What if the World Treated AIDS Like Swine Flu?

As of 6 p.m. GMT on May 4, 2009 the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed 1,085 cases of swine flu in 21 countries worldwide with 26 confirmed deaths, and reports seem to show the illness is leveling off. For now at least.

By the end of 1981, just 7 months after the first press report mentioning a rare disease in gay men, at least 121 people died from what would become known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

Just days after the swine flu outbreak was confirmed, the entire world knew of this new disease that jumped from pigs to humans, by statements from the leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, WHO and President Barack Obama.

Six years after the first reports of AIDS, President Ronald Reagan finally publicly said the word AIDS and acknowledged it was an issue. By that time, nearly 21,000 people had died from the disease, while a total of 50,000 people in 113 countries lived with AIDS.

Today, more than 25 million people have died and, according to conservative estimates, 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS around the world, many of whom do not have access to the life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.

What would've come of AIDS had our president talked about it and sounded alarms in early 1981 instead of ignoring a disease that presumably only affected gay men? It's possible that AIDS could have been contained. But because it was "nature's revenge on gay men," according to Reagan's then communication's director Pat Buchanan, it was swept under the rug and silenced.

The world is reacting to the news of swine flu and paying attention. It's no different than when seven people in the Chicago area died in 1982 from taking cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol and Johnson & Johnson, which produced the pain reliever, recalled an estimated 31 million bottles. This happened one week after the first death. Imagine if authorities hadn't made the connection how many more people may have died?

When authorities made the connection that gay men and intravenous drug users contracted and died from this strange disease, conservatism and "religious moral values" played a large role in our national politics and they didn't care that "deviants" were dying. The Rev. Jerry Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals."

Would anyone have paid attention to swine flu if only an "undesireable subgroup" was getting sick? I would hope so. Today, we have a government in place that shows compassion for all Americans (and presumably all human life), at least where health is concerned. It's a sad legacy that Reagan left behind regarding AIDS. Millions of people might have be spared if he had acted, instead of remaining silent while his hatred for a group of his citizens lay suffering and dying.

(Image courtesy of Getty)

Comments

[nutloaf]

Yes, HIV/AIDS would still exist. Swine Flu is not a genetically-engineered virus and was not introduced into the population via mass "vaccinations" or "hepatitis B testing," as was carried out on unwitting subjects and volunteers in Africa and the US comprising "expendable" demographics.

[zarxo]

The knowledge of reverse transcriptase has brought huge benefits to the scientific community, such as recombinant DNA, the understanding of non-linear activity of our RNA, and the ability to "drop genes" into our cells: paradigms will change when an anomoly sinks to biology's core and disrupts it, just becuase, "it can." :)

Read Thomas Kuhn and you will no why progress has been pebble-like. New history wipes out old paradigms, which then erases "the greats" from the history books and scientific journals--figuratively speaking. The word for today is supplant, a common fear among Ph.D.s Science men and women have the biggest egoes of mankind. They withhold data from the public becuase they consider it esoteric--sounds familiar?--like religion. They think that you are not smart enough to "understand." But yet, they are not strong enough "to let it go."

Public policy? Why dosn't the governmnet open-up scientific journals to the public, as they should be.

[oldkingtroll]

The world changes. Much of what we know about viruses -- including swine flu -- is because of work on seeking to stem the spread of HIV and to treat AIDS. The basic science in treating HIV/AIDS led to the creation of Tamiflu which, surprise, is one the new defenses against the swine flu.

We can play "what if." But remember that the world was also slow in responding to previous outbreaks of fly pandemics. What is more, even today, preventable and treatable illnesses are allowed to flourish because governments ignore and companies exploit poverty.

