How is Reagan to blame for AIDS? I am asking an honest question because I have seen this sentiment MANY times on liberal boards. Promiscuous people have ALWAYS been subject to diseases and viruses and, I'm sorry, but that's like me blaming every president since we found out that cigarettes caused cancer if I ever get cancer. I know the risks. Syphilis, Herpes, the "Clap", "Crabs", Gonorrhea, Clamydia, Papilloma, and Hepatitis(I think), were all around way before and people, unless they were idiots, KNEW they were susceptible to these diseases/viruses. Why do they blame Reagan for their promiscuous lives? I don't want ANY of them. Hell, there may be something ELSE out there that we DON'T know of. Do I go on what I know knowing at one time these were also unknown? Hell no. I take responsibility for my own life. If something happens to me, it's my own fault.

On the other hand, why do people say Reagan didn't "address" the issue? How was he to address something he didn't even know about and If it WAS known at the time, then why oh why did people continue to live promiscuous lives?

The entire "Reagan Hates Gays" was debunked by Reagan's and Nancy's relationship with Rock Hudson. They were very good friends and please don't believe this BS you see on NBC's "fairytale" about the Reagans. First off, Nancy didn't even speak with the people that wrote it and I know President Reagan didn't. Now, that was a scene in a bedroom between Ronald and Nancy so.........was it a meant as a jab at President Reagan because it wasn't even true? Well, that was rhetorical.

AIDS was discovered in 1981.

Reagan never uttered the word in a public setting until 1987. By that time, about 16,000 people had died -- including Rock Hudson, who died in 1985.

Schadenfreude Wrote:AIDS was discovered in 1981.

Reagan never uttered the word in a public setting until 1987. By that time, about 16,000 people had died -- including Rock Hudson, who died in 1985.

what did you want reagan to do about it.

Schadenfreude Wrote:AIDS was discovered in 1981.

Reagan never uttered the word in a public setting until 1987. By that time, about 16,000 people had died -- including Rock Hudson, who died in 1985.

And by 1988, The Federal Government was spending 5.6 billion dollars on AIDS research.

Schadenfreude Wrote:AIDS was discovered in 1981.

Reagan never uttered the word in a public setting until 1987. By that time, about 16,000 people had died -- including Rock Hudson, who died in 1985.

And what, precisely, could Reagan have said that would have made the slightest difference? I feel your pain? Awwwww, gee, that would have been so sweet.

As has already been pointed out, AIDS is a preventable disease. Preventable by very modest measures. Other diseases, such as cancer, are not preventable. Shouldn't the efforts go first toward trying to find cures or controls for non-preventable diseases?

Anyhow, as has also been pointed out, there has been a stupendous effort to find a cure for HIV/AIDS. So what is the point of attacking Reagan for not having said something?

Wryword Wrote:Other diseases, such as cancer, are not preventable. Shouldn't the efforts go first toward trying to find cures or controls for non-preventable diseases?

OOHRAH

This goes to the new American value that is being pushed on all of us, if something bad happens to you its somebody elses fault. Apparently its really hard to keep it in your pants or use protection, but since they cant control themselves they have to blame the consequences of their actions on someone else. I see the logic behind this :rolleyes:

MaumeeRocket Wrote:This goes to the new American value that is being pushed on all of us, if something bad happens to you its somebody elses fault. Apparently its really hard to keep it in your pants or use protection, but since they cant control themselves they have to blame the consequences of their actions on someone else. I see the logic behind this :rolleyes:

AIDS is not spread solely by having sex.

Reagan having Alzheimer's increased research into the disease enormously. Tackling a epidemic that has killed far more people that SARS can dream of cannot possibly have been a bad thing.

HuskieDan Wrote:

MaumeeRocket Wrote:This goes to the new American value that is being pushed on all of us, if something bad happens to you its somebody elses fault. Apparently its really hard to keep it in your pants or use protection, but since they cant control themselves they have to blame the consequences of their actions on someone else. I see the logic behind this :rolleyes:

AIDS is not spread solely by having sex.

Reagan having Alzheimer's increased research into the disease enormously. Tackling a epidemic that has killed far more people that SARS can dream of cannot possibly have been a bad thing.

Are you kidding me, 99.9% of it is. And the people who get it because of an accident probally have a person not having protected sex to blame.

MaumeeRocket Wrote:

HuskieDan Wrote:

MaumeeRocket Wrote:This goes to the new American value that is being pushed on all of us, if something bad happens to you its somebody elses fault. Apparently its really hard to keep it in your pants or use protection, but since they cant control themselves they have to blame the consequences of their actions on someone else. I see the logic behind this :rolleyes:

AIDS is not spread solely by having sex.

Reagan having Alzheimer's increased research into the disease enormously. Tackling a epidemic that has killed far more people that SARS can dream of cannot possibly have been a bad thing.

Are you kidding me, 99.9% of it is. And the people who get it because of an accident probally have a person not having protected sex to blame.

A friend of mine died of AIDS during the early 1990s.

He contracted HIV during the Reagan administration.

He was a hemophiliac.

I'm speculating here, but for all I know, this event could have occurred the very day my friend contracted HIV:

[i]The most memorable Reagan AIDS moment was at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagan’s were there sitting next to the French Prime Minister and his wife, Francois and Danielle Mitterrand. 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.

