Some excerpts from The Truth About Reagan And AIDS by Michael Bronski, November 2003:
For the past two months I've been teaching a course entitled "Plagues and Politics: The Impact of AIDS on U.S. Culture" at Dartmouth College and have spent an enormous amount of time thinking about the AIDS pandemic....
As we read about and discuss the history of the American AIDS epidemic in class, my students all Reagan babies, born between 1981 and 1985 are often dumbfounded when faced with simple facts. Although AIDS was first reported in the medical and popular press in 1981, it was only in October of 1987 that President Reagan publicly spoke about the epidemic. By the end of that year 59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 of those women and men had died. How could this happen, they ask? Didn't he see that this was an ever-expanding epidemic? How could he not say anything? Do anything?
But the public scandal over the Reagan administration's reaction to AIDS is complex and goes much deeper, far beyond the commander-in-chief's refusal to speak out about the epidemic. Reagan understood that a great deal of his power resided in a broad base of born-again Christian Republican conservatives who embraced a deeply reactionary social agenda of which a virulent, demonizing homophobia was a central tenet. In the media men such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell articulated these sentiments that portrayed gay people as diseased sinners and promoted the idea that AIDS was a punishment from God and that the gay rights movement had to be stopped. In the Republican Party, zealous right-wingers such as Rep. William Dannemeyer of California and Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina hammered home this message. In the Reagan White House, people such as Secretary of Education William Bennett and Gary Bauer, Reagan's domestic policy adviser, worked to enact it in the administration's policies.
What did this mean in practical terms? Most importantly, AIDS research was chronically under-funded. When doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health asked for more funding for their work on AIDS, they were routinely denied it. Between June 1981 and May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on Legionnaire's Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from Legionnaire's Disease. This drastic lack of funding would continue through the Reagan years.
When health and support groups in the gay community were beginning to initiate education and prevention programs, they were denied federal funding. In October 1987 Senator Helms amended a federal appropriations bill to prohibit AIDS education efforts that "encourage or promote homosexual activity" that is, efforts that tell gay men how to have safe sex.
...
When Rock Hudson, a friend and colleague of the Reagans, was diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1985 (one of the 20,740 cases reported that year), Reagan still did not speak out as president. When family friend William F. Buckley, in a March 18, 1986, New York Times opinion article, called for mandatory testing for HIV and said that HIV-positive gay men should have this information forcibly tattooed on their buttocks (and IV-drug users on their arms) Reagan said nothing. In 1986 (after five years of complete silence), when Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report calling for AIDS education in schools, Bennett and Bauer did everything possible to undercut and prevent funding for Koop's too-little-too-late initiative. Reagan, again, said and did nothing. By the end of 1986, 37,061 AIDS cases had been reported; 16,301 people had died.
...
I told one of my students that the most memorable Reagan AIDS moment for me was at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting next to French President Francois Mitterand and his wife, Danielle. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners Hope quipped, "I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS but she doesn't know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing. By the end of 1989 and the Reagan years, 115,786 women and men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died.
Here are some MP3s of music I'm using to celebrate. Listen to them while you read James' post.
Sylvester, 1946? - 1988, death from AIDS
Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
Thelma Houston - Don't Leave Me This Way
Vicky Sue Robinson - Turn The Beat Around
I wonder how Jesse Helms is feeling tonight?
-------- thanks for the BRONSKI link ------- i dont share your sentiment about celebrating, however. I guess it's been churning up too much awful shit in my head for the last 24 hours.......
There are several inaccuracies in Mr. Bronski's article.
Including the claim that Reagan didn't mention AIDS until Oct. of 1987. His first mention in public was Sept. 17, 1985. Two years previous.
In 1982 $8 million was budgeted by government to AIDS research. By 1985 $205 million was allocated. Total government monies spent between 1982 and 1989-- 5.727 BILLION (according to Congressional Research Service).
