Anyone else who was around back in 1980 during the first AIDS crisis having deja vu now

[hedgehog]

that the topic of the day is Ebola?

I'll grant you that Ebola is a faster killer, and is lightly easier to catch than HIV/AIDS, but the fear mongering is still awfully familiar.

[sailfla]

1. thats exactly right..way overhyped

[cbayer]

32. You think the AIDS crisis was overhyped?

Or did you forget the sarcasm tag?

[yellowcanine]

48. Early on, yes it was. There was talk of people getting AIDS just from being in the same room,

using the same bathroom, mosquitoes carrying AIDS, etc. There are in fact some similarities to the current Ebola crisis.

[cbayer]

50. Sorry, but I totally disagree with this.

No one knew what was causing the disease or how it could be transmitted. People were dying and dying in a really horrible way.

The fears about transmission might have been really off target, but it wasn't overhyped. If anything, there wasn't nearly enough attention being given to it.

[uppityperson]

51. It was attention the wrong way. Gays, drug injectors, Haitians were the targets.

There was a horrible "joke" back then about the worst thing about htlv was trying to persuade your mother you were haitian. And those are also the reason there was not enough research and attention because it was sinful drug abusers who made their beds and needed to lie in them, them sinful gays and who cares about haitians anyway? So why bother do more than the basics once you figured out who those 3 groups were? (infuriating and awful, horrible)

Even among my friends, there was outright bigotry, lies, treating people nastily because of the "gay-disease".

And that is also why there was not enough research or attention.

It was the combination of fear mongering towards those 3 groups with lack of caring for those 3 groups.

I see similar here, blockade W Africa, and fear attacks and bigotry, more bigotry, toward people with dark skin who "may have come from or in contact with" WAfrica or someone with ebola or just because it makes a handy excuse to be able to act out bigotries.

[cbayer]

52. That happened later.

I am talking about the very early years when there was really no good information of the vector or the mode of transmission.

I was in the thick of it in NYC.

You are correct, there were less resources and public policy initiatives because of the groups who were getting sick. This is another thing that makes it very different than ebola.

While this may result in some increase in bigotry towards some groups, that is about the only thing I can see in common.

[Number23]

75. Your posts on this topic have been excellent. And I really appreciate them

[Mojorabbit]

76. I was a young nurse

we were flooded with sick young men and they died. It was awful. It took a while before they figured out what it was. Meanwhile some staff did not want to care for them, housekeeping did not want to clean their rooms, and some doctors refused to consult on the cases.

I am on the fence about this outbreak of ebola. It seems to be more easily transmitted. I am hoping the best people are testing specimens to see if there are any significant mutations and I hope they are fast tracing a vaccine. I know what the staffing is in hospitals and how hard it is to maintain perfect ppe technique throughout a shift. I am in a wait and see mode.

[uppityperson]

77. I did something stupid unthinkingly as a youngish nurse back when universal precautions

were just starting to become, well, universal. I stepped into a patient's room one evening to find their iv disconnected and blood dripping down their arm onto the floor. Without thinking, I hooked the iv back to the catheter, then looked at the pt and thought "oh crap" as they were in for observation, unknown sickness. I quickly excuses myself, washed WELL, called my supervisor, went to the ER to start Hep C vaccine and make the appointments for hiv testing at varied times in the future.

It was the last time I ignored gloving.

It was so easy to do, without thinking. Now, years later, I hesitate before picking up a kleenex with blood on it from the floor of my bathroom, realizing I was the one who dropped it there, but still makes me pause. Gloves in my car, my purse, my bathroom and of course my pockets at work.

Mistakes happen. To err is human.

Researching over the last month about ebola has been good for me, helping me understand this awful and fascinating disease, learning what to be cautious and afraid of, what to not be afraid of. It may very well be something tiny that destroys a lot of us. Tiny in microscopic and/or stupid error.

[Mojorabbit]

82. I also worked well before universal precautions were the norm

I cared for a huge amount of HIV patients before anyone knew what was causing the illness and without gloves or precautions of any kind except good handwashing.
I see today that nurses are saying they are unprepared to handle an influx of ebola patients.

U.S. Nurses Say They Are Unprepared To Handle Ebola Patients
snip
Nurses argue that inadequate preparation could increase the chances of spreading Ebola if hospital staff fail to recognize a patient coming through their doors, or if personnel are not informed about how to properly protect themselves.

snip

Samios said she and other members of the emergency department staff were trained just last week on procedures to care for and recognize an Ebola patient, but not everyone was present for the training, and none of the other nursing or support staff were trained.

