George Will on “AIDS at 25″
An interesting perspective from a key conservative writer and pundit.
25 Years of AIDS: Have We Learned Anything Yet? – townhall.com
The U.S. epidemic, which so far has killed 530,000, could have been greatly contained by intense campaigns to modify sexual and drug-use behavior in 25 to 30 neighborhoods from New York and Miami to San Francisco. But early in the American epidemic, political values impeded public health requirements. Unhelpful messages were sent by slogans designed to democratize the disease — “AIDS does not discriminate” and “AIDS is an equal opportunity disease.”
By 1987, when President Reagan gave his first speech on the subject, 20,798 Americans had died, and his speech, not surprisingly, did not mention any connection to the gay community. No president considers it part of his job description to tell the country that the human rectum, with its delicate and absorptive lining, makes anal-receptive sexual intercourse dangerous when HIV is prevalent.
Twenty years ago a San Francisco public health official explained death’s teaching power: Watching a friend die, like seeing a wreck along a highway, is sobering. But after driving more slowly for a few miles, we again speed up. AIDS has a more lasting deterrent effect.
There has, however, been an increase in unsafe sex because pharmacological progress has complicated the campaign against this behavior-driven epidemic. Life-extending cocktails of antiviral drugs now lead some at-risk people to regard HIV infection as a manageable chronic disease, and hence to engage in risky behavior. Furthermore, the decline of AIDS mortality means that more persons are surviving with HIV infection — persons who can spread the virus. And drugs like Viagra mean that more older men are sexually active.
Human beings do learn. But they often do at a lethally slow pace.
Food for thought.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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In today’s Michigan-based papers, several led with 2nd Section, front page, above the fold coverage and –just like Geo Will points out about the democratization of AIDS– the lead examples are the more unusual patients… like a 50+ yr old minority women who caught the bug either through a transfusion or from a contaminated meat-slicing machine at the deli.
No where is there a story about 17-18-19 yr olds, romping out of the closet and chasing the bug… or portraits of guys like AndrewSullivan who, HIV+, search for barebacking enthusiasts in the darker recesses of America’s urban centers… or drug abusers.
No, it’s all about talking of “progress” in medicine and therapy and mainstreaming AIDS patients… living with the disease and prospering.
No wonder, with messages like that, gay youth are screwed before they can even build the psychological and cultural defenses needed to protect themselves from the predators who proliferate in our midst.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — June 6, 2006 @ 11:12 am - June 6, 2006
Wow, 25 years and he still considers it a gay disease. Tell that to the minority women and the third world heteros that are the biggest and fastest growing HIV demographics. A very slick anti-gay piece.
How nice for him to credit Reagan for not lecturing about the gay posterior, which Will then goes on to do, but how do you explain Bush II’s political obsession with us?
One wanted to ignore us, the other to use us for his own political gain.
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Comment by chandler in hollywood — June 6, 2006 @ 12:11 pm - June 6, 2006
The problem in the third world is sex. Pointing out heterosexual demographics doesn’t change the fact that behavior spreads the disease and fighting the disease should include facts about behavior.
I remember the “anyone can get it” campaign very well. It was interposed with the “people with AIDS aren’t dangerous you moronic troglodites” campaign. So which is it? Should parents have had traumas and hysterics over HIV students at their school because “anyone can get it, you self-righteous bastards aren’t safe you know” or are the facts that AIDS is transmitted in specific ways and if you don’t *do that* you just aren’t at risk? And frankly, unless someone works with blood, they aren’t at risk if they don’t have multiple sexual partners or a drug habit involving needles.
Sex is designed to pass genetic material from one person to another. It works really good for germs and viruses. Religious rules about monogamy aren’t *just* about knowing who fathered what child, they are about a biological reality… like eating with the hand you didn’t use to wipe your rear. It’s *hygene*.
Comment by Synova — June 6, 2006 @ 2:03 pm - June 6, 2006
I you replace the words “AIDS” with “flu virus” it becomes a bit of a different story. It too would be a “behavior-driven” epidemic. But somehow I doubt he would phrase it in quite the same way. Of course, if you really wanted to control the epidemic, you should have rounded up every gay man and shot them. That would apparently have stopped AIDS in its tracks.
Americans did not treat AIDS like it did, say the 1919 Flu epidemic, it gave AIDS a social stigma because of the first people in the country who go it. That fact is affirmed by George Will’s commentary, which also proves that the stigma is still around today. He doesn’t want to condemn a disease, or really even a behavior, he wants to condemn people. He was saying the same things at the start of the epidemic in the US. His attitudes and prejudices, which were, and still are, carried by so many, was why AIDS testing until recently had to be carried out anonymously.
It’s easy to point fingers of blame back at those at the start of the epidemic in the US. After all, most are not around any more to defend themselves.
George Will also fails to acknowledge the vast amount of suffering that was going on in Africa that was largely ignored until AIDS hit US shores. Just listening to George Will, you would get the impression that it was just a disease of gay men. Although it is just as true today, as it was back then, that the majority of people with AIDS in the world are heterosexual.
