Why was aids called a gay disease
Three years before the AIDS epidemic swept the nation in 1981, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus opened its doors. We couldn't imagine how much the crisis of AIDS in 1980s would modify our community and we could not have predicted how many people would turn to the Chorus for refuge and a sense of community.
Let’s seize a look back at the AIDS epidemic history over the past 40 years and how it affected not only our Chorus and our collective, but our entire society.
The Beginning of the 1980s AIDS Crisis
There is no clear explanation for the cause of HIV. The first recorded case was in 1959 in a Congolese man's blood sample. While he was HIV positive, the exact details of whether he developed and died of AIDS are unknown.
Decades later when the 1980s AIDS crisis started, there was only one understanding of HIV/AIDS: it only affected new gay men. These men soon developed uncommon opportunistic infections that previously only affected individuals with compromised immune systems and uncommon forms of cancer.
As a result, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) formed a Task Force in the summer of 1981 to address KS/OI (Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections).&
Looking Back: The AIDS Epidemic
12/15/2018
The emergence of AIDS advocacy helped bring attention to multiple systems of injustice
by Ashley Latham, SF LGBT Center intern
The AIDS epidemic in San Francisco began in the 1980s with the first documented case occurring in 1981. The disease was found in gay men living in major metropolitan areas, such as San Francisco. During the initial discovery of AIDS, it was commonly referred to as GRID (Gay-Related Autoimmune Disease), which worked to create prior and everlasting associations between homosexuality and AIDS. Once researchers realized the disease was not gay-specific, GRID became known as AIDS.
“From the start of the epidemic, those most affected by HIV/AIDS were among the most stigmatized populations in American society: same-sex attracted men, injection drug users, and immigrants. The association of the disease with marginalized groups hindered the development of prevention and treatment strategies.” (Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism)
Individuals with AIDS not only struggled to find medical care and treatments, but also endured the menacing effects of socialized stigma surrounding the disease. Enduring and ultimately surviving
When AIDS Was a Cancer
On July 3, 1981, a now-famous New York Times article carried the headline, “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” The article described the sudden appearance, in male lover men from Novel York and Los Angeles, of a rare skin cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS). Previously, this cancer had been known to alter primarily elderly men of Mediterranean and Jewish descent, who might live for many years with the disease. Now, it was occurring in otherwise juvenile, healthy men with deadly consequences. This was the first announcement, in the mainstream press, of what would develop the AIDS epidemic.
Often appearing as vivid purple spots, KS lesions were one of the main symptoms for which the affected individuals sought help from doctors. About 50% of AIDS patients in 1981 had KS as their presenting symptom. Doctors, having few other options at their disposal, often treated their new cancer patients with chemotherapy.
It would not be long before AIDS shed its link to cancer, as opportunistic infections eclipsed KS as the major sign of the condition, and as scientists began to understand both as resulting from a mysteriously crippled immune system. But this early connectio
History of AIDS
The HIV Check Arrives
In 1984, researchers finally identified the cause of AIDS—the HIV virus—and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed the first commercial blood test for HIV in 1985.
Today, numerous tests can detect HIV, most of which function by detecting HIV antibodies. The tests can be done on blood, saliva, or urine, though the blood tests detect HIV sooner after exposure due to higher levels of antibodies.
In 1985, actor Rock Hudson became the first high-profile fatality from AIDS. In fear of HIV making it into blood banks, the FDA also enacted regulations that prohibit gay men from donating blood. The FDA would revise its rules in 2015 to allow male lover men to give blood if they’ve been celibate for a year, though blood banks routinely evaluate blood for HIV.
By the end of 1985, there were more than 20,000 reported cases of AIDS, with at least one case in every region of the world.
AZT is Developed
In 1987, the first antiretroviral medication for HIV, azidothymidine (AZT), became available.
Numerous other medications for HIV are now available, and are typically used together in what’s known as antiretroviral therapy (ART) or highly active antire
40 years of HIV discovery: the first cases of a mysterious disease in the early 1980s
Since the year of its discovery, HIV has spread from Africa to North America and then to Europe. The first cases were reported in the United States in men who hold sex with men. The following cases concerned transfused patients, hemophiliacs and drug addicts, demonstrating the strong involvement of the blood way in the transmission of the virus. The disease only appeared in Asia around 1986-1987, first in Thailand, then in other Southeast Asian countries.
It should be noted that contrary to famous belief, the most important mode of transmission worldwide occurs between heterosexuals. It is estimated that nearly 38 million people are currently infected worldwide.
“AIDS is a late phase of HIV infection,” clarifies Asier Sáez-Cirión, head of the Viral Reservoirs and Immune Control Unit at the Institut Pasteur. “We really need to snap down this straight HIV/AIDS association because it represents an obstacle to the eradication of HIV infection. This is our daily struggle.” Indeed, a person who has AIDS is necessarily a carrier of HIV, but a person who is a carrier of HIV does not necessarily h