AIDS During The 1980s

In the 1980s, the words “AIDS” and “HIV” were not on the radar for most of American society. The words were just something people might occasionally hear when someone passed away, but these the deaths almost never occurred close to home. America would quickly become confronted with the threat of AIDS as a very serious health epidemic. If one were to ask someone during the 1980s their thoughts, they might reply with a vague response that AIDS was just a marginal disease affecting a remote section of the world. Discovery of AIDS was not the biggest news that happened in America, for they saw it more as an outside threat that they would not believe that AIDS to spread into the United States. AIDS was the new disease that one would need to be aware
Research showed that the virus was first found in a type of chimpanzee in West Africa. It has been found that humans first contracted this virus when they hunted the animal for food. The first appearance occurred in in a blood sample from a man living in the Dominican Republic of Congo.. This drastic spread was the cause of sex trade within Africa. Once in America, many patients , in the areas of New York and California, were going into the hospital and an abundance of doctors had no answers for the unexpected disease. They saw many infections that “would not be seen in healthy adults” (Quammen). The disease became aware to the public in 1981. There were many names for the disease mostly relating to the word gay, but it wasn't till 1982 that scientists saw the virus spreading in haemophiliacs and heroin users. Finally, the disease was named
Once AIDS was first discovered, many homosexuals, or if they seemed homosexual, lost their jobs. Many were evicted of their homes or apartments. Because so many feared the new disease. Funeral homes “refused to handle bodies…” of those who had died of AIDS. AIDS brought the spotlight to the homosexual community and “probably advanced gay rights more than anything else in history.” The homosexual community raised up for their right when AIDS was pointed to them as their fault. Many people stood up for what they believed in for the rights of all humans. The discrimination toward the homosexuals was not only in america, but around the world. At least 76 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean “have anti-homosexual laws”(Picard). Not only did this give the community right, but those with diseases and with disabilities