First off, just a little tidbit, AIDS was tracked to a gay, either Australian or Canadian, flight attendant. That is neither here nor there, but just a little tidbit for you guys. He was the first case recognized, although I am sure he got it from someone else.(I always thought that was what Forrest's Jenny had)


Second, I feel for your friend SF, I had someone close to me die from liver disease because of Hepatitis she contracted from receiving blood. However, you cannot blame Reagan unless you show me a bill that he vetoed that allowed the funding for the research. All expenditures are controlled by the Congress.

Unfortunately he is in that minority, but the fact still remains that this disease is almost 100% preventable, if people take care of themselves. However people choose to live the wild side of life and just because they do they want us to pay for it, makes a lot of sense to me, Reagan had this situation right.

Note from Schedenfreude: Once again, I have screwed up with the mod controls. I edited your post when I simply meant to quote it, MaumeeRocket.

I have preserved your post, Maumee, but in an attempt to restore it I lost the materal you were quoting. I'm sorry. I think your meaning remains clear. Hopefully.

Other mods here can feel free to take the mod controls away from me. I never asked for them, and the only result is that I'm making a mess of other people's posts.

Quote:Unfortunately he is in that minority, but the fact still remains that this disease is almost 100% preventable, if people take care of themselves. However people choose to live the wild side of life and just because they do they want us to pay for it, makes a lot of sense to me, Reagan had this situation right.

This, I suppose, is a politically correct way of saying "people who get AIDS get what they deserve."



AIDS is deadly. It kills. A sixteen year old kid does not deserve a death sentence because he was too sheepish about his hormonal urges to go to the store and buy a condom.

And you guys are dead, dead wrong. There are all kinds of ways to contract AIDS that have no connection at all to personal responsibility.

Does a newborn baby bear responsibility for her death because she contraced it from her mother?

Does a health care worker bear responsibility for his death after contracting it in the splatter of trying to save a life?

Does a faithful wife bear responsibility for her death because her husband slept with a prostitute?

Does a Ugandan orphan bear responsbiility for his poverty because his parents died of AIDS?

Did my friend -- and the generation of hemophiliacs that were sentenced to death with him -- deserve what they got?

AIDS is ravaging whole sections of this planet in ways the human race hasn't had to contend with in centuries. From Africa's point of view, AIDS is comparable -- and perhaps, worse -- than the Black Plague.

South Africa is a country with a genuine chance to join the First World. And it may be permanently held back because of AIDS.

Here is a tiny, tiny taste of what the South Africans are dealing with every day:

<a href='http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200406100621.html' target='_blank'>South Africa: Cremation the Only Option As Cemetries Fill </a>

So many people are now dying of AIDS that it is the equivalent of wiping Ireland -- or Iowa -- from the face of Earth -- every 18 months.

<a href='http://212.2.162.45/news/story.asp?j=107113614&p=yx7yy43zx&n=107114374' target='_blank'>http://212.2.162.45/news/story.asp?j=10711...3zx&n=107114374</a>

You guys wonder what my beef is with Reagan on AIDS? It's the same beef I have with you.

Stop blaming AIDS victims for their plight. Stop acting if there is any significance whatsoever to the fact that the first known case belonged to a gay man.

And, above all else, show some genuine compassion. Reagan sure didn't.

I'll close with some words from C. Everett Koop, Reagan's Surgeon General, reflecting in 1991 about Reagan administration attitude toward AIDS:

Quote:By August of that same year, we learned from CDC that there had been
108 cases reported of HIV and 43 of those had already died. I was not yet
the Surgeon General and all through that summer of `81, I was
preoccupied by my long struggle for confirmation. But I certainly did
realize if ever there was a challenge for a Surgeon General, it was a
disease we called AIDS/HIV. But for some reason, due to
intradepartmental politics that I still cannot truly understand or explain to
you, I was cut off from AIDS discussions and statements over the next five
years. But I did have a very definite impression about what was going on
on Pennsylvania Avenue. Domestic policy folks in the White House
isolated Ronald Reagan from the whole subject of AIDS. And because
transmission of AIDS was understood primarily in the homosexual
population and in those who abused intravenous drugs, the advisors to the
President, took the stand, they are only getting what they justly deserve.

And the domestic policy people, as well as the majority of the President’s
cabinet, did not see any need to come to grips with AIDS, or indeed to
have a governmental policy towards this disease. And these combined
attitudes did nothing to dampen. Indeed, they merry--very well may have
aided and embedded the hatred of homosexuals in this country, the
discrimination against innocent school children like Ryan White, and the
acts of arson on the homes of hapless children with hemophilia, such as
the Ray Children.

<a href='http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/uploaded_files/morningtrns2.pdf' target='_blank'>http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/u...orningtrns2.pdf</a>

No im saying if people were mature ebough to have self control we wouldnt have this problem of medical workers or new born babies contracting this disease, they are the real victims in this.

MaumeeRocket Wrote:No im saying if people were mature ebough to have self control we wouldnt have this problem of medical workers or new born babies contracting this disease, they are the real victims in this.

Do I say a 16 year old deserves to die b/c he was too sheepish to go buy a condom? No, but that is a risk he takes. What he should do, is demonstrate some SELF CONTROL. They don't deserve to die, but I don't feel sorry for them. If you play russian roulette, eventually, you will eat the bullet. Period

I'm glad that you and I aren't friends or neighbors because seemingly every tragedy known to man has happened to either one of your friends or neighbors. You'd think that people would know better than to live next to or befriend you after seeing the black cloud that follows you around all of the time.