AIDS Research Funding In The 1980s

[ER]

Dismal and slightly weird topic (therefore normal content from me), but I was talking with my cousin about AIDS (a disease his generation seems disturbingly convinced is a relic of the past, little threat today, and cannot happen to them) and he said, "Yeah, there never would have been AIDS at all if Reagan hadn't ignored it. He wanted all gays to die."

Well I was a child in the 1980s and come from a line line of Democrats so I rarely heard a good word said about President Reagan back then, but I did know one thing....

"Tyler," I said, "there is this popular myth today that Reagan ignored AIDS and never spoke of it, but the truth is that from his years in Hollywood Reagan had many gay friends, hosted them at the White House, and was fully aware of the toll AIDS took on the gay community, so he talked about it often in his speeches. His administration took the HIV plague seriously and spent more money on AIDS research than it did even cancer."

He laughed at me (don't laugh at the person who is letting you live in her house for free, BTW) and said, "That is just NOT true."

Well, I fact-checked and yes it was. From $8,000,000.00 million invested in AIDS research in 1982 to $44,000,000.00 in 1983,  this amount doubled every year thereafter during Reagan’s presidency, and was in fact higher than what was being spent in the Clinton years.

So many lies and so much misinformation exists in this world, much of it feeding hate and justifying division.

So after me telling him that and even showing it to him in black and white, what did my ever-sage eighteen-year-old cousin say? "Anyway, Reagan still sucked."

Whatever, but at least he didn't suck for ignoring AIDS, did he?

[Allhallowsday]

Well I guess I'm even older than you!  In my equally Democrat household REAGAN was a turncoat having been one.  But, I didn't grow up with much of politics.  Of course, REAGAN'd long been reviled by the counter culture after his Governorship in CA. 

It is sad to think someone would fail to recognize a real threat.  But, I'm sure I recall correctly that youth has its arrogance.  I think that helping someone, who may even not appreciate it, is its own reward.  Of course, I would hope that that person who took advantage of kindness would also maybe someday look back and then, appreciate. 

[Svengoolie 3]

That's because the 40th president of the US during the beginning of the aids crisis didn't give a damn about aids until it affected someone she knew, Rock Hudson. Until then the 40th President and her husband didn't give a damn about aides victims.

Likewise the 40th president didn't care about stem cell research until her husband got Alzheimer's and stem cell research offered a possible treatment. Then we was all for it.

And of course gay people were vermin to potus 40 until her daughter came out.

Problems don't exist for people like President Nancy and her husband until they affect them personally in some way.

[ER]

That's because the 40th president of the US during the beginning of the aids crisis didn't give a damn about aids until it affected someone she knew, Rock Hudson. Until then the 40th President and her husband didn't give a damn about aides victims.

Likewise the 40th president didn't care about stem cell research until her husband got Alzheimer's and stem cell research offered a possible treatment. Then we was all for it.

And of course gay people were vermin to potus 40 until her daughter came out.

Problems don't exist for people like President Nancy and her husband until they affect them personally in some way.

Sven, don't you ever get tired of being wrong? Rock Hudson died in late 1985, but Reagan's increase in funding AIDS research began as early as 1983, doubled in 1984 and again in 1985. Whatever criticisms might be aimed at Ronald Reagan, apparently apathy about the suffering of AIDS victims cannot validly be placed among them.

[ER]

Well I guess I'm even older than you!  In my equally Democrat household REAGAN was a turncoat having been one.  But, I didn't grow up with much of politics.  Of course, REAGAN'd long been reviled by the counter culture after his Governorship in CA.  

It is sad to think someone would fail to recognize a real threat.  But, I'm sure I recall correctly that youth has its arrogance.  I think that helping someone, who may even not appreciate it, is its own reward.  Of course, I would hope that that person who took advantage of kindness would also maybe someday look back and then, appreciate.  

Thank you, AHD, I do hope maybe I do some good when I talk to him.

Funny, now you mention it I recall hearing my grandpa talking mockingly in the 1980s about how Ronald Reagan changed horses in mid-stream and became a Republican, but I do think Reagan's convictions were sincere, though clearly, as you said, it left him resented by some people. From SAG president and a New Deal Democrat to GOP icon is no small change.

President Clinton talked about being thought an apostate and said that's one reason for the viciousness with which Republicans came after him. He didn't change parties but he described how as a Southern Baptist from a conservative state for him to be a liberal Democrat made a lot of people feel he was betraying his origins. I guess people like to categorize others.

I hadn't thought about those things in a long time.

[316zombie]

i think we pretty much HAVE to think of our own history now, what we lived through, and learned and thought when we were going through it.
  if we don't, then we ALLOW history to repeat itself, right? i lived through the nixon to now eras as a cognitive thinker, and kennedy when i was little, but i still heard plenty about them too. some of that stuff in the past... i don't want my younkers living through knowing there was a madman( nixon) in the white house, or a victim of alzheimer's ( eventually reagan) , or anything after them,it's too scary.so i educate them. i'm grateful that they listen, and read.
   it's THEIR future, and i am so glad they are realizing that more than i did at their age.