A significant part of that $5.7 billion is non-discretionary, including money for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security disability benefits.
I realize you are quoting that Deroy Murdock National Review article at me. He seems to imply that it was all for research, which isn't the case.
Mr. Murdock is lying about the 1986 mention of AIDS, unless the text of the State of the Union Address on the Ronald Reagan Library site is incorrect. (He also gets the date wrong.) I don't intend to look up whether he is lying about his other "facts" in that article.
Please do not post "rebuttals" here unless you can back them up with documentation.
NRO article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200312030913.asp
Text of 1986 State of the Union Address:
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1986/20486a.htm
Barry,
You want "rebuttals" with documentation? Well then, how's this. I went to the same website that you did, and pulled this:
Message to the Congress on America's Agenda for the Future - February 6, 1986
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1986/20686c.htm
In it, President Reagan clearly mentions AIDS. Here is a quote from the official records of the speech:
"We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS."
So now, who is lying about the facts? Looks like Mr. Murdock only got the name of the speech wrong - not the date or the content. I hope, being an honorable man, you will apologize to Mr. Murdoch for calling him a liar.
Additionally, please post the documentation for your rebuttal stating "a significant part of that $5.7 billion is non-discretionary, including money for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security disability benefits." I assume you can back that up. I can back up that Reagan proposed at least $2.79 billion for AIDS research, education, and treatment. Also, Judith Johnson found that overall, the federal government spent $5.727 billion on AIDS under Ronald Reagan. This higher number reflects President Reagan's proposals as well as additional expenditures approved by Congress that he later signed. (That last part was quoted from the Deroy Murdoch article you cited earlier).
Regards,
Christopher
President #43 has proposed funding a trip to Mars. Do any of us think that's going to happen? Presidents propose stuff all the time. Rarely does it happen. I remember a legend about some congressmen bandying about draining lake Michigan into the plain states.
Regardless of the exact date, isn't the earliest nearly 5 years after GRID hit the map? At that point, several tens of thousands of people had died.
How many people have died of "Mad Cow Disease", as it has so sensationally dubbed by the media? And how voracious has the media coverage of that disease been? How has the government reacted?
The fact of the matter is, you can quibble all you want about exact date this and "how many thousands" that, but Reagan still, for one reason or another (maybe because he was just a little slow and a little mean), consigned thousands to death with his silence.
I grabbed this off a different message board. It gives a pretty accurate impression of the administrations attitude:
...a press conference by Larry Speakes, presidential spokesman, on October 15, 1982. It speaks for itself:
Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
MR. SPEAKES: What's AIDS?
Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?
MR. SPEAKES: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
Q: No, I don't.
MR. SPEAKES: You didn't answer my question.
Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President ...
MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)
Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.
Q: Does the President, does anyone in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?
MR. SPEAKES: I don't think so. I don't think there's been any ...
Q: Nobody knows?
MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.
Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping ...
MR. SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he's had no - (laughter) - no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.
Q: The President doesn't have gay plague, is that what you're saying or what?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I didn't say that.
Q: Didn't say that?
MR. SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn't you stay there? (Laughter.)
Q: Because I love you Larry, that's why (Laughter.)
MR. SPEAKES: Oh I see. Just don't put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)
Q: Oh, I retract that.
MR. SPEAKES: I hope so.
Q: It's too late.
Christopher, if your point is to argue about Reagan, why did you put Bush/Cheney as your email and URL? I deleted the URL.
I used table 5 of this document on AIDS funding for the period FY1981-1999:
http://www.fas.org/spp/civil/crs/96-293.pdf
Of the $5.7 billion, $2.5 billion (44%) was non-discretionary. They even threw in the costs of the federal health benefits to people with HIV.
Frankly it's hard to sympathize with an administration that in 1986 "[urged] the public not to panic since AIDS is confined to gay men and IV drug users." - source:
http://www.gmhc.org/about/timeline.html