AIDS

            AIDS .
             After watching the film "And The Band Played On," it changed the way I think about the AIDS virus. I used to think that AIDS was no big deal and that I could never get the virus. Then seeing how fast Aids was being spread and there was no way of stopping it was shocking. Contracting something that doesn't have a cure, is probably the worst thing that could happen to me.
             The gay community, I feel, started this whole thing. A good example, Gaetan Dugas, patient zero they call him, this man brought AIDS to the United States. Although he didn't know he had it, he did know about condoms. This man on average had about 250 gay partners a year. In just two months the cases of AIDS went from 80 to 160. That is only with 15 of the 50 states reporting. If the gay people of America wouldn't have so much unprotected sex, we might have been able to keep this under control. They spread this disease and managed to get in into the straight community.
             The medical community was trying very hard to find out how this was happening. At the rate people were spreading AIDS and dying from AIDS it was almost impossible. The CDC couldn't even name the disease AIDS until six years after the first known case, Because they simply didn't know what or why this was happening. The medical community was trying their hardest, but they just couldn't stop AIDS from getting spread.
             Politicians could have done a lot more then they did about AIDS. But because this started out as a gay thing, politicians were stating out of it. I really do not blame politicians, because all they knew was that aids had to do with gay people, and they don't like gays, and so did the rest of America. Once it got into the straight community then it became a big deal, and it was already too late. When president Regan first addressed AIDS, 25,000 people had already contracted and died from the disease.