Why did Ronald Reagan essentially ignore the AIDS epidemic until Rock Hudson died?

Reagan essentially didn't do anything and appropriated little or no government funding for AIDS research while thousands of Americans were dying from AIDS.

The HIV strain was not definitively identified until 1984/85. So Reagan's first term was already over.

At the time, the outbreak of the disease wasn't even called AIDS -- it was called "GRID," which stands for "Gay Related Immune Deficiency."

Words have power, and at the time this was thought to be a "Gay related" illness which didn't concern mainstream America. Politicians, and particularly conservative politicians, aren't going to go out on a limb to champion marginal causes, especially if those causes require them to embrace the struggles of a minority whose activities are highly dissaproved of by one's major constituency -- and Ronald Reagan was no different from anyone else in this regard. This is the reason researchers re-named the illness to AIDS. They wanted people to stop thinking of this as a "Gay Disease," and to start thinking of it a disease that might infect them.

Even after Hudson's death the Reagan administration didn't do much by way of research, so it would be wrong to think his death had some revolutionary impact on policy.

The fact is, until the disease started to spread outside the Gay Community, there wasn't much that any government did to combat it.

At the time when Ronald Reagan became the President, AIDS was in it's infancy so to speak at the time. While folks were realizing that this was a serious disease, for the most part it was business as usual. Plus at the same time Mr Reagan had other more serious issues to deal with. Iran Contra, double digit inflation, deregulation, communism etc. And sad to say, it takes someone to die or to be affected for someone to act on things. not to say that that was the deal, but there you have it.

I think doctors only really became aware of AIDS in the early 1980s. Nobody knew much about it before then. Maybe nobody had brought the subject up with Ronald Reagan before the mid-80s, when it became conspicuous. Most people hadn't even heard of it before then.

Just cause it was big news didn't mean it was a big deal you said it yourself thousands of Americans were dying of it. More died from Violence and DWI (he raised the drinking age)

You had Wayne Williams running around
Central America was turning Communist
Drugs, Crack was a MAJOR Problem
the USSR, he defeated it
Its easy to forget Iran in the late 70's early 80's
How bout Libya or Lebanon, or the assassination of Sadat and attempts on the Pope and Reagan
3 mile island
As Bill Clinton said Its the Economy stupid, He Bailed out Chrysler, Brought us out of a all but Depression, Made us feel proud to be Americans again, Remember Vietnam sucked the life out of this country

It didn't effect middle America it effected the outer fringe

Or how bout Congress weren't they all democrats, why do they get a free pass, they controlled the money
Heart disease and cancer were still and r the top killers.

Its easy to point out bad things

I believe Rock Hudson was an acquaintance if not a friend of Ronald Reagan. It got personal for him or otherwise the president, who was dying of Alzheimer's at the time, wouldn't have done a thing.

It was new at the time and we still didn't know much about it.It takes a while to get funds for something new like that. I don't blame him.

Who knows
it was new
it was shocking
and nobody knew how to deal with it yet
however they may have a possible cure now.