Clark McPheeters May 6, 2009

Brief AIDS Timeline, 1980 to 1985 Questions I Asked How I Answered My Questions What Did I Learn, or really, What Is My Argument? How My Work is Significant Conclusions 2

December 23, 1980 – the first of many gay men to die of AIDS, Rick Wellikoff, passes away in New York July 28, 1981 – the federal government is alerted to the growing epidemic of Pneumocystis pneumonia, now known to be a common secondary infection of AIDS, by a CDC worker named Sandra Ford July 27, 1982 – the acronym AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is coined, replacing misnomers such as “gay cancer” June 14, 1983 – Department of Health and Human Services declares AIDS its “number-one health priority” May 4, 1984 – the HIV virus is first linked to AIDS October 2, 1985 – actor Rock Hudson dies of AIDS AIDS finally becomes a household name to the American public 3

What were the major causes of the AIDS epidemic? How did gay men, the federal government, and the media deal with the beginning of the AIDS crisis? How did patients feel about their situation? What misconceptions were common regarding AIDS? Was Gaetan Dugas actually Patient Zero as Randy Shilts, the author of And the Band Played On, claims? How was the federal government alerted of the growing problem? Did the federal government react appropriately? 4

Were there external factors and/or internal mindsets that slowed the federal government’s response to AIDS? Was the number of AIDS cases just too small by 1982 for the federal government to have taken notice of the epidemic? How/why did media attention differ between AIDS and toxic shock syndrome or Legionnaire’s disease? 5

Plenty of interesting reading Journal articles Books Poems Government reports, fact sheets, and publications 6

The major causes of the AIDS epidemic were: The recalcitrance of gays in their newfound sexual freedom The news media’s lack of interest in “homosexual stories” The federal government’s sluggish and halfhearted funding for AIDS research Promiscuous sex in bathhouses created prime conditions for the spread of STDs, including the HIV virus Average of 2.7 sexual contacts per night (Shilts 19) One in three chance of contracting gonorrhea or syphilis from an asymptomatic person (Shilts 19) “Serial offenders” were common (Shilts 19) 7

The subjective side of the story is as important as the objective side: June to November of 1981: 788 AIDS cases in thirty-three states were reported (Shilts 200) July 1965 to October 1978: 670 cases of Legionnaire’s disease were documented (William H. Forge 616) In 1982, almost 4X more research funding was spent per Legionnaire’s case than per AIDS case (Shilts 186) we need the living alive to bucket Ronnie’s House with abattoirs of blood / hand in hand lesions across America need to trainwreck the whole show till someone listens (Monette 40) 8

The misnomer “gay cancer,” coined before the acronym AIDS, caused two detrimental effects: Gay men with the disease thought that it wasn’t contagious The media and the American public thought it was just a homosexual disease/issue Gaetan Dugas was not Patient Zero: A man living in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1959 (Zhu 594) 9

Good intentions led to disaster “Don’t offend the gays and don’t inflame the homophobes.” (Shilts 69) CDC MMWR title change (Shilts 68-69): Submitted: Pneumocystis pneumonia in homosexual men – Los Angeles (emphasis added) Published: Pneumocystis pneumonia – Los Angeles 10

Media attention given to AIDS was anemic compared to toxic shock and Legionnaire’s disease The New York Times printed only two stories on AIDS before December 1981 (Shilts 110) Time and Newsweek finally ran their first major stories the same month (Shilts 110) Editors did not want stories about gays and their distasteful sexual habits tarnishing their newspapers (Shilts 110) 11

Most authors focus only on objective material or only on subjective material when writing about AIDS and other diseases I sought to draw the two halves of the story together and allow one side to explain/frame/accentuate the other Comparisons are often made between Legionnaire’s disease and AIDS, but only in passing I dug into this comparison to see if it had any merit The answer is “Yes, it does.” 12

The dynamics of the early AIDS epidemic cannot be pinned on a single group (gay men, the media, or the federal government) A synergistic effect occurred between these groups: Most gay men were not talking about AIDS to the media Even when the media heard about AIDS, they were not telling the story When senators and representatives heard about AIDS, they would not appropriate money for research Investigating the spread of AIDS from gay men to heterosexuals, particularly injectable drug users and women, would be an interesting next step 13

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