"When an Ebola patient is admitted or goes to the intensive care unit, those nurses, those tech service associates are not trained," she said. "The X-ray tech who comes into the room to do the portable chest X-ray is not trained. The transporter who pushes the stretcher is not trained."

If an Ebola patient becomes sick while being transported, "How do you clean the elevator?"
snip
Nurses at hospitals across the country are asking similar questions.

A survey by National Nurses United of some 400 nurses in more than 200 hospitals in 25 states found that more than half (60 percent) said their hospital is not prepared to handle patients with Ebola, and more than 80 percent said their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola.

Another 30 percent said their hospital has insufficient supplies of eye protection and fluid-resistant gowns.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/nurses-unprepared-ebola_n_5926828.html

[yellowcanine]

54. You are wrong. Well after the modes of transmission were known there was outrageous AIDs phobia.

Read the story of Ryan White, which happened in 1984. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White

Yes, aspects of the AIDS epidemic were underplayed and still are, particularly the notion that it is mainly a disease of gays. But there is no question that the risk of transmission was way overhyped in many cases long after the basic epidemiology of the disease was known.

[cbayer]

56. We are just talking past each other here.

I don't think we really disagree.

What I understood "overhyped" to mean is different than what you read it to mean.

That's all.

[jberryhill]

78. Yeah, I think the two of you are looking at different parts of the elephant

It was "overhyped" in the sense that there was irrational fear and hysteria directed at target groups.

It was "underhyped" in the sense that even Reagan continued to joke about it, and a rational public health response was (a) not appropriately prioritized and (b) stymied by social pressures against discussing or implementing risk reduction and prevention.

Both sides of that coin had a common underlying core of prejudice.

My two cents on Ebola is that it is likewise true that the absence of an effective public health system also can result in ravaging epidemics of things like cholera and typhus, in which the economic development level of the affected population is a substantial factor in the magnitude of an outbreak within that population.

[cbayer]

81. I think you put that exactly right.

My daughter works for the CDC and just returned from a month in Nigeria. I am visiting with her now and will hear here take on all of this tonight. I will really heavily on her reports, as I don't know if we are under-reacting or over-reacting or reacting just fine at this point.

But I agree that the risk in the US and other wealthy countries is likely to be very, very low compared to west african countries.

[strawberries]

55. I remember

the mosquito thing!

[valerief]

59. I remember when there was a lot of press about Donna Mills refusing

to kiss anyone on Knots Landing.

http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1240&context=elr
page 7

[bettyellen]

73. actually a lot of people thought you had to be extremely promiscuous and "dirty" to get it....

but that was back before it even had a name, and was a horrid and very visible deadly disease.
People freaked out because it was killing people, and we could see them walking the streets of our cities with those karposi sarcoma marks- and we knew it was a death sentence.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. The AIDS outbreak triggered some really awful homophobia

which isn't an issue here (though there might be some xenophobia going around). But yes, there will be some irrational panic. There was some of that with the SARS and bird flu epidemics. People are just easily frightened, I think. But the AIDS thing was the worst because it brought out some really nasty behavior.

[tridim]

7. It didn't trigger homophobia in me, but...

it did make sex an extremely scary prospect right as I was becoming sexually active. I hated it, and still do.

[RKP5637]

14. Yep, same here. When I was a kid about the worse was gonorrhea and crabs!

Last edited Thu Oct 2, 2014, 10:00 AM - Edit history (1)

The dreaded one was syphilis, but that seemed very rare. Now, I think there are something like 22 STD's. When AIDS came along, that really made me also view sex with others as an extremely scary prospect.

[RKP5637]

12. I remember so well it being called the "gay disease," that only LGBT could catch it. It was

so horrifically stupid, and it persisted. And Reagan was worthless, as usual.

I recall well some saying it would cleanse the US of the horrific homosexuals, those disgusting vile people that lived in gutters.

The US can often be horribly nasty to many people. And "Discovery Magazine" released their stupid and utterly unscientific dismal article demonstrating how the "gay disease" could only affect LGBT. The stupidity, ignorance and persecutory behavior of some is consistently astounding.

I heard someone today wonder if blacks might be watched and quarantined because of Ebola. That, is how deep ignorance sometimes goes in the US.