[butterflyboy1974]

This is an interesting question. Asking this question tends to make us think of the injustice that Reagan did in ignoring a 'gay disease', but really the two diseases are so different that I don't think any comparison is fair. First of all we didnt know what AIDS was for the longest time, we know alot about influenza. Secondly, HIV take many years before it makes us sick - who knows how many people were infected before we even knew anything was wrong? The only thing I think is fair to compare here is the gay community & the WHO/CDC in having a swift response through education and action. Granted, government should have been more involved with the AIDS pandemic instead of the people taking the most initial initiative.

[Thinker Not Complainer]

AIDS/HIV *WAS* treated like the H1N1 (which if gay.com was up to date would know WHO and CDC does not call it swine flu now).

When HIV first came out, it was on the news as much as it could be, given the limited number of media channels at the time. There wasn't the internet back in the day to have HIV popping up on the screen.

But, this is just another gay.com example of complain, and not find solutions

[LonerAZ]

Arguing about who or what is responsible for a disease is pointless given that a cure is not here. The reality for those that live with HIV is that we have to remain focused on the here and now and how what we do today may or may not directly effect our health tomorrow. We will leave the arguments about causes to those that have the time for such trivialities.

For me it will remain how do I spend the remainder of my life? Living? Loving? Condemning? Prosecuting?

I've come to realize that life gives you a choice. You can laugh or you can cry. For me I'd much rather spend it laughing and loving...

[randy]

Imagine if those infected with AIDS/HIV behaved as those with swine flu are encouraged to: avoid all occassions that might lead to the infection of others.

The gay community could have and can stop the spread of the disease within the community any time it wishes. It is a 100% avoidable disease.

Being a rapidly mutating virus like the ones that cause influenza and the cold it is not likely to ever be erradicated - but it is the easiest of such ones to end. The gay community just doesn't have the desire or the will to end it. Pity.

[Survivor]

Life saving drugs? I've been + for 25 years and never needed any meds. My friends that decided to take AZT and DDI 3TC back when we all tested are now dead. But I guess no one wants to hear my example. What we need is to fight the hatred poured out by governments and religious groups that squeeze the life out of us. Their apathy is what kills us. Now they want to innoculate everyone with a new vaccine in the fall, esp. those who are HIV+. I won't do it. I've learned not to trust the establishment after Reagan. What evidence is there to suggest things are any different? Do we have a cure yet? NO.

[Jay]

Technically it could have worked, but quarantining all those with possible contact would have been a little difficult in the mid-80s. Plus the growth of the disease was so rapid that 100% eradication would have been pretty much impossible, as we are seeing with swine flu today.

[jesseinohio]

AIDS Ia Very Much Like Swine Flu! And if the federal government Can find somethang that works so fast They can Fine A cure for AIDS Just as Fast I thank the government still tends to thak that AIDS is the Gay Mans disease!!!

[ROCKWOOD]

I don't usually comment on such debatable subjects. However, I think there are a few things to consider.

Swine Flu a.k.a. H1N1 is something that the CDC has had exerpience with before.

I lived in S.F. during the early 80's. At the time when gay men started showing up with symptoms it was called carpose sarcoma (the gay mans cancer). Admittedly this would have been the answer to many right wingers to the extermination of gays.

A more detailed timeline can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_origin

Of course we didn't have such internet resources back then.

Because of the way it was spread, I don't think quarantining people would of worked. The incubation period is hard to predict, and what about those who don't test positive with Western Blot, yet really are positive?

I'm not sure I would of wanted to be quarantined if I'd of gotten it, as look at what many places are doing, killing all pigs and bores as they are doing because of H1N1. Also as we are well aware many Middle Eastern countries, outright kill gay men.

Although we don't have a cure yet, there have been vast amounts of research into the prolonging of life with those afflicted.

It was by the grace of God, that I didn't acquire it during the 80's and 90's.

Do I believe that the government was slow in responding? No, not really. I think it took time for the U.S. to figure out what was going on, and to realize that if they let this 'Gay Plague' continue, that it would eventually spread to the 'Straight' community, which it has anyway.

Okay, that's my input.

Have a great week!

