Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
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Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#2[deleted]
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#3I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you.
He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to accept the bodies of gay men. When people knew they were at the end of the rope, they would ask their friends to throw their ashes over the fence into the white house lawn. That way as their final act, they could tell the government that their active silence was literally killing people and that even if they considered them others, they wouldn't be ignored.
It's heartbreaking, but I'd recommend anyone to listen to the interview if you don't know much about that period in history.
[1] https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/shame-on-you/e/66787240
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#4I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…
The white house lawn comment sounds powerful. But I don't see any evidence it actually happened. Right?
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#5I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…
The white house lawn comment sounds powerful. But I don't see any evidence it actually happened. Right?
Looking closer I found this [1] which is the guy the interviewee was speaking about. It looks like it was his ashes, not literally his corpse. I think it was referred to as his body in the podcast which is where I got it from, but I'm assuming that was in the sense of "what remains of his body". I'll update my post.
It looks like the white house lawn is home to the remains of at least 18 gay men that died from AIDS.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdqv34/why-the-ashes-of-a...
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#6I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…
The white house lawn comment sounds powerful. But I don't see any evidence it actually happened. Right?
I followed the AIDS crisis in the newspaper from Day One, starting with one-inch long columns about "mysterious purple lesions called Kaposi's sarcoma" to shrines with hundreds of photos occupying whole sections.
The similarity with corona in 2020 is that so little was known, but for years, not months. The difference was that AIDS was 100% fatal until drugs were developed, and AIDS killed a generation of young adults rather than older people.
(There were interviews with a handful of men who were immune to the AIDS virus, but had to endure all of their friends and partners dying, and had to deal with inheriting a lot of possessions that reminded them of dead people.)
Almost all hemophiliacs in North America used pooled blood products from thousands of donors, so just about all of them died. (There's a Canadian film on Youtube that covers this.)
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#7I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…
The Regan administration had two options. The first was to spend billions of dollars hoping to find a cure while certain behaviors continued to spread the virus. (what these activists wanted) The second option was to reduce the occurrence of those behaviors, namely intravenous recreational drug use, and unprotected sex with large numbers of sexual partners, which is particularly widespread among homosexual males.
The war on drugs had some horrible consequences, but in this case it was a positive. Even the very liberal New York City government shut down gay bathhouses to reduce the amount of unprotected sex and had some success in reducing infection rates.
Telling people to stop a selfish and destructive behavior is not demonizing them or ignoring their problems.
EDIT: This was meant to be a reply to djaque.
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#8I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…
The Regan administration had two options. The first was to spend billions of dollars hoping to find a cure while certain behaviors continued to spread the virus. (what these activists wanted) The second option was to reduce the occurrence of those behaviors, namely intravenous recreational drug use, and unprotected sex with large numbers of sexual partners, which is particularly widespread among homosexual males. The…
> The Regan administration had two options.
Por que no los dos?
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Regan administration had two options. The first was to spend billions of dollars hoping to find a cure while certain behaviors continued to spread the virus. (what these activists wanted) The second option was to reduce the occurrence of those behaviors, namely intravenous recreational drug use, and unprotected sex with large numbers of sexual partners, which is particularly widespread among homosexual males. The…
> The Regan administration had two options. Por que no los dos?
He did do both. From wikipedia:
>"It's been one of the top priorities with us, and over the last 4 years, and including what we have in the budget for '86, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that we have provided for research on AIDS in addition to what I'm sure other medical groups are doing." He also remarked, "Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer." Annual AIDS related funding was $44 million in 1983, 2 years after he took office, and was $1.6 billion in 1988, an increase of over 3,600 percent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_policy_of_the_Ronald_...
Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966
#10I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…
The Regan administration had two options. The first was to spend billions of dollars hoping to find a cure while certain behaviors continued to spread the virus. (what these activists wanted) The second option was to reduce the occurrence of those behaviors, namely intravenous recreational drug use, and unprotected sex with large numbers of sexual partners, which is particularly widespread among homosexual males. The…
They did not see the problem as a black and white problem with two active solutions. They took a third option: they did nothing until public opinion had shifted and Rock Hudson, Reagan's personal friend, died of the disease.
They. did. nothing.