If you want a more fair and honest appreciation of the mistakes made at the start of the epidemic in the US, go back to the Shilts book “And the Band Played On”. It’s got plenty of criticism for everybody.
I have often admired and respected George Will’s columns in the past. This isn’t one of those times. He should be ashamed of himself.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — June 6, 2006 @ 3:23 pm - June 6, 2006
Judging by the comments it seems in twenty five years neither side has learned to talk to each other. While the right moralizes, the left continues to casts blame and plays the victim, the only losers are the young of today who are just becoming sexually active.
Like I tell them when I can, don’t expect help from either side. It’s everyman for himself and I hope to see you around in ten years.
How sad.
Comment by Tom — June 6, 2006 @ 6:04 pm - June 6, 2006
A very thought provoking post, GP, as most of yours are (they’re what keeps me interested in this blog, and in reading the response comments).
That first paragraph says it all, espeically the sentence: “But early in the American epidemic, political values impeded public health requirements.” The old saying “history repeats itself” is surely dead on in the U.S. today.
The Reagan administration tried its best to sweep the AIDS epidemic under the rug, saying/doing absolutely nothing about it until they were forced to do so from public pressure. They did their damndest to sweep it under the rug. From what I remember, it was primarily Liz Taylor’s activism after Rock Hudson’s death in 1985, and then C. Everett Coop’s ardent push to get more funding for information/awareness, and reasearch and devleopment for new HIV/AIDS treatments which got things started in the right direction. The activism of those two, along with that of many glbt organizations (some newly formed during that era), and the policies of local public health agencies, forced the ultra-convservative Raegan administration to acknowledge that devastating disease and start doing something about it. Even then, Reagan only gave one speech (in 1987) regarding the AIDS epidemic. Although I acknowledge that collectively, we should’ve taken more personal responsibility to promote safer sex practices, the government’s inaction at the time was at least partially responsible for many more deaths which could’ve been avoided had they acted a few years earlier.
It was the Clinton administration who was responsible for higher funding grants for the CDC and NIH to do research and development, to produce and disseminate more information to the public, for fully funding for the Ryan White foundation in the early 90′s, and for introducing legislation allowing the FDA to ‘fastrack’ new prescription drug approvals — policies which helped perpetuate the decline in annual HIV infections in the U.S. in the following years. These policies were responsible for greater availability/access of new drugs for patients, and severely limited the automatic death sentence syndrome for AIDS patients.
I agree that some of these newer developments (i.e. the AIDS treatment cocktails, and easier acess) have contributed to more complacency. We, the public, still need to assume personal responsibility for our actions. However, I also think that the neocons in positions of political power now, and the religious right wing groups could do so much more for prevention efforts by increasing funding (here at home) for hiv prevention/information/treatments, and a lot LESS by not preaching abstinence over contraception….and yes, I’m aware that Bush appropriated more money than any other president ever has for fighting the global aids epidemic — $15 billion, a very noble, christian thing to do (I mean that as complementary, not sarcastically). However, none of the coutries get a dime of those funds unless they preach abstinence first. Abstinence lectures may work for a very small, insiginificant portion of the population, but it doesn’t work for the majority of people who are in their primes and sexually active. How about allocating funding for more condoms and preaching safer sex practices in these third world countries over abstinence?? How about making condoms more widely available for teens in our own U.S. and disseminating more information about safe sex practices for same?
The second paragraph of MM’s post in #1 helps affirm my point here. Maybe if our current administration (including the higher ups in our federal public health agencies) would acknowledge that abstinence doesn’t work for most teens with raging hormones, and would jump back on the information bandwagon, we might see many fewer STD infections each year. Our surgeon general (Richard Carmona) and our HHS secretary (Michael Leavitt) seem eerily silent on AIDS issues these days….hmmmmmm
Comment by ndtovent — June 6, 2006 @ 7:03 pm - June 6, 2006
Oh, so the bow-tied, chicken-hawk, Nixon bum-kisser who successfully avoided service in Vietnam by going to seminary is lecturing us again.
Yawn. These people never go away. And I don’t pay attention to them.
Comment by raj — June 7, 2006 @ 2:42 am - June 7, 2006
raj baby, you seem to have nailed just about every slur on Geo Will you could muster… it suggests, despite the yawn, you DO read him.
A lying GayLeft winger? Nawh.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — June 7, 2006 @ 10:02 am - June 7, 2006
Although I acknowledge that collectively, we should’ve taken more personal responsibility to promote safer sex practices, the government’s inaction at the time was at least partially responsible for many more deaths which could’ve been avoided had they acted a few years earlier.
Here’s the problem, ndtovent.
– HIV is spread primarily by sexual conduct
– You and yours want the government out of sexual conduct. You don’t want it in the bedroom, you don’t want it telling you what to do, you don’t want any restrictions whatsoever on it.
– Yet you blame the government’s inaction for allowing the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Quite honestly, I think you got what you wanted — and didn’t like the results.
And as long as the gay community refuses any restrictions on sex, it should not be pointing the finger of blame at other people for not “doing enough” — unless your point is that you should be able to do whatever you want, then send the medical bill