[CharlietheUnicorn]

Maybe AIDS would have been such a problem if, instead of scapegoating Presidents and/or seeing them as imperial gods, people had taken responsibility for their own behavior, and maybe at the same time reexamining their own morals that so often rendered them a casualty? Not too late to fix that.

[michaelsjewel]

the difference between HIV and swine flu as that swine flu actually shows symptoms....by the time anyone knew anything about HIV it was way too late to do anything about it. You have the dumb people that have it going around doing people BB... of course it's gonna spread still.

[Edgar]

Swine flew is different from HIV. HIV cannot live for long outside the body, it does not transmit back and forth and mutate between species. you can't adulterate money with it. There are only a few very specific ways that it can be transmitted. It is not airborne or surface born. You can't get it from shaking hands. The flu you can, although you still have to have introduce it internally. You can't get HIV by sneezing on a plane. HIV should have been a much much easier epidemic to alleviate. The problem is that in the most infectious stages of the disease there are no symptoms, and the virus is transmitted by one or our basest and intimate needs and activities. Look at the rate of unplanned pregnancy. It should be easy to control, only one thing causes it. But it's even more prevalent than HIV, and it's been going on for millennium

[delvona]

Here's an idea: how about if in 1982 or 1983, when it was common knowledge that anal sex was the number one way gay men were infecting each other, the gay press announced that anal sex was just too risky? How about if gay owners of the bath houses and sex clubs voluntarily closed to contain the spread of AIDS? How about if the gay bar owners in the early 80s would have all launched huge education programs to teach gay men about abstaining from risky behaviour such as anal sex?
The problem I really have with this article is how it deflects any responsibility for spreading AIDS away from gay men. What I am saying is this: AIDS could have died a miserable death, at least in the gay community, in 1982 or 1983 if gay men would have simply stopped having anal sex. But this is out of the question for gay men, right? It is our birthright....and yet this birthright is what has been our demise. And to add insult to injury, gay men immediately started having sex like rabbits as soon as the anti-retroviral drugs came out in the mid-90s.....how all those who died in the early days of the AIDS pandemic must be turning in their graves knowing that each year in the United States alone, there are an estimated 55,000 new HIV infections, and the majority are amongst gay men. WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR GENTLEMEN!

[delvona]

A better topic for this article would be: What if PlanetOut, which also owns the fabled Advocate, actually started running articles in the Advocate which point out how gay men's current behavior, which includes rampant unsafe sex, and a huge rise in the number of partners, is what is responsible for the majority of the 55,000 new HIV infections each year in the United States? How about printing an article in the Advocate which says this spread of HIV amongst gay men is thanks to sites like Planetout's very own gay.com, and others like it such as adam4adam.com and men4sexnow.com. How about running articles which use current CDC data which shows that the current syphilis epidemic amongst gay men in major cities such as New York and San Francisco is taking place thanks to HIV positive men hooking up with multiple partners on a daily basis? Because, hey why should they care, they already are positive, so go on a hookup spree and continue spreading HIV amongst the rest of gay men. The unsafe sex taking place amongst gay men since the anti-retrovirals came out around 1996, that is the real epidemic and the real news story, not this crap which gay.com / planetout just pulled out of its rear end. This is the real problem with the gay community at this time: we refuse to take responsibility for our own actions and start acting responsibly, which would entail practicing safe sex and cutting way back on the number of sex partners.

[delvona]

you fucking pussies at planetout are the real criminals in the gay community for blocking any discussion of how your refusal to run any articles in the Advocate discussing the rampant unsafe sex epidemic is the real problem and real news....I hope you enjoy deleting this post as much as you did my last one you fucking assholes

[Dave]

I think the reason the public is 'more concerned' with the H1N1 virus is because you can pick it up like any old flu (coughing, sneezing, touching door handles exc.) While AIDS you obtain through sex. The fact that it spreads so easily, and that they don't know too much about it, concerns people. Another factor I believe is that some people believe that you can only get AIDS if you are a homosexual - so many aren't as concerned.

