Hiv And Aids Essay

One of the big factors early on is that no one wanted to be associated with AIDS due to the fact that it was considered a homosexual man’s disease. There was a lot of fear, denial and anger surrounding this disease. In 1981at the CDC Dr. Guinan asks that a report about an epidemic with gay men had broken out and he wanted it published in the medical journal. The fear of the word “homosexual” was marked off and not used for that article. It took a long time for the realization that this disease could affect everyone from homosexual males, IV drug users, blood transfusion patients, women and even babies. Even though it was initially considered the disease came from gay men and their sexual practices it crossed all borders as time went on. Still today there is some prejudice regarding AIDS. (Spelling, Vincent &

Fears and misconceptions regarding AIDS began when only the homosexual community contracted it. Therefore, people started to believe that only the homosexuals would get the AIDS and blamed them for the cause of the disease. The public was not in fear until some people who were not homosexuals contracted the disease. It was at this time, that the public’s attitude shifted into the fear that anyone was able to have AIDS; it was a sexually transmitted disease. Many were also deceived by the government’s actions. For example, one woman in the movie began to become sick after a blood transfusion. She always thought that it was due to surgical problems, but actually she had contracted AIDS and the doctors knew but didn’t do anything about it. This also caused panic because, even though the government knew AIDS was spreading around they did not do anything about it.

Semen containing white blood cells infected with HIV comes into contact with tissue in the rectum and vagina. The virus can then enter the bloodstream of the host through perforations in the tissue surface. The risk of this happening is greatest in anal intercourse, either between two men or a man and a woman.” HIV is spread through a direct exchange of blood or blood products. This mode of transmission is most frequent among IV drug users who share injection needles. It includes, as well, hemophiliacs and other persons who receive blood transfusions, and fetuses of mothers who carry the AIDS virus.” AIDS has sparked considerable interest and controversy since the start of the epidemic. However, in trying to identify where AIDS originated, there is a danger that people may try and use the debate to attribute blame for the disease to particular groups of individuals or certain lifestyles. When the AIDS epidemic became offical in June 1981, it was widely considered exclusively a "gay disease” and this was because many people were confused and uneducated about this new, foreign disease that faced and ravaged our society as a whole. There is no doubt that many people coming from all walks of life were subject to discrimination when other people discovered that they were suffering as victims taken by the disease. The cultural and social response to AIDS portrayed in the film Philadelphia (1993) covered all of these aspects and was

Human Immunodeficiency Virus is HIV that develops into AIDS, which is Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. This virus starts to break down white blood cells, as a result the immune system starts to deteriorate and our greatest shield cannot fight any longer (Mayo Clinic, 2016). The CDC (2015) states, that over 1.2 million people live with HIV in the United States and most who are infected are oblivious of their disease. Healthy people 2020 has declared HIV a public health crisis in the United States, and continues to sweep the nation with more than 500,000 new cases each year (HealthyPeople2020,2016).

Though incurable, there is medication that can be used to help an infected person live a relatively normal life, but the medication is extremely expansive. Thus the number one prevention method is education. The United States government’s response to the entire disease in a medical, social and economic way were consider major failures as millions were left to suffer without support. Unlike today, where one can search the Internet to learn about their disease and how to handle it, back in 1980’s and 1990’s people were being infected and given no guidance from the government on how to handle it. This caused great fear in Americans and many misconceptions about the disease started to develop. People were unaware that the disease could only transfer through the contact of bodily fluids so people with AIDS were socially exiled out of fear that they might infect others. Thus this disease affected the gay community that was already stigmatized by society more than any other single demographic of people.

media had labeled it as a gay disease. Based upon the statistics compiled by the Center for

Shilts was equally angry at the Reagan administration, which preached moral clichés while withholding desperately needed funds for medical research; the radical gay community which refused to acknowledge its own responsibility for the sexually immoral behavior that helped spread the disease like wildfire, and those in the medical community who played grandstanding politics and plain old-fashioned spite while patients were dying all around them. And then of course there was the media, which treated this puzzling, terrifying new disease -- which for two years after its discovery didn 't even have a name -- as something the "general public" didn 't have to be concerned about, until heterosexual men and women began to be infected.

