The Epidemic Of Hiv / Aids

Throughout the Age of AIDS film many topics that were related to AIDS were brought up that I did not know anything about before. I did not know that there could so many strings attached to a disease and have such an influence in people’s lives whether it was negative or positive.

In the Radio Lab the Authors illustrates how HIV is spreading in United States and how the starting point begins as Patient Zero. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich along with Carl Zimmer and David Quammen discuss how in 1981 a mysterious syndrome it became in a pandemic among homosexual people in important cities such as Los Angeles Ney York and San Francisco. Young men were dying in inexplicable conditions that the CDC had to intervene with a several researches, surveys and studies about those cases. During the research noticed that one man were most related with more cases, this person was Gaetan Dugas, a Canadian young men, who travel to US. As he knew he was going to die, he stared to spread the disease for something he called a “gay cancer”.

The AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, consisted entirely of deaths, illnesses and most of all fear, changing the way society viewed gay men. Being that it was only happening to homosexuals and everyone became super homophobic and believed that the disease was a cause of being gay until it started happening to women too. This affected the entire medical metaphysics in society on what is considered safe methods of having sex and health precautions as well. Before the 1980s hit HIV was thought to originate form Kinshasa which is in Congo. In the 1920 HIV crossed between chimpanzees to humans on the Democratic Republic of humans.(Avert 1). AIDS is caused by HIV and is the last stage of HIV and can lead to death. It attacks every single

Carl Zimmer the guest speaker of this broadcast states that in 1981 doctors described for the first time a new disease, a new syndrome which affected mostly homosexual men. The young men in Los Angeles were dying and the number of cases was growing faster and faster. The number of deaths was increasing from eighty to six hundred and twenty five in just the first few months. After the first few cases in LA, AIDS was declared to be one of the deadliest pandemics the world had ever seen after the plague in the Middle Ages.

Mr. B has confided that he has been diagnosed with the HIV/AIDS virus. His diagnosis has caused both his physical and mental health to suffer. Mr. B has been engaging in sexual activity with several partners who were all unaware of his diagnosis, he has intentionally kept this from them and has no plans to inform them. He has chosen not to tell his partners about his HIV/AIDS status which means he is purposefully putting others at risk for contracting this disease. His reasons for not informing his sexual partners include the fact that he does not want to be treated differently by his family and friends, Mr. B 's concerns are understandable that he would want to keep his health information private however, Mr.

Before beginning to analyze the accuracy of the portrayal of the AIDS epidemic throughout Angels in America, the virus must first be looked at in its actual historical context. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is a collection of symptoms and complications due to a deficient immune system that is the result of HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The AIDS epidemic made its presence in the United States known on June 5, 1981 when five men were diagnosed with a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia, amongst other infections. The previously healthy, gay men were on the decline due to a compromised immune system. These cases were

When you are asked if AIDS is still a crisis in America “it does depend on who you are”, As stated by Sarah Schulman in the article “Is There Still an AIDS Crisis in the U.S? It Depends on Who You Are”. “If you are the type of person that is able to afford all of the treatments and are able to live a lifestyle of tolerating a lot of awful side effects”. If you are the type of person that can not afford all the of treatments, then you are in a crisis. The perception of AIDS as a “gay disease” limited the efforts to combats the disease. It limited the efforts because people did not want to do anything or engage with anything that had to do with the issue. And as stated in our text books, by 2000 AIDS had claimed almost 300,000 American lives.

In the 1980's the HIV/AIDS epidemic devastated many communities, growing panic over the incurable disease that many people were dying from. In the past, there wasn't a lot of information on how HIV/AIDS was contracted or spread, and thus the epidemic instilled much fear over fatal sexually transmitted diseases. In today’s times I fear that our communities have become distance from HIV/AIDS and other STDs because of large advancements in modern medicine the United States have been able to achieve. Americans don’t seem as worried as they once where about contracting devastating STDs and this is a luxury other areas of the world don’t have. I am aware that in sub-Saharan Africa there are millions of people who are living with HIV, and although more and more adults and children are reported to die each year from this devastating illness (nearly one million in Africa alone) the population grows still, estimating to grow into the millions by 2050( Population Reference Bureau, 2013). This Illness is so disheartening to hear about as it can even be passed down to the infected individual’s children.

