Aids in the early eighties?

Hi,

If you've read the book forrest gump or watched the movie before can you please try to answer these question?

Who were affected by AIDS?

Why were the authorities slow in responding to the AIDS virus?

What were the moral debates surrounding the AIDS virus?


Cheers!

BAhhh... I'm soo confused at the moment because my english teacher said I have to write a 1000 word essay about AIDS from the movie forrest gump.

You're right...The movie Forrest Gump did have AIDS in it--"Jenny", his love, got AIDS from her alternative lifestyle (unprotected sex, intervenous drug use). They don't say "AIDS" in the movie, but she describes the symptoms and the lack of any treatment, which is what AIDS treatments started with back in in the early '80s. Obviously there is no cure--yet. Many people, including some in the government, thought that AIDS was an affliction of the Gay Community and drug users and wasn't important for "normal," heterosexual people, that is, until the heterosexual community started developing the disease as well. Children developed AIDS from being born to HIV positive mothers who got the disease from their unfaithful husbands, young people contracted it from their dentists, etc. It is a horrible disease and brought a real halt to promiscuous behavior that had predominated in the 1960s and 1970s. There was quite a stigma about AIDS for many years and there was a real fear about "catching" it from casual contact with people. Television tried to deal with this with television movies, sitcoms, news broadcasts, 60 Minutes program...the list goes on and on. Mainstream movies about AIDS continue this tradition. When Liz Taylor comforted her gay friend, Rock Hudson, who was a dying of the diesase in 1985, I know many were shocked that she would put herself in such danger (she's still alive, as far as I know, 20+ years later). "Magic" Johnson, the basketball player, came out with the news he was HIV-positive and the media had a field-day with it--other BB players were concerned that he might have infected them by sweating on them. Princess Diana was quite instrumental in getting the issue of compassionate care of AIDS victims to the forefront. She too defied "common sense" and comforted AIDS patients by holding their hands and stroking their hair, etc. These images were broadcast worldwide. I remember as a teenager then thinking that she must be very brave. In effect, she was much more informed than the rest of us. My 2nd cousin died of AIDS. Hope I've helped...Good luck with your assignment!

Forrest Gump???!!! That has nothing to do with AIDS! I am guessing you mean Philadelphia? That also stars Tom Hanks and is about AIDS. Denzel Washington is in it too. Is that what you mean?

In the early 80s, AIDS started in the gay community. At first, it was only gays that got and spread the disease to other gays, and they were upset because attention was also paid to other diseases (cancer, etc) and felt that the reason "not enough" attention (according to them) was being paid to AIDS was that only the gays had it. Because of blood transfusions and women sleeping with bisexual men, the disease then spread to the heterosexuals.

Of course, today, we are told not to blame the gays for the disease just because it started with them and was spread by them.

Forrest Gump?? What's that got to do with AIDS? It was the early 80's that AIDS was discovered, mainly amongst gay men - it started to spread due to infected blood trasfusions, drug users sharing infected needles and bi men getting infected and passing it on to women. The authorites were slow to respond becuase they didn't want to admit there was a problem, as usual. Moral debates were around whether authorities should respond to something which was seen as a problem of the gay community then there were moral issues about promiscuous sex, homosexual sex etc.

AIDS was spreading by the early 80's. It has first appeared in certain groups in america, the gay community was the most publicised but introveinus drug users and some migrant communities were also affected. At this point however there starts to be cases by men that claim never to have had a gay relationship alongside women developing symptoms.

Scientists hadn't isolated the HIV virus yet and determined it tobe the cause of AIDS, nor was anyone giving effective information about it. The government was not only slow to respond to public information but also in allowing clinical trials of drugs and the release of AZT when it first became avaialable.

Two organisations key in this period was Gay Mens Health Organisation (GMHO) which was a independent group that tried to spread information about the dangers of AIDS and how it could be prevented. Before the epidemic the condom was considered very old fashioned since the pill came along in the 60's and when it was realised that AIDS was sexually transmitted a campaign was started to bring people aorund to using it again. They also tried to dispel myths about AIDS (can it be caught from toilet seats, shaking the hand of a gay man) .

The second organisation was ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) formed by Larry Kramer and it was a response of protest and anger at the government's inaction through drug trials, legislation and information, as well as other opposition such as the church condemning the use of condoms to prevent AIDS. They realised that the system was broken, that it had taken a crisis to reveal the red tape preventing drugs and trials from reaching those dying. ACT UP's struggle continues today to bring the threat of AIDS into hte public forum and combat efforts taken to prevent the treatment and search for a cure to the disease.

The moral dbates are mostly cultural such as the emdia reaction. The use of language such as AIDS "victims" was quickly seen as an attack. If some people were victims and deemed innocent, are not other guilty? All AIDS victims were innocent and many public information campaigns started like this to stop the media from sensationalising stories with inappropiate language. Also a lack of information was a threat, one of ACT UP's earliest slogan that continues today is Silence=Death. Margin groups also saw certain communities as deserving to catch the virus, radical christians and so on that proclaimed the "gay plague" (a term coined by the media in the late 70's and early 80's) a righteous event. IT was also seen a s a vice and punishment for the sexual permissiveness of the 60's. Such ideas had to be fought constantly across America and Europe.

If you would like to find out any more information you can take a look at ACT Up's NY website, where the movement was founded I have posted below

It started out being called GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). They were slow to recognize it because at first it presented like a myriad of STDs which, at the time before the gay rights movement, many people thought they "deserved".

Then in 1983 they realized all the smaller diseases were related and that idea gave birth to the common HIV/AIDS terminology. Also, data started coming in about the concurrent outbreak in Africa.

Moral debates are obvious. It took a long time for people to realize it wasn't only gay people suffering. It also took a long time to make people realize it wasn't going to "go away".