
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 12:56:23 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: gerry on April 14, 2007, 12:59:29 pm
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
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 01:00:44 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: gerry on April 14, 2007, 01:14:54 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 01:22:52 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 14, 2007, 01:30:16 pm
I saw the movie.

It's infuriating.

You saw the movie and still didn't "get" the Gallo story?  Fascinating.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 01:33:03 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 14, 2007, 01:34:07 pm
If you say so
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Dachshund on April 14, 2007, 01:35:58 pm
They probably would've called it Gay Related Something Something... oh wait.

Never mind.


....or, gays are not allowed to be a Legionnaire....disease.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 01:38:23 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 14, 2007, 01:39:57 pm
Read the book grasshopper.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 01:45:14 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: gerry on April 14, 2007, 01:59:47 pm
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...
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 14, 2007, 02:02:53 pm
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?
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 02:05:31 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 02:06:13 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 14, 2007, 02:06:43 pm
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
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 02:07:47 pm
Kiss for me!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 14, 2007, 02:08:23 pm
damn flight attendants

Flying mattresses, all of them!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 02:10:48 pm
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!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 14, 2007, 02:13:27 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: way.out.west on April 14, 2007, 02:17:45 pm
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"?
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 14, 2007, 02:18:17 pm
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!
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Miss Philicia on April 14, 2007, 02:18:48 pm
Well, Gaetan was rather charming and cute in a perverse way in the movie.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: Dachshund on April 14, 2007, 02:20:33 pm
See Benj...and who said learning couldn't be fun? :-*
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 14, 2007, 02:22:40 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: gerry on April 14, 2007, 02:25:23 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: aupointillimite on April 14, 2007, 02:25:58 pm
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.   
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Dachshund on April 14, 2007, 02:26:05 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: milker on April 14, 2007, 04:37:23 pm
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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: bimazek on April 14, 2007, 06:03:28 pm
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



Title: Ronald Reagan responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler. This is fact.
Post by: bimazek 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.
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: izprince1984 on April 15, 2007, 11:50:33 pm
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).
Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemi
Post by: Boo Radley on April 16, 2007, 12:10:34 pm
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 ).



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Title: Re: Is Regan and the Rep. Congress Responsible for the state of the AIDS Epidemic
Post by: jimw on April 16, 2007, 02:22:03 pm
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.