Nancy Reagan's Shameful Legacy

Not The Guardian · Mar 10, 2016

Shared, of course, with her husband - their willful ignorance has the blood of hundreds of thousands of gay men and IV drug users on their hands.

...But the Reagans also played a critical role in the HIV/AIDS crisis that ravaged the United States in the 1980s.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, originated in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920, according to Avert, a charity on the forefront of AIDS activism and treatment since the disease began to spread in the 1980s. While only 121 deaths from AIDS were reported in 1981, the number of cases skyrocketed to 100,000 in the U.S. by 1989.

Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is the virus that leads to AIDS. Today, people with HIV can live long and relatively healthy lives without ever progressing to an AIDS diagnosis if they adhere to a strict cocktail of medications, but in the '80s when no one really understood what was happening, HIV inevitably turned to AIDS, causing many deaths. That's why the Reagans' refusal to address the issue in a timely manner is often seen as the scarlet letter on their otherwise lauded time in office the administrations inaction, mainly due to the fact that most affected by the disease at the time were part of the LGBTQ community, led to many deaths, and so much suffering.

Though the World Health Organization was holding meetings about AIDS by 1983, the White House offered little support for awareness of the epidemic. Reagan, who first took office in 1981, didnt publicly address AIDS until well into his second term. According to ABC, more than 20,000 Americans had died from the disease by the time he first spoke about it.
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Nancy Reagan's Shameful Legacy

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