[markpkessinger]

79. it also halted, for a time, progress on LGBT civil rights . . .

People forget that by 1980, quite a number of municipalities around the country had enacted LGBT civil rights bills, and such bills were under serious consideration in many parts of the country. To this then newly-out-of-the-closet 19-year old, progress, it seemed, was as inevitable as the tide. Then along came HIV/AIDS, and with it, an opportunity for a faded Miss America-cum-orange-juice-peddler to once again claim the spotlight. Almost overnight, all progress came to a halt, and many cities that had passed protections for LGBT civil rights began repealing them.

I learned a valuable lesson through all of that about the danger of allowing oneself to be seduced by a belief in the "inevitability of progress." It's a lesson I've often shared with younger LGBT folks, many of whom are far to willing to rest on that seductive but dangerous belief today.

[LanternWaste]

3. I thought about that very thing yesterday...

I thought about that very thing yesterday but was a bit hesitant to make mention of it. Yeah... the reaction I've seen over the past few days has been startlingly similar to that of our culture's reaction in the early eighties-- both in form and in format.

[mucifer]

4. I was listening to a story on NPR from Africa about the people who remove the bodies of

those who died from Ebola. It was very chilling. They wore hazmat suits and were terrified each time they took the suit off. Many of them have died touching the suit when they removed it. The job paid very well in a poor country. Thats why most took the job.

This is not HIV.

[randome]

6. They died touching the suit? I suppose someone has verified this, right? It doesn't sound right.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[mucifer]

11. They died because they were removing the bodies from ebola victims

they try very hard not to touch the suits when they take them off. The body fluids get on the suits. It's horrifying really. The reporter was there interviewing the people who had that job. Yeah, I don't have a link . Sorry.

[RKP5637]

17. It would seem there should be some type of decontamination process to clean the suit before

removal. If not, there surely seems to be a step missing IMO.

[LiberalArkie]

21. Someone must have been in a hurry, maybe got too hot. They do spray the suits with bleach before

removing them. I saw a clip where they did that, then hung the suits, boots and gloves up and sprayed them again just to make sure.

[RKP5637]

24. Yep, probably what happened. It seems the buildup of heat in the suits could be incredible. n/t

[johnp3907]

5. You mean GRIDS, don't you?

[hedgehog]

10. Ah, weren't the old days just great?

[tanyev]

8. Jon Stewart had a good bit last night about the media ramping up the fear.

Fear drives up ratings.

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Asiatic Flu, Unameit Flu...........

They were all going to wipe us out.

I see a few of us are still here this morning.

Meanwhile, always be careful crossing the street.

[Art_from_Ark]

72. I remember the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69

I started coughing, either just before Christmas vacation, or just after, and my mom started freaking out because the news said that the Hong Kong flu was peaking in the US, so she rushed me to the medical clinic. The doctor said he thought it was just a cold, and he jabbed me with some antibiotic.

During Swine Flu 1, President Ford had a hand in overhyping the disease, which turned out to be much ado about (almost) nothing.

Then there was all the hype about Legionnaire's Disease the following year, which, although it wasn't going to wipe us all out, it certainly made some people nervous about staying in hotels for a while.

[LuvNewcastle]

13. My experience with the AIDS crisis was a lot different.

Anyone can contract Ebola. In the early days of the AIDS crisis, it was gay men who were dying in droves and preachers like Jerry Falwell were saying (with grins on their faces) that AIDS was God's judgement coming down on the homosexuals. I was 12 years old and I thought I was going to die because I was gay and I'd had sex. No one really knew much about how it was transmitted other than by men having sex with men. There was a whole lot of ignorance about AIDS. They hadn't even identified HIV yet.

We could have stopped this whole epidemic with Ebola if we'd been proactive from the start instead of waiting around to see how bad it would get. I think we could still stop it now if we would work hard to allocate the resources for it and aggressively quarantine people who have it and those who have been exposed. We know how Ebola is transmitted and we already have medicines that are effective against it. I'm doubtful that we (meaning the developed world) will do enough, though. It's a disgusting shame, and there's no excuse for letting it get to this point.

[hedgehog]

16. Thank you for the testimony! Lots of straight people didn't give a damn about AIDS

as long as it was "something only gays get". Now, one Ebola patient in Texas gets more press than 4000 in Liberia!

