Pres. Reagan and AIDS

I can't stand STUPID people!

In 1985 Reagan said, "It's been one of the top priorities with us, and OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS, and including what we have in the budget for '86, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that we have provided for research on AIDS in addition to what I'm sure other medical groups are doing."

He also remarked, "Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer."

Annual AIDS related funding was $44 million when he took office and was $1.6 billion in 1988, an increase of over 1000 percent.

And by the way, in 1981 AIDS was not yet identified and in fact was referred to as a "rare cancer" found in 41 (that's right FOURTY ONE!) gay men. Certainly not something for the President of the USA to be concerned about.
It was not until July of 1982 that the term AIDS was even PROPOSED to describe the illness. Various names for the illness included pneumocystis pneumonia and GRID. It was not until December of 1982 that the CDC defined what AIDS was. And it was not until 1984 that a probable cause for AIDS is related to the HIV virus. By the end of 1985 (you know, the year that Reagan first mentioned AIDS) only 15,000 Americans had acquired the illness.

FACTS; dey SHORE is a BEYOTCH!

Right, it would be better to have a president who talks about acting but never does than one who just acts.

What a foolish way of thinking you subscribe to.

I was born in the house my father built

Reagan acted like he was a great President when in fact he wasn't. I also hate hearing how he "was so respectful of the oval office that he always wore a suit when he was in that office". Lets get a few things straight here

1) Reagan was part of a generation that would always dress up for work and would wear a suit going out to dinner or a movie.
2) Has anybody ever seen a President in the oval office not wearing a suit?
3) Reagan was a homophobic jerk. He brought religion into politics and created a divided nation because of it.

Maybe those in power were expecting the self-inflicted AIDS victims to take notice.action of themselves.
_______________

It was a wake up call for the safe practice of gay sex; however, I would say much of the initial attitude and reaction towards AIDS—when it first appeared on the scene—was more to do with prejudice, ignorance and lack of empathy. When babies and "straight" people started getting infected, that is when the alarm bells rang the loudest.

Ronald Reagan was not responsible for the death of gay men.

Gay men who sucked other men's dicks and shoved their dicks into other men's asses are responsible for the death of gay men.

I was about ten when Rock Hudson died, and let me tell you, public awareness went from zero to sixty in one day. People just weren't talking about AIDS in the mainstream, only people in the gay community, doctors and journalists were trying to do something about it.

Arthur Ashe, Elisabeth Glaser and Ryan White caught it through blood transfusions, so mainstream USA just got panicky about blood banks, but they weren't thinking about a possible epidemic. They assumed those were just unlucky people.

I had a teacher when I was a sophomore in high school (in 1990) who developed AIDS, and while a few of us suspected that's what he had (sarcoma was everywhere, he had a cough, lost weight and missed a lot of class), most kids in the class bought his stories about the spots on his hands being acid burns (he taught chemistry). Everybody suspected he was gay before that, yet only a few of us put two and two together.

This was five years after Rock Hudson and the mainstream pop still didn't really know much about the disease. At that time, most people still thought you could catch it from drinking out of the same glass. They didn't know the difference between HIV and AIDS? One year later - when Magic Johnson announced he had HIV - that was the real game changer.

And these neocons can spin it all they like, but I vividly remember as preteen that I was super angry Ronny wouldn't address the AIDS issue or give funds. Bush was a little better, but only bc the situation had gotten out of control by then. Even hetero chicks like me were petrified they would get it in the early 90's and got tested every six months.

Obviously, the terror wasn't the same for straights as it was for gays, but the early 90's was also the age of heroin, so lots of straight male users were giving HIV to their girlfriends. I knew a girl who died that way. Lots grunge bands lost a member to IV drug caught AIDs. Hetero users catching snd spreading helped the disease reach critical mass, and that's sadly the most likely reason the government finally stepped in. When it was only gay men, nobody cared.

Okay, this is turning into a book, but I just wanted to say that as somebody who lived through Reagan's AIDS non-policy, this OP is really out of touch. He can spout numbers all he likes, but it was an absolute *beep* before Rock Hudson and especially Magic Johnson. I remember the desperation.

Thank God for Elizabeth Taylor spreading the word to the public. She was the best PR machine and wonderful at raising research funds.

"A group of people were dying and Reagan did not say anything. Those are the facts."

Yeah, MADE UP facts! Reagan spoke of the AIDS crisis NUMEROUS times during his two terms in office. I can PROVE it. Can you prove your assertion?

4 years of prosperity under Bush I? Why do you think he got thrown out? Talk about revisionism. And don't even think about blaming Perot for the loss. Clinton was trouncing Bush in the polls before Perot got in the race. If anything, Perot cost Clinton a landslide election.

And Bush II? He inherited a unemployment rate of 4.8% from Clinton and handed Obama an 8.7% unemployment rate that was still rising.

I remember about 3 year stretch under Bush 2 where gas rose to over $4.00 a gallon here. Insane. Now its close to $2.00. Bush was one of the worst things to happen to Americans in the last 30 years besides 9/11 and the mismanagement of Katrina. Both of which occurred under Bush 2's watch as well.

Why should I sympathize with those who can prevent(excluding those accidetally infected) their disease when there are diseases that cannot be prevented?

My goodness, the ignorance on this board is scary.
_____________

What I find scary and ignorant, is political beliefs playing a part in people's opinions and bias, when acting in the best interests of "humanity", is much more important; regardless of whether one leans right or left. This applies to the Reagan administration, as well.

Who was reponsible then mysweetcat? Candidate Obama? LMAO. After 8 years of trickle down BS and Republican deregulation and tax breaks, we had the 2008 economic collapse. Care to dispute these facts? Partisan hack moron.

At least there will be plenty implied.

Yes, Reagan comes off pretty bad here, as well he should. But nobody can call this a liberal bias because Ed Koch comes off even worse and he was a Democrat.

At least there will be plenty implied.

You are comparing pandemics of known diagnosed illnesses to something that was, at the time, completely unknown and was frequently referred to a "mystery cancer". AIDS (the term) did not even exist in Reagan's first years in office. And no, 6 to7 thousand deaths is NOT a large number. When compared to a population of 250 million you are talking about a tiny fraction of one percent.

"people would be taking notice"

Yet nobody really was. Oh yes, a small number of people, but AIDS was an unknown in the first few years of Reagan's presidency. The Pres. of the USA is supposed to address an illness that has affected less than .002 % of the US population, that has no agreed upon name (yet) and that 99.9% of the population is completely unaware of ?? REALLY? What you are doing is you are using hindsight to formulate your conclusion. You are concluding that because AIDS eventually became a "big thing" that Pres. Reagan should have addressed it earlier, even before it had a name.
Ridiculous.