[Miss Utah 1833]

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is 99.9% preventable.

Lifestyle choices continue to fuel incidence rates.

Swine flu is airborne, and therefore cannot be compared to HIV.

[josh]

Are you serious????? It is articles like these that make me wonder if there is any journalistic integrity left. I mean seriously, do you really think that the world should put forth the same efforts against AIDS as swine flu. I mean lets just look at the numbers. Since 1981 when AIDS showed up we have 2.1 million deaths associated with HIV worldwide. Most of which have occurred in subsaharan Africa over the space of 20 years. Throw in the fact pointed out by many of the people above that AIDS is highly preventable just by practicing safe sex. We are not even saying no anal sex, just use a condom at least.

Yet when you look at Swine flu which has the potential to become a pandemic I am just grateful they did something. The last worldwide pandemic called the Spanish Flu killed 50 million people in 6 months. And to really make it worse influenza can't be stopped by a condom, the only way to stop it is to shut down schools, libraries, offices and quarantine people to their homes to prevent spread through the air.

Lets face HIV is already disproportionately funded. More money is spent on it then cancer research, diabetes research, and influenza research. Yes we are making advances, yes were are lengthening infected people's live spans. But lets face it for us here in America we have an even better solution. It's called safe sex. Why is it that we feel like the government is responsible to remove consequence from risky behavior. How about we just start using our brains instead.

[Ray]

Sure - let's treat HIV+ people just like those infected with H1N1 virus. Let's quarantine them, restrict them to their homes. Why not put ankle bracelets on them to track their movements? Why stop there? Since HIV cannot be rid from the body, the virus will be present in that person forever. Let's go ahead and tattoo or fire-brand a "bio hazard" emblem on their forehead! Yeah, that'll work. (Obviously I'm being facetious. HIV and H1N1 cannot be compared - the symptoms, long-term prognosis, avoidability, and treatment potential are so dissimilar, any comparison is impossible.)

[Ray]

The "gay community" has it within itself to reign in HIV transmission? PUHLEEEEASE! Such a point of view presumes that HIV is solely an issue for gay and lesbians. It is NOT! HIV is not homophobic, nor heterophobic. It is an equal opportunity killer. Additionally - the notion of some ability to make some grand social or medical breakthrough based on the notion of "gay community" is an absolute JOKE. There is no more of some monolithic "gay community" than there is some "straight community", "blond community", or "left-handed gay blond community". HIV is a 100% preventable disease of the HUMAN community.

[Ari]

Josh: First, more than 25 million people have died -- but some reports say an estimated 32 Million people have died worldwide -- not 2.1; not sure where you're getting your facts. And more than 2 million people died in 2006 alone. Read this article from the LA Times: http://www.aegis.com/news/lt/2008/LT080707.html

Second, yes, the spread of HIV is preventable but unfortunately not everyone a) has the access to the information about the disease or b) knows they're infected ... plus there are many cultures where HIV/AIDS is taboo and people won't discuss it or take care of the people who are infected.

The point of my article wasn't to compare the illnesses themselves or how they're spread, but rather to point out how quickly current governments and worldwide health organizations mobilized and got the word out about how dangerous Swine Flu could be. The point is that in the early '80s when people were dying and no one initially knew how HIV was transmitted, our government turned a blind eye to helping caution the public about this mysterious disease because they thought it could only affect and infect gay men and IV drug users -- two "subgroups" the government deemed undesirable and therefore disposable.

And how dare you question my journalistic integrity when you can't get the simple fact straight on how many people have died. I have done my research on AIDS. A simple Google search would show you how many have died. Yes it's preventable but people still need to be educated. Today there is a lot more that's being done than in the beginning but it wasn't until AIDS "crossed over" into the straight world that people really started to care.

[Ray]

"And how dare you question my journalistic integrity when you can't get the simple fact straight on how many people have died." Now I know it's gay.com - the poof of feather boas in a Knots Landing dramabomb explosion gives it away. If you're going to write an article, you're putting yourself out there for all kinds of criticism - positive and negative. If you can't take the heat - call for delivery.

