The Modern Plague
AIDS, meaning acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is known as the plague of the 21st century. Currently, there is no cure or vaccine for the disease. It arrived in the United States in 1981. At this point there were only 12 cases of the disease. By 1994 the number of cases increased to approximately 400,000, and by 2014 it was estimated that more then 1 million people were infected with the disease. Currently, the number of people infected with the disease continues to rise. (Sherman, 2017)
In 1981 cases of a rare lung infection called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) were found in five young gay men in Los Angeles California. (AVERT, 2018) At the same time, the appearance of a rare cancer of the skin and blood vessels, known as Kaposi’s sarcoma, was found amongst groups of gay men in New York City and San Francisco. (Sherman, 2017) The alarming aspect of these appearances is the fact that these diseases that were being found in groups of healthy young men were usually diseases found in immunosuppressed people. By the end of the year, there were 270 of these mysterious cases among gay men, and 121 of them had died. By June of 1982, it was established that this was a sexual disease among gay men, giving the disease its initial name, GRID, which stands for gay-related immune deficiency. (AVERT, 2018) The discovery of this disease in the gay community led to stigmas against people who contracted the disease.
It was discovered at the end of June 1982 that the disease was reported in Haitians as well. (AVERT, 2018) Scientists believe that the disease was brought over to America by a group of gay men who vacationed in Haiti, and brought the disease back over to America. At the same time, many Haitians were attempting to immigrate to America in hopes for a better life. This not only created stigmas against the gay community, but it was now creating a stigma against the Haitian community in America as well. By September of 1982 it was shown that the disease did not only affect the gay community. The CDC renamed the disease AIDS, which stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. (AVERT, 2018)
By 1983, scientist found the causative agent for the virus. One of the scientists, Robert Gallo, named the virus HTLV-III (human T-cell lymphotropic virus). At the same time a French man named Luc Montagnier also found the causative agent, and named it LAV (lymphadenopathy virus). By 1985 Gallo and Montagnier both came together to announce that they had both found the causative agent for the AIDS virus.
At the time, little progress was being made to find a cure for AIDS. The main problem was the fact that there was not enough funding for the CDC to fully invest in looking for treatments and cures. Upon asking the government for money to look into this new epidemic, many government figures, as well as civilians who supported them disagreed with spending money on the disease. This is due to the stigma put on people with AIDS. At the time, many of people who had AIDS were homosexual males, Haitians, or drug addicts who contracted the disease by using an infected needle. Because these people were not normally accepted by society, many did not want to help them. In the 1980s, many people’s attitudes towards people infected with AIDS changed. Rock Hudson, an icon of the American man, released that he had been fighting AIDS for a period of time. In 1985 Rock Hudson died of the disease, spreading fear to the American people. The death of Rock Hudson made people realize that anyone could contract the disease, not just the people who didn’t follow the rules of society. This caused chaos, and surprisingly further discrimination against people with AIDS. Rather then discrimination against victims because of the ‘AIDS stereotype’, people were actually discriminating against victims out of fear of contracting the disease. People also began to contract HIV through contaminated blood transfusions. Sense this was a new disease technology was not ready for testing everyone who gave blood for HIV. This only added to the chaos, and added to the number of people who contracted the disease. There were even cases where children who suffered from AIDS were being driven out of their schools by other children’s parents. When Ronald Reagan, the president at the time, was asked by the media whether or not he would send his child to school with someone who had AIDS, he stated that he was not sure, even though it was already proven that AIDS was not spread through regular person to person contact. The Center for Disease Control attempted to clarify that the disease couldn’t be spread this way, but the public still discriminated against those with AIDS. (Frontline Production, 2006)
In 1987, a drug originally made to cure Leukemia, was approved as an effective drug to help with the effects of AIDS. The drug, azidothymidine (AZT), was created by Burroughs Wellcome in the early 1960s. After testing the drug, and realizing it did not work for Leukemia, he gave up on AZT and threw it on the shelf. During the 1980s, when doctors were desperate to find something that would help the disease, a man name Jerome Horwitz tested the treatment. The treatment was a success, and by 1985 the first patent received AZT as a treatment for AIDS. The medication proved successful. All though the medication is not capable of eliminating the disease all together, it is capable of stopping the virus from multiplying within a person’s cells. (Sherman, 2017) The medication works because of its high infinity for the reverse transcriptase enzyme. The AIDS virus uses this reverse transcriptase enzyme to replicate the viral RNA into double stranded DNA. The medication has a higher infinity for the reverse transcriptase enzyme then the AIDS virus, terminating replication as a result. (Rogers, 2018) The discovery of antiviral drugs, such as AZT, helped to improve the lives of those with AIDS, and helped to increase their life expectancies. From here, more drugs and treatment options would be discovered, and all though they may not be capable of curing the disease all together, medication and treatment have changed and improved the results of AIDS.
In 1990, in an attempt to stop the spread of HIV in the United States, congress changed its immigration policy to stop people from entering the country with AIDS. (AVERT, 2018) This may have helped some of the spread of HIV in America, but rates of HIV still continued to rise. This is most likely do to the fact that AIDS was already an epidemic in America when congress made this decision, which means it is already too late to attempt to stop the spread through immigrants.
Education has been one of public health’s biggest tools in fighting the AIDS epidemic in America. Medication can only stop the disease form multiplying once it is already in the person, it cannot get rid of or prevent AIDS. However, through sexual and drug education, the risk of spreading the disease further can be minimized. Preventing one’s self from contracting the disease is easy once someone knows how the disease is spread. By practicing safe sex, and not sharing needles with other people, one is unlikely to contract the disease; with the exception of the blood transfusion issues that aroused at the beginning of the epidemic.
At the international AIDS conference in South America, in July of 2016, the best news for the fight against AIDS seemed to be about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and progress towards an AIDS vaccine. (Steinbrook, 2016) Pre-exposure prophylaxis is a way for people who do not have AIDS, but are at a higher risk of developing AIDS to prevent the infection by taking a pill everyday. When a person is exposed to AIDS, via sex or injection of a contaminated needle, the medication can work to keep the virus from establishing a permanent infection. (Center for Disease Control, 2018) Also, AIDS vaccine trials are already beginning to take place, hopefully meaning that we could have a vaccine for AIDS within the next decade. (Steinbrook, 2016)
Overall, the future for AIDS looks promising. Although a cure has not been found yet, scientists are getting close to finding it. With the advancement of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, and an increased knowledge on how the disease works, life for people with HIV is becoming more bearable.
References
Frontline Production, director. The Age of AIDS. NC LIVE, 2006.
“History of HIV and AIDS Overview.” AVERT, 9 Mar. 2018, www.avert.org/professionals/history-hiv-aids/overview.
“HIV/AIDS.” Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Center for disease control and prevention, 16 Apr. 2018, https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/prep/index.html
Rogers, Kara. Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2 Jan. 2018, www.britannica.com/science/AZT.
Sherman, Irwin W. The power of plagues. ASM Press, 20