Patient Zero was first diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma, a form of skin cancer common to AIDS victims, in June 1980 (The Appalling Saga of Patient Zero). The first recognition of AIDS came in 1981 with an outbreak in homosexual men in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Patients were suffering a breakdown in the body's natural defenses that often leads to fatal forms of cancer and lethal bouts of infections. Patient Zero had traveled extensively around the world getting sexual partners in every country he went to. When he was diagnosed, he was warned that he would be putting partners at risk if continuing to have sexual activity, but he still continued in the same pattern, which spread the disease directly and indirectly until he died in 1984.

During the time of the AIDS epidemic, the Reagan Era was in full effect. As of 1982, President Ronald Reagan had not used the term AIDS in public, while his press secretary made jokes of the deadly disease. It is not until 1985, that Reagan speaks of AIDS publically to which roughly approximately 6,000 people have died. However, it isn’t until 1987 and 20,000 deaths later that Reagan identifies the disease as “public enemy number one” (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2003). The political events sparked public controversy since the medical community had made very little advancements pending the increasing death toll. It was with the three documentaries The Age of AIDS, Reporter Zero, and the feature film And the Band Played On the medical struggle was revealed.

The Human evolution would not have been complete without science, life forms, cars, fantasy, skydiving or the niches microorganisms call home would still be a mystery, Infection and diseases would not be easy to diagnose, and research work will neither improve until man decided to take a stand and make a change. Where and how would a Disease with so much Power shut down our immune system and leave us like walking corpse, this kind of Disease was either sent down as a spell or from the hands of unclean people this would be questions that would basically cause a whole community to drink hot tea in the dead of the night from roots and shrubs to cure an infected person of a disease undiagnosed as Hiv but with fevers symptoms

HIV/AIDS is an ongoing epidemic in the United States. The African American population is greatly affected by this due to high risk behaviors such as, unprotected heterosexual contact, injection drug use, unprotected sexual contact, multiple sexual partners and fear of disclosing sexual orientation. There is a great need to provide effective HIV/AIDS prevention education materials to the population, in particular those in the African American population. Prevention education programs, based on curriculums that can be implemented to groups in, clinics, and other community settings have been found to be a promising form of intervention to reduce sexual risk behaviors. Although community based programs are the simplest and one of the most efficient routes in providing prevention education to the population, prevention efforts have been shown to be ineffective due to lack of appropriate resources and fear of disclosure.

HIV originated in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920, when HIV crossed species from chimpanzees to humans. HIV stands for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, if you are infected with HIV, your body will try to fight the infection with special molecules called “antibodies.” Being HIV-positive is not the same as having AIDS, stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: Acquired means you can get infected with it; Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body’s system that fights diseases; Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease. You don’t just “get” AIDS, you may be infected

He also goes on to describe that 19,000 patients of infected 57 different healthcare workers were tested following this incident, and none presented with the virus from medical treatment (Altman, 1993). If there is a need for regulations allowing a patient to know there is a possibility for HIV infection from treatment, it should be no more than a requirement for all informed consent forms to list the possibility that healthcare workers may be infected with HIV. It should also state that the risk is incredibly low.

The first cases of AIDS that were reported in the United States began in the early 1980s. Today, more than 1.1 million people are living with HIV. In response to this HIV epidemic, at least 35 states have implemented HIV-specific criminal laws that penalize HIV-positive people for exposing others to the virus. These laws impose criminal penalties to HIV positive people that knowingly and potentially expose others to the virus. The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, also known as the CARE Act, provides states with funds for AIDS treatment and care. In 1990, the CARE Act required every state to certify that its “criminal laws were adequate to prosecute any HIV-infected individual who knowingly exposed another person to HIV.” Criminal laws regarding potential HIV exposure vary largely from state to state. Some federal legislation addresses the criminal penalties for intentional exposure such as through blood donation. CDC and Department of Justice researches found that, “ by 2011, a total of 67 laws explicitly focused on persons living with HIV had been enacted in 33 states… In 24 states, laws require persons who are aware that they have HIV disclose their status to sexual partners and 14 states require disclosure to needle-sharing partners.” The criminal laws vary as to what behaviors are criminalized or result in additional penalties. The criminal statutes regarding intentional exposure to AIDS for Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama ,Georgia, and