[daft_86]

as long as there are guys having unprotected sex, there will be AIDS. it's a shame the disease wasn't much more fast acting like ebola to wipe the infected out.

[Corey]

Perhaps if Obama had been President in '81 instead of that pig Ronald Reagan, things might have been different. Guess we'll never know...

[delvona]

Perhaps if publications like the Advocate, which is owned and operated by Planetout (owner of gay.com) would have run articles in the early 80s telling gay men to stop having unsafe sex or having anal sex all together, this virus could have been halted....this is a serious issue that the gay press refuses to even discuss the fact that the real culprit behind the spread of AIDS in the gay community is due to one thing: the refusal of gay men to act responsibly and stop having risky sex such as anal sex. It is also due to the fact that gay men refuse to even wear rubbers nowadays. Three things need to be discussed in dubious publications such as the Advocate: gay men having unsafe sex; gay men doing drugs such as meth and having unsafe sex; gay men who are HIV positive who are having more partners than gay men who are negative; how the internet and sites such as Planetout's gay.com are helping spread AIDS by aiding the hookup scene....this article your are running right now discussing AIDS alongside swine flu is an insult to all of those who died in the beginning of the AIDS pandemic who had no idea there was anything such as AIDS. What is really sick and downright criminal are HIV positive men who are out there fucking like rabbits at this time, with not a care in the world how many other people they infect. At the end of the day, as soon as someone finds out he is HIV positive he should just take himself out of the dating pool to stop the further spread of AIDS. But telling someone who his HIV positive to do this is like telling a straight person to stop breathing....It is shameful, sociopathic behavior on the part of gay men that they do not care one bit how many other people are infected. And BTW I am a gay man and I think the way the gay community is defending HIV positive men's current risky behavior is shameful! Oh and want to know why gay.com/news and the Advocate will not print anything even remotely critical of how HIV positive men are behaving: money. Planetout is afraid of offending the gay hiv positive community by pointing out how sociopathic spreading AIDS is today. So, welcome to the gay press!

[Alabaas]

Wow "nutloaf" i like the way you think

[delvona]

What this article leaves out is how the gay community would have reacted if someone uttered the word "quarantine" and meant it in 1981. Gay men would have been marching in the streets for the right to continue having risky sex such as anal sex and thus spreading AIDS amongst themselves....And fast forward to 2009, and we have syphilis and HIV rates off the charts in major cities thanks to gay HIV positive men humping like rabbits....and 55,000 new cases of HIV each year in the U.S. alone, and the majority amongst gay men. The reason why AIDS still even exists amongst gay men is they simply refuse to take responsibility for their reckless behavior.

[Anthony]

Ok.. here it goes?

Assuming HIV/AIDs was discovered now... what would you suggest ppl/governments do?

Do you isolate them? are they bad ppl? Is it their fault for contracting it?
Would you isolate them? and would that be morally ethical?

[ck]

Ridiculous to even compare the two.
Swine Flu can be transmitted thru CASUAL CONTACT... HIV CANNOT.

Come up with something to discuss that is worthwhile.

With Swine Flu a person may not even know they are exposing themselves, with hiv the person KNOWS!

Geez.. lol

[san jose tom]

just a thought. Some gay men and others refuse to use a condom for some unkown reason. what if every person that tested poz was given a tatto on thier arm saying thier poz at the time of the test results?

[anthony]

you're assuming that HIV/AIDs is contracted primarily by gay men and primarily through un-protected sex. There are many many many other ways in which someone could contract the virus, of any gender/sexuality.

Even within the confines of unprotected gay sex... what about rape? should they get ridiculed, tattoo-ed and branded?

And with the whole tattoo idea... why would we put a label? whereas there is already the problem of placing those who disclose their positive status into a certain "group," actually putting a physical label could open an entire categorization that goes for more hostile than sexism, racism, etc.

