Failure of public health policy blinded by religious resurgence at the time.
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How so?[/quote]
There is tons of info on the Reagan’s Administration’s inaction on AIDS from indifference to lack of funding, to deference to the religious right.
I didn’t know that, but apparently Diane Feinstein’s budget for AIDS as mayor of SF was larger the Federal budget for the same for the first 2 years of the epidemic.
With no cure and no vaccine, educating the public on how AIDS was transmitted, who was at risk, and how to protect oneself was the only way left to slow the spread of the disease. Since this task fell under the mandate of his office, Koop concluded that “if ever there was a disease made for a Surgeon General, it was AIDS.” Nevertheless, for the first four years in office, the nation’s top health officer was prevented from addressing the nation’s most urgent health crisis, for reasons he insisted were never fully clear to him but that were no doubt political.[/quote]
Let’s put this in context a bit here. AIDS wasn’t identified until 1981. At that time, the country was in the midst of double-digit inflation and on the verge of a recession with unemployment reaching double-digit. Then there was this little pesky thing called the USSR that we had to play a potentially deadly chess game with.
So it was some kind of a conspiracy that AIDS did not get more attention? Even though, it was merely just identified and little was known about it let alone a cure? How much attention or $$ should the gov’t pour into each and every newly identified disease for it to not to be demonized? Would you say the same thing wrt to the $$ and effort the gov’t putting into research for Ebola?
