Blog #5

According to the movie Aids, “many continue to think that the disease would only infect gay men, and HIV user’s but in late 1981 there was a report in a children’s hospital in San Francisco that discovered it in a baby.” This baby required a lot of blood transfusion and would show symptoms that were called the gay syndrome. After collecting the blood donors they found one man that had died of AIDS. So the disease had infected the baby through a donor, it was not only gay men and drug user’s at this point. The reason I bring this up is because in churches it was being preached that the people that were being infected with AIDS deserve it because they were disobeying God with their actions. This disgusted me! As republican and Christian, I could never think of blaming a person contracting HIV because of their action, which is complete judgment. I do not know their situation or how they even really got infected. I have to right to say that they “deserve to die.”
People were also saying the screening blood donors were being discriminatory, that was a huge public health disaster. This reminds of the QOTW we had about if we were in a foreign country and needed an immediate blood transfer to stay alive would you do it. Of course, I was hesitant about saying that I would take the transfer not knowing if the blood was safe but if it was my only choice I would. But to say that we do not have the right to know the condition of the blood given to us is absurd. It took 2 more years until a safe guard was put in, and it should have never took that long.
I also watched the movie “AIDS in America,” and was deeply touched and moved by this movie. I learned so much of the ignorance and stigma in the world towards HIV/AIDS patients. The one person I was shocked to learn had a huge impact in the AIDS community was Bono. When Senator Jesse Helms met Bono, he was moved. Bono spoke of a chapter in Matthew how Christ was there for those who needed him, and he said “I want to give you a blessing.” He respected what Bono was telling him, and he then changed his position and became an advocate for HIV funding. Bono’s foundation of beliefs were on God, and believed everyone deserved to be treated the same. He saw the AIDS epidemic as a great concern to the world that was being ignored and took it in his hands to educate the world.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know the extent to which our country and even our Presidents were in denial of HIV/AIDS prevention?
From the beginning, President Ronald Regan’s beliefs were cut taxes and reduces the size of government. “These will be our first priority and on these principles there will be no compromise.” Secretary of Health and Human Services, Margartet Heckler, was looking to the scientists to set her priorities on AIDS. CDC had been severely hurt by the budget cuts Ronald Regan had put in place. She did not believe that AIDS was problem money could solve, but only scientist. President Reagan was known for acting like AIDS was not even there. When he finally agreed to speak at American Foundation for AIDS Research, he knew very little about it. Parvin was chosen to write the speech and was shocked to see how disengaged he was on the subject. He decided that he needed to speak to the Surgeon General, to get informed on AIDS. He then started being counterproductive when he started talking about testing and denying entry to immigrants. This was his only speech on AIDS. This lack of knowledge hurt our country, because if U.S. citizens had been more aware they might have been able to prevent the astounding increase of cases.