[Adam]

I see that I'm not the only one with enough balls to say it, so I'm just going to concur...

HIV is a whole hell of a lot harder to transmit than Swine Flu, and in this day and age we know enough about it to protect ourselves. It's not that difficult either... Stop fucking around, and if you choose to fuck around, play safe!

What the government did to gay men over a quarter of a century ago was a crime and a sin, but what a lot of gay men do to themselves today is a hell of a lot worse...

[delvona]

Anthony, you asked "Is it their fault for contracting it?" in reference to men who are HIV positive. Here is the answer: yes, in this day and age with all that is known about how it is transmitted (99 percent of gay men contract it by being a bottom), there is no excuse. The truth is that gay men are being reckless and having unprotected sex (getting barebacked) at the very same time they are hooking up with multiple partners. Either way, it is 100 percent their fault they became HIV positive! Unless someone is held down and raped by someone who is HIV positive (which is exceptionally rare), it is due to reckless behavior. Let me say this again to be clear, except for those who got HIV/AIDS in the early days of the epidemic before anybody knew what was going on, all the rest of the gay men who became HIV positive (except for rape) were a result of reckless behavior, and they have nobody else to blame but themselves. The sad thing is that these very same men (HIV positive), instead of taking themselves out of the dating pool, are going in the opposite direction and hooking up like there is no tomorrow and spreading the virus like wildfire. This is the reality of our lives at this time. I am gay and am simply appalled by this. I lived though the 80s and 90s and saw so many people who contracted the virus when nobody knew what it was or how it was being transmitted drop like flies; the local gay newspapers read and looked like obituaries front to back. And people wonder why I am furious at the current attitude that prevails amongst gay men: that HIV positive men are to be treated like everyone else and to be allowed the freedom to have random unabandoned sex, and gawd forbid anyone asks them their HIV status or tells them to keep their peckers in their pants to stop the further spread of the AIDS virus. The time to end this pandemic, at least amongst gay men, has come and gone for so many of us. It had become passe in many groups to even speak of safe sex. I even heard one gay man say recently "oh AIDS is so 80s/90s". I was drop jawed by this attitude. And older gay men such as myself (I am late 40s)to be hooking up like crazy right now, they should be acting as mentors, not co-conspirators in the apparent quest to spread the HIV virus to every gay man on the planet. GET SOME INTEGRITY GUYS! PRACTICE SAFE SEX! ALSO, ANAL SEX EXTREMELY RISKY BEHAVIOR EVEN WITH A CONDOM! THERE ARE A LOT OF OTHER WAYS TO EXPRESS YOURSELF SEXUALLY THAT ARE SOOO MUCH SAFER!

[wallace]

this story is complete bullshit ! what a hunk of shit man ! The world knew of aids, the quilts and all, and peoplel still want to fool around. Don't put the blame on anyone but the carriers. They seem to be the ones who don't give a shit and keep on spreading it. Don't even go there with me ok??? How disgusting for you to even write this article ! Total bullshit and you know it. The gays were the only ones who could have contained it, but they seem to love to fool around too much with no care for anyone but themselves ok??? YOu know that's the truth and so does everyone else. You are in delusional land !

[wallace]

I remember the 1980's and especially the late 70's. men were total whores. I remember it well. I also remember comenting on how someday there will be a diseas among these people and that there shall be no cure. I remember that well. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Sad, but preventable, but cocks seem to have more control then the brain!