[Bluenorthwest]

29. There were over 20,000 Americans dead and another 50,000 infected before Reagan even spoke a

word about it. Years of inaction, ignorance and bigoted silence. America and the Reagan administration watched 20,000 Americans die and just shrugged it all off. For years.

[valerief]

33. I'm a straight woman, and I remember reading about "the gay cancer" in

the Boston Herald sometime in the fall of 1983. I worked with a lot of guys from MIT and showed them the article. These guys also said stuff like, "Why worry? It's only affecting gay men." I couldn't believe how stupid--and insensitive--they were. What did gay men have in common? Sex! And, as innocent as I was, I knew there was no hard dividing line between gay sex and straight sex. In their own self interest, at the very least, they should have been more curious. Their reactions opened my eyes to the knowledge we're not in this (social contract) together.

[Marrah_G]

58. There was so much wrong during those times

I am hoping that society learned at least something from all that pain. Seeing movies like "the normal heart" and "Milk" etc., reaching so many young people and showing them what happened gives me a bit of hope. I hear my children and their partners/friends reacting with shock at how it was handled and they say "how were they so STUPID" and I smile a little.

[RKP5637]

28. Sometimes, I think it's endemic to humans to not care a lot as long as it's someone else, some

other group. And that is mixed with components of denial and fear. Now, I don't mean this applies to everyone, but I think some of it is a primordial response rooted in survival of the fittest. Therefore, proactive reactions are sometimes slow or nonexistence. Hence, as you say, "It's a disgusting shame, and there's no excuse for letting it get to this point." Hopefully, as mankind evolves, we are getting better.

[HockeyMom]

40. Blood transfusions

My doctor did not want me to have blood transfusions after my ruptured ectopic pregnancy in 1982. Yes, even that early. He was afraid that the blood supply (NYC) might be tainted. I suppose doctors must have suspected that Aids could be tranferred by blood, and not only by gay sex.

[newfie11]

15. I remember back then (early on)

They were not sure all the ways it could be spread.
So gown, gloves, masks, cassettescovered before entering the room to take portable xray.
I have never felt so sorry for patients as I did back then.
Later when more was understood these same patients would be brought to xray for films.
Just walking past the stretcher I could feel the heat radiating off them from the fever.

[irisblue]

64. me too newfie

one of the radiologists refused to start an IV line(as was that hospitals' rule then) for the (then brand new) CT machine. When an elderly man from a Mediterranean country showed up 2 years later for radiation therapy for treatment for Kaposi's Sarcoma, which by that point had been showing up in some HIV pos men, the radiation oncologist wasn't phased at all.
The homophobia of that time was rampant.

[newfie11]

65. We're you in Rad Therapy

my husband was but we are both retired now.

[irisblue]

66. yep, from radiology to Rad. Therapy

we gotta talk...

[newfie11]

68. You bet

[SidDithers]

18. Except Reagan was actively dismissing AIDS as a gay disease...

He allowed the epidemic to grow because of homophobic bias and cultural neglect.

Pretty much everyone in the world is aware of what Ebola is and what it does, and Obama will not be ignoring the situation. I would expect the full resources and response of public health agencies will be brought to bear if the US sees anything more than scattered, isolated cases of Ebola.

Sid

[hedgehog]

19. It can be argued that it is not our responsibility to take care of the world,

but I'd like to see numbers on how much we spent to help Western African nations with healthcare when people were dying of old, familiar diseases and what we're spending now that they're dying of something that scares us because WE MIGHT GET IT!!!! I don't put the onus on Obama; this is an old situation. If only the Liberians could have tied the early Ebola cases to infiltration by Communists......

[SidDithers]

20. An epidemic is most efficiently controlled at the source...

If world health agencies ignore an epidemic until it reaches their countries, it may cost billions more to contain it, in the long run.

I'd make the argument that Western countries are taking care of themselves by proactively helping West Africans deal with the outbreak in West Africa.



Sid

[LiberalArkie]

22. And Elizabeth Dole did not want to spend the pennies to test the blood supply for HIV when she

was at the Red Cross.

[SidDithers]

23. Exactly. There were people impeding public health measures...

because of cultural, primarily religious, bigotry. Reagan, primarily, but Elizabeth Dole is another great example.

Thanks for adding that bit of history to the subthread.

Sid

[hedgehog]

25. OTOH, there were people who thought that the Red Cross didn't want to know

if it had HIV contaminated blood because it made such a profit on blood products........