HIV and AIDS information is very sensitive because of the potential stigmas that are attached to having one of these conditions. One stigma would be how the person contracted the disease because some people would make the assumption that they contracted it through sexual intercourse or by sharing needles, when in reality they could have contracted the condition from their mother during childbirth. Another stigma would be that only drug users or gay men contract the condition even though this a myth, it is still a stigma. For many people who have HIV or AIDS worry constantly about people knowing and fear of being discriminated because they have this condition. It is not like people want to walk around wearing a label saying,” Hey, look at me, I have HIV”. Anyone is at risk of contracting HIV or AIDS, especially if they have a high-risk behavior. Thankfully the confidentiality of HIV and AIDS

In the 1980s, a mysterious disease began to take the lives of Americans. With the cause unknown, a fear grew among Americans. An unusually high rate of people was becoming sick with strange and rare diseases. When experimental treatments failed to work, people died. This mysterious disease is what we now know as HIV–Human Immunodeficiency Virus. In the past thirty-five years, the HIV has taken many turns in history. Although we do not hear about HIV and AIDS now, it is still a prevalent issue in the United States and in the world.

The majority of these men were gay or bisexual. Later they noticed people with hemophilia, who needed frequent blood transfusions, and people who were intravenous drug users contracting the disease (Zuger). The disease that the doctors were noticing was HIV/AIDS and it is now a pandemic, having killed 25 million worldwide since 1981. AIDS is the acquired immune deficiency syndrome caused by HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. The virus is spread through bodily fluids and it damages the immune system. The damaged immune system opens the body up to opportunistic infections that otherwise wouldn't pose a problem. HIV becomes AIDS if the immune system breaks down enough. Currently there is no cure for AIDS however certain drugs can help keep HIV from developing into AIDS. Additional medications can combat the opportunistic infections

AIDS was a widespread epidemic that ran rampant in America during the 1980’s. Without any prior knowledge of the condition, how it was spread, and certainly no

In June of 1981 the CDC reported an occurrence of PCP which is known as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in homosexual males in California (The AIDS Epidemic 1981-1987, 1981). Back in the 80s there was very little known detail in about AIDS. There was controversy in the movie of who should get credit for the finding of AIDS either Dr. Robert Gallo or Dr. Gottlieb. This was an ethical implication that was ongoing throughout the movie. Don Francis who was part of the CDC wanted to help find what exactly this unknown contagion was that was killing so many others. Another ethical implication was when the gay society was treated as if they were the cause of the AIDS epidemic. AIDS did occur in most the gay society but when women and children started contracting the disease the CDC linked it back to the blood banks. The blood bank executive fried back and

HIV and AIDS have affected millions of people throughout the world. Since 1981, there have been 25 million deaths due to AIDS involving men, women, and children. Presently there are 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS around the world and two million die each year from AIDS related illnesses. The Center for Disease Control estimates that one-third of the one million Americans living with HIV are not aware that they have it. The earliest known case of HIV was in 1959. It was discovered in a blood sample from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Looking further into the genetics of this blood sample researchers suggested that it had originated from a virus going back to the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. In 1999,

HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. A member of a group of viruses called retroviruses, HIV infects human cells and uses the energy and nutrients provided by those cells to grow and reproduce. AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is a disease in which the body's immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off certain infections, known as "opportunistic infections," and other illnesses that take advantage of a weakened immune system. When a person is infected with HIV, the virus enters the body and lives and multiplies primarily in the white blood cells. These are the immune cells that normally protect us from disease.

HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus which damages and kills cells of the immune system. It attacks the T-cells, key cells of the immune system, and uses them to make copies of itself. After being infected with the virus it progressively interferes and eventually destroys the immune system's ability to fight the anti-genes. HIV may develop into the syndrome AIDS, the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. HIV is an STD - a sexually transmitted disease - and therefore most commonly it is spread through sexual contact, and the virus mainly enters the body through the penis, mouth, lining of the vagina or vulva during sexual activity. HIV can also be spread through sharing syringes or needles with someone who is infected with the