[delvona]

I came out in 1983, quite possibly the worst year for any gay man to come out: right at the apex of how the AIDS pandemic started. I still to this day do not know how I avoided becoming HIV positive that year. It really was not until early 1984 that people started to realize, at least in the Midwest where I was living at the time, that we needed to wear condoms. And I did and have ever since, and always will unless there is an actual cure. What is disturbing most of all to me right now is how gay men saw the advent of the anti-retroviral drugs which came onto the scene around 1996, as the equivalent of a cure. This is tragic, because these drugs are NOT a cure; they are simply tricking the virus and keeping it at bay. And whether you call it HIV Disease (the NEW name for AIDS) or call it AIDS, at the end of the day, it is still just as deadly as it was in 1981. I really disagree also with the language being used today, even amongst health care professionals. Calling AIDS something less deadly sounding like HIV Disease is a complete and utter mistake. If you have the HIV virus in your system, you have a compromised immune system; this is why you are on the anti-retrovirals! So, just call this thing what it is: AIDS: Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome. But we can't? Why is that? Answer: Because it will hurt the feelings of the HIV positive men who are humping like rabbits because they simply have HIV Disease, NOT AIDS! Am I the only one who sees how illogical calling AIDS something else is? Could we be doing anything more inexplicably backwards than making a deadly virus sound flowery?

[Anthony]

I have to disagree.... lets set something straight.

Even if all gay men in our society who was HIV+... somehow wasn't anymore... HIV/AIDs would still exist. Why? Because the virus extends FAR BEYOND this scope of demography.

Also, there are other factors: such as IV users, etc.

And of course, you do not know that you are positive the minute you contract it. which further spreads around... not to mention that MANY MANY people do not get tested (even if they said they did it... prolly last week).

so this touches on increase sexual education awareness.

Also, lets not even dive into the whole class issue when it comes to health services and the awareness of those.

Simply put, we can't just go around stamping ppl... nevermind the fact that not everyone that's hiv+ KNOWS that they are HIV positive. Through which, they may engage in activity that will leave other ppl at risk... which may or may not be their fault.

Oh.. and this whole "everyone who engages in un-protected sex" should all go rot in the depths of whatever... the numbers of ppl who have engaged in unprotected sex AT LEAST ONCE... i bet you those numbers would be enormous.

so this whole issue of trying to somehow put a hold... i'm not sure if there is a solution. there may be better programs and etc... which may lower rates of infection. but i'm not sure there will be a 100% solution unless its a cure.

[Mario561]

some of us, gay men, believed that the discovery of a "gay disease" was a mean of homosexual repression by the Silent Minority and refused to believe that after the successful gay liberation movement of the mid-seventies which led to the dismissal of "homosexuality" from the Annals of Psychiatry as a mental illness we would be silenced again. We, gay men, continued our fight to keep the word "illness" separated from "homosexuality" We were the young idealists of College communities throughout the United States. The sudden and unexplained dismissal of gay men from the US Armed Forces in large numbers, was alarming. And when the "stop fucking" logo came out after the publication of "Faggots" we were alarmed by the activism of some NYC radicals. Little did we know. The politics of The Village were suspect, at best, as we failed in trusting one another. With the rise of the Log Cabin we failed to recognize what was then emerging as a deadly infection in the gay communities. I myself failed to reconcile our silence in academia while praising the achievements of so many other gay men. With so many friends dead from the disease, and many others fighting for their lives and as an active vibrant man of the "educated" gay community is Madison, WI in the early 90's, I failed to recognize my own vulnerability to the disease eventually to contract it in '93.

The question I dare ask is: how is it possible that in 2009 someone, anyone, can graduate from High School without having heard the words HIV or ADIS spoken in a well informed, well taught classroom? Imagine a child going through pre-K to 12th grade in a Catholic school, Evangelical school or even Public School! He can't even step into a gay bar until 21, for crying outloud!

Just the other day, I was looking through a man's fashion magazine geared to the 30something where not even an ad from AmFar, or any of the other AIDS mega-foundations or big Pharma regarding HIV/AIDS was to be seen!

Are we putting our money where our mouths are? Literally.

[JoggerNautSD]

We complained about Reagan back in the 80s. We knew then that his silence and the administration's hate for gay men was killing more people than if they would have talked about it and put money into research. But would AIDS still exist? Absolutely. It's not like Swine Flu or many other diseases because we can't cure it yet. And, unlike flu, we don't develop immunity to it. Once the cat's out of the bag, it's out. But if Reagan would have reacted to this like we are reacting to Swine Flu, it probably would have been an overcompensation - putting gay men into concentration camps to "stop the plague." Be careful what you wish for. Thankfully, we have a new government in place now.

