Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
nytimes.com
Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
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Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#2This is the first New York Times article reporting on what would later be known as the AIDS epidemic.
Edit: Here's the takeaway quote, in my opinion: "Cancer is not believed to be contagious, but conditions that might precipitate it, such as particular viruses or environmental factors, might account for an outbreak among a single group."
Edit2: "Dr. Curran said there was no apparent danger to nonhomosexuals from contagion.'"
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#3Wow, this is back when it was called GRID.
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#4I'm currently reading And The Band Played On which is a detailed account of the rise of the AIDS epidemic and how it was ignored and mishandled back in the 80s. Definitely check it out if this subject interests you.
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#5I'm currently reading And The Band Played On which is a detailed account of the rise of the AIDS epidemic and how it was ignored and mishandled back in the 80s. Definitely check it out if this subject interests you.
Curious: if we call t_0 1981, the Kaposi's Sarcoma article, and t_x 1996, the advent of HAART, and consider (t_x - t_0) "the AIDS epidemic" --- ignoring the ongoing epidemics in Sub-Saharan African and India, which are enormous problems but somewhat orthogonal to the problem described by your book --- what comparably lethal disease in human history was more effectively addressed by the medical establishment? How can we quantify the mishandling of AIDS in the 1980s?
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#6In the movie Forrest Gump, there is a scene taking place in the late 70s or early 80s where Jenny is explaining to Forrest that she is ill and the doctors do not know what it is. She dies a few years later. It is never stated explicitly, but the idea is that she was suffering from AIDS, which she contacted during her years as a promiscuous drug addict groupie.
In my opinion it is one of the most powerful scenes in the movie, in the sense that it does an amazing job with taking the viewer back to that time period where AIDS was a mystery disease.
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#7An article like this makes you wonder how many different diseases (answer - over 200) get lumped together under the large "cancer" umbrella.
One wonders if we are doing ourselves a disservice maintaining a term more inline with shared symptoms instead of separating the diseases into shared causes.
At any rate I'm digressing, but cancer is a fascinating (while horrible) concept that exists in our reality. When you think about it, it is probably more responsible for what we are today than any other force on the planet, in evolutionary terms.
As for AIDS: The fact that it was a "gay disease" hampered everything about our response to it. I'd like to think that we would be much more in tune with emerging health threats these days, but somehow I doubt it. I really hope we have HIV licked in a few years though, because Africa really, really needs a vaccine before it can do anything else really.
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#8I recommend the movie How To Survive a Plague, which also shows the beginnings of AIDS in New York. Must have been a frightening time.
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#9I'm currently reading And The Band Played On which is a detailed account of the rise of the AIDS epidemic and how it was ignored and mishandled back in the 80s. Definitely check it out if this subject interests you.
Curious: if we call t_0 1981, the Kaposi's Sarcoma article, and t_x 1996, the advent of HAART, and consider (t_x - t_0) "the AIDS epidemic" --- ignoring the ongoing epidemics in Sub-Saharan African and India, which are enormous problems but somewhat orthogonal to the problem described by your book --- what comparably lethal disease in human history was more effectively addressed by the medical establishment? How can…
It's not a direct comparison, but consider the handling of Ebola, where due to simple epidemiological interventions spread has basically been localized and stopped and no outbreak has killed more than 1000 people. Or consider the regular emergence of new flu strains which are far more contagious and are quickly and effectively contained. Though that comparison isn't great because we have a lot of knowledge when it comes to dealing with the flu.
My impression is (and I have not studied this) the failure in the HIV epidemic (pandemic?) wasn't a failure to develop drugs, it was a failure to perform basic epidemiological interventions to learn about and slow the progress of the disease.
Re: Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)
#10Similar to early diagnoses of Cystic Fibrosis, where the focus was on symptoms and less on the underlying cause. With CF, it's an issue of NaCl passing through cells, resulting in thick mucus which damages lungs, pancreas, etc. The first cases observed cysts and fibrotic tissues on the pancreas, hence, "Cystic Fibrosis". As there weren't digestive enzymes supplements then to augment the damaged pancreas, patients died of malnutrition. It wasn't until those treatments developed that the lung conditions developed in older patients, which is what CF is known for now. By then, however, the name Cystic Fibrosis had stuck.