[Bluenorthwest]

26. Dithers wins the thread. The differences between what Reagan did then and what Obama is doing now

are vast and important. The fact is that over 20,000 Americans were dead from HIV/AIDS before Ronald Wilson Reagan so much as said the word out loud.Another 50,000 Americans were infected. The virus was present in 113 countries with at least another 50,000 cases.
As of today, we have one sick guy who contracted the virus abroad and action is being taken.
I have to think this is because we have progressed and Obama is not Reagan, and maybe we learned a lesson as a people. Because it was not Reagan alone, nor Obama alone. These are the actions of our society, Reagan's ignorance and apathy were not his alone, millions saw his actions and kept voting for him. Obama's actions and those of our government agencies are also a result of collective will and intelligence.
I worry about the speculation and fear mongering, last time all of that did not go well at all. It took a decade to get the mainstream to understand that they were not going to catch the AIDS from riding the bus with a gay man.
I would strongly recommend to all on DU to go watch the HBO film of Larry Kramer's 'The Normal Heart' which documents the very early days of the GRID/HIV/AIDS crisis. With the Ebola events, that film becomes yet again a bit more universal, sadly but truly.

[FSogol]

31. +1 n/t

[Johonny]

36. +1

[Renew Deal]

27. Aids was a mystery at the beginning

Ebola has been around for a while, so it is a little bit different.

[cbayer]

30. No, not at all.

That was an entirely different scenario.

Young men started presenting to hospitals very, very sick. Once admitted they generally just continued to get worse until they died.

We had no idea what the agent was, but were pretty clear that it was causing an immune deficiency.

We called it GRIDS.

This is different. We know the agent, we know how it is transmitted, we know how to prevent it and we have some treatment for it.

Entirely different to me.

[Proud Public Servant]

34. Was just about to say the same

It's apples and oranges. What made AIDS so daunting was that we didn't even know what it was for a long time, or how it was transmitted. You and I remember the use (by the medical community itself) of the term GRIDS, but others may not -- it stood for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome, and bespoke the assumption that the disease was somehow transmitted through male-on-male anal sex.

We're nowhere near that ignorant of what's going on right now. And while it's possible to imagine a backlash against African immigrants, I find it hard to believe that it would rise to the level of the homophobia that accompanied AIDS.

[cbayer]

35. Where you in NYC?

That is where I was when the first cases started presenting to the hospitals.

It did become rapidly apparent that is was happening to young gay men, so there was early speculation about anal sex.

But there was also a whole lot of denial, paranoia and tremendous fear.


We had no idea what to do, unlike EBOLA where we know exactly what to do, but don't consistently do it.

It will be interesting to see what occurs with african immigrants, but I agree that it is unlikely to rise to the level of fear and hate that was directed at the gay community.

[Proud Public Servant]

37. I was in NYC '84-'85

So it was full-blown by then, and had been properly named iirc. But it was before Rock Hudson came out and long before Ryan White; public sympathy was still rare (and drowned out by homophobia) and public health measures were still weak (I believe the bath houses, for example, were still open).

[cbayer]

38. I was in NYC when it first hit in 1981.

I will never, ever forget.

[Bluenorthwest]

57. Ryan White applied to re enter school in 1985. Rock Hudson also died in 1985. July.

nt

[Proud Public Servant]

80. True, those both happened as i was leaving

Left in July '85, just as things began to change.

[hunter]

39. I was working in a blood lab.

We went from being somewhat casual about safety precautions to full face protection and such within a few years.

Later I was working in a blood bank and all our hemophilia patients started dying.

And friends started dying.

It was an awful, awful time.



Weird thing was the media and politicians (BURN IN HELL, Ronald Reagan, you fucking tool) were often blowing smoke in people's faces. The people actually fighting the fires were often ignored and were, as always, underfunded and underappreciated.

In this nation we are willing to instantly throw unimaginable amounts of money into useless wars but tend to face very serious threats to the public health with great reluctance.

[SheilaT]

41. I was already an adult and I remember it well.

What made AIDS so scary in the beginning was that we really had no idea what was going on, except that all these gay men were dying of diseases that were normally quite rare. They figured out soon enough that the body's immune system had conked out, but didn't know why, and lots of theories were promulgated. The other thing that made it scary was the fact that it often took years for the symptoms to manifest after infection.

Oh, and the other early group that was coming down with AIDS were Haitians, and it was precisely because of sexual practices in that group, as much as they denied it.