[alvinchipmonk]

I vividly remember the horrible repressive "you fags got what you deserved" Reagan/Bush 80s....and I lived through the whole thing thinking that we, gay men, were pretty much on our own...we had nobody on the federal level who cared if we all died from AIDS or not....and it was then and there I swore I would never get AIDS and always played safe and I still do to this day.....so what happened that gay men forgot this? It is as if gay men just got tired of wearing rubbers and threw caution to the wind. All the gay men who died in the early 80s must be turning in their graves. With that said, I think the contention that if Reagan or Bush had taken the AIDS pandemic more seriously it would not have spread is bogus for several reasons. First of all, I think that gay men, who are oversexed to begin with, would have not listened to anybody who told them to stop having sex, from mainstream society anyway. Maybe if the gay press or organizations such as ACTUP had said something more it would have sunk in. But by and large, it was really gay men's refusal to stop risky behavior such as anal sex which perpetrated the continued spread of AIDS. Substance abuse, meth in particular, has really been a bad thing in terms of lowering gay men's inhibitions and judgement. And the internet has opened a door to hooking up in the manner of how we used to order a pizza from Dominos. In other words, the internet has spawned a huge venue for gay men to run ads on sites like craigslist and have several partners each night. And the anti-retrovirals making everybody look healthy, even though they are carrying a potential lethal, deadly virus....not a good situation where oversexed gay men are concerned....I am sorry, I hate to toot my own horn, but people such as myself kept from becoming HIV positive by simple perseverance and keeping our perspective in the 80s and 90s and continue to do so today. It is a matter of self-control. It is not the government's fault, under any president, that a lot of gay men are behaving badly.

[Arthur Graves]

Maybe but the HIV Virus is a tuff genoe to crake. And with the way young gays are playing these day we could use a boost in fighting it.

[O Please]

Quarantine works. If liberally minded people had supported quarantine, millions would not have lost their lives.

This disease was turned into a civil rights issue and subsequently spread over the whole world. The same people who opposed containing this disease now look at the deaths and blame a U.S. president. It's a ridiculous argument from foolish people.

[randy]

I am totally confused. What exactly was Reagan supposed to do to end the disease? He didn't cause it, did he? He didn't dump into the community, did he? Stop whining that some demigod, some deus ex machina didn't float down and end the plague. WTF is the messiah, uhm, Obama supposed to do about it? Since when can he heal - and the totalitarian alternative isn't appealing, is it? But, of course, we can't be personally responsible in this day and age, can we?

What I remember from the Reagan years was the same info as now - and every year and administration in between: stop having unprotected sex. This advice wasn't anti-gay but honestly stating the only way known then and now on how not to spread the disease.

Yes, it can be transmitted through other fluid to fluid methods such as IVs, tattoo needles, IV drug needle-sharers, etc, and those transmission methods have been diligently confronted and most areas are in decline. But the unprotected sex advocates must too. Always.

Again, it could have been and can be eradicated in the gay community if behavior changes. Period.

[MACK_THE_KNIFE]

So you would like to have AIDS treated like the swine flu? Creating panic and daily news stories and alert? Maybe Reagan should have made some sort of public annoucement warning us all of "the gay flu" (the CDC has requested that we call call it the Aids Virus so as not to cause any panic in the Gay Community or the nation abroad) Stay away from gays! You'll catch the gay flu! Even though you can't get swine flu from eating pork, the swine flu caused pork prices to drop. So you want all the same panic with Aids as with the swine flu.... Maybe parents would keep their kids home from school so they don't come in contact with gays and get "the gay flu" SEE HOW RE-DICK-U-LUS THIS WHOLE PREMIS IS? It's just an excuse to bash Reagan.