AIDS in the United States

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Contents 1 History 1.1 Public perception 2 Current status 3 References 4 See also

History

In the early 1980s, doctors in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco began seeing young men with Kaposi's Sarcoma, a cancer usually associated with elderly men of Mediterranean ethnicity. Eventually these men died. These men were gay, or at least had sex with other men.

As the realization that men who had sex with men were dying of an otherwise rare cancer began to spread throughout the medical communities, the syndrome began to be called by the colloquialism "gay cancer." As medical scientists discovered that the syndrome included other manifestations, such as pneumocystis pneumonia, (PCP), a rare form of fungal pneumonia, its name was changed to "GRID," or Gay Related Immune Deficiency. This had an effect of boosting homophobia and adding stigma to homosexuality in the general public, particularly since it seemed that unprotected anal sex seemed to be the prevalent way of spreading the disease.

Within the medical community, it quickly became apparent that the disease was not specific to men who have sex with men (as blood transfusion patients, heroin users, heterosexual and bisexual women, and newborn babies became added to the list of afflicted), and the CDC renamed the syndrome AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) in 1982.

Public perception

A popular misconception holds that the disease was introduced by a gay flight attendant named Gaetan Dugas, referred to as "Patient Zero". However, subsequent research has revealed that there were cases of AIDS much earlier than initially known.

It has also been theorized that a series of inoculations against hepatitis that were performed in the gay community of San Francisco were tainted with HIV. Although there was a high correlation between recipients of that vaccination and initial cases of AIDS, this theory has never been proven.

One of the best-known works on the history of HIV is 1987's And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts. Shilts contends that Ronald Reagan's administration dragged its feet in dealing with the crisis due to homophobia, thus allowing the disease to spread and hundreds of thousands of people to needlessly die. This resulted in the formation of ACT-UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power by Larry Kramer.

Shilts also details the fact that the Red Cross refused to ban bisexual and gay men from donating blood at the request of the Centers for Disease Control early in the discovery of the epidemic to keep the blood bank industry from suffering shortages. Thus, tens of thousands of hemophiliacs and transfusion recipients were infected and died.

Activists and critics of current AIDS policies allege that another preventable impediment to the attack on the disease was the academic elitism of "celebrity" scientists. Robert Gallo, an American scientist who was one of many to try to attempt to figure out if there was some kind of new virus in the people who were affected with the disease, became embroiled in a legal battle with French scientist Luc Montagnier trying to do the same thing. Gallo, too, appeared hung up on the possible connection between the virus causing AIDS and HTLV, a retrovirus that he had worked with previously. Critics claim that because some scientists (and biological research companies) wanted glory and fame, this held up progress on research and more people needlessly died. Eventually, after meeting, the French scientists and Gallo agreed to "share" the discovery of HIV.

Publicity campaigns were started in attempts to counter the often vitriolic and homophobic perception of AIDS as a "gay plague." In particular this included the Ryan White case, the red ribbon campaigns, the celebrity dinners, the 1993 film version of And the Band Played On, sex education programs in schools, television advertisements, etc. Announcements by various celebrities that they had contracted AIDS (including actor Rock Hudson, basketball star Magic Johnson, and tennis player Arthur Ashe) were significant in making the general public aware of the dangers of the disease to people of all sexual orientations.

Current status

The CDC reports [1] that of all AIDS cases in 2003 in the United States,

• 48% were tracked back to male-to-male contact, (60% African-American men, 15% Caucasian men)
• 27% were tracked back to male-to-female contact and intravenous drug use,
• 7% were tracked back to male-to-male contact and intravenous drug use,
• 16% tracked back to male-to-female contact, and
• 2% were tracked back to other causes, including hemophilia, blood transfusion, perinatal, and risk not reported or not identified.

As of 2005 HIV cases in the United States are disproportionately high among the African American community, according to the CDC. A recently released report stated that 52% of new cases involved African-Americans while according to the 2000 Census they make-up about 12% of the general population. African-American men are four times more likely to be infected with HIV during male-male contact compared to their Caucasian counterparts, of the 48% of new cases traced back to such contact 60% occurred between African-Americans, whereas Caucasians accounted for 15% (CDC). [2] Black women account for 72% of the female cases in the United States regardless of infection method, while white women make up 18% and Hispanic women 8.5%.[3] President George W. Bush asked Congress for increased spending on HIV education focusing on the African American community during his 2005 State of the Union address:

"African-Americans make up 54% of annual new infections, though they are just 13% of the population. African Americans account for two-thirds of new AIDS cases among teens, but are only 15% of the national teen population."

A recent study (Bogart and Thorburn 2005) by the RAND Corporation and Oregon State University reported that half of African-Americans in the United States believe AIDS was man-made, more than one-quarter said they believed AIDS was produced in a government laboratory and 12% believed it was created and spread by the CIA.

References

Laura Bogart and Sheryl Thorburn, "Are HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Beliefs a Barrier to HIV Prevention Among African Americans?", Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, 38(2):213-218, February 1, 2005.

See also

• Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation
• People With AIDS Self-Empowerment Movement

fr:Sida aux États-Unis d'Amérique