There was an early joke going around when it was just gay men and Haitians having AIDS: What's the worst thing about having AIDS? Trying to convince your mother you're really Haitian.

I know, a bit racist but also shows the homophobia that was much more rampant.

Which actually makes me wonder if AIDS didn't really make it a lot more possible for gay men and women to come out.

[MADem]

42. People thought you could get HIV from toilet seats.

They didn't want to let HIV-positive people use their dishes or silverware. They thought if you were in a room with an HIV-positive person who coughed, you were toast.

It was an insane, paranoid time. People did not understand how the virus was transmitted.

They don't really get the mode of transmission for this virus, either.

[Marrah_G]

60. I remember people being afraid to hug my cousin-in-law

It took a long time for ignorance and fear to be overcome.

[JaneyVee]

43. Except we have a prez willing to confront it.

Unlike Reagan, who wouldn't even speak its name.

[uppityperson]

44. Yup. "OMg, close the borders to anyone from Liberia, etc", being afraid to go to San Diego, etc

I really wish those stupid fiction books had not come out years ago as it feeds into this.

The reason caregivers wear hazmat suits is not because it is so quickly contagious but because it is so deadly if caught. The "health care system" in W African countries is minimal, cultural differences as well as knowledge also, all leading to continuing outbreak there.

Etc etc etc

oomgomgomogmomgomgomgg OMG! fear! Indeed, the fear mongering is awfully familiar.

[RebelOne]

45. I remember that time but paid little attention to it. n/t

[Marrah_G]

46. There is a great deal of misinformation running rampant

[justiceischeap]

47. I was just thinking about this at lunch

I'm remembering two facets tho. I'm remembering how straight people were blasé about it because it was the "gay" cancer and I also remember people wanted people with HIV quarantined.

I have a cousin who contracted very early in the epidemic and is still kicking.

[Marrah_G]

61. wow, really? that is wonderful about your cousin!!!

I

[bklyncowgirl]

49. I remember jokes about gay Haitian orthodontists

Gay men, Haitians and for some reason dental practitioners were supposed to be the groups effected. The rest of us sort of brushed it off--until of course we found out that straight people and people who'd received blood transfusions were at risk too. Then the general population sort of went nuts.

[Baitball Blogger]

53. LOL! I deleted a post that was getting to that very point.

[gwheezie]

62. The 1st aids pt I had was in his 60's

It was around 1983ish? But several of my friends were sick. So I was familiar with the disease from a personal level compared to the fear at the hospital where I worked. I ate with slept in bed with kissed hugged etc my gay male friends yet where I worked we were covered from head to toe.
My 1st pt was in his 60's married identified himself as straight and was misdiagnosed because he said he was straight. He could have been how do I know but after he was diagnosed with the gay disease it caused a huge upheaval in the remainder of his life.
So for me there was a huge disconnect between my real life and my work life.
In 1983 I accepted a job to open a long term care unit for aids pts and it never opened because the neighborhood fought so hard against it out if fear. In that way I see some comparison. Except for the fear there are big differences between aids and Ebola in this country anyway.

[Recursion]

63. We have an etiology for ebola; we didn't for AIDS back then

Nobody knew if it was bacterial or viral or toxic or... which added to the paranoia I think.

[Avalux]

67. Me! I was in the thick of it. I watched a pulmonologist refuse to treat an HIV patient.

It happened a lot back then, docs and other healthcare workers refusing care. HIV positive patients being treated like animals because of their disease....horrific. It all stems from ignorance and fear - even when the facts are known.

This ebola hysteria is definitely giving me a huge sense of deja vu.

[Prophet 451]

69. Little bit

Here (UK), we had pamphlets sent out to every household that warned about teh dangers of HIV and a commercial (AIDS: Don't Die Of Ignorance) so frightening, I'm amazed we weren't teh last generation

[Jenoch]

70. Nope, and I don't see any valid reason to compare

AIDS (or waht became AIDS) and ebola.

[JI7]

71. no, it's actually the opposite, there is the usual ignorance but we get that with most

things related to science.

but in this case people are not ignoring the disease or dismissing it in a bigoted way by saying those who get it deserve to and only they can get it.

there is just no comparison really.

[hedgehog]

74. I was thinking more of the fear about getting the disease than about the manner in which it

was dismissed as something only "they" get.

[closeupready]

83. Yeah, a little bit, to be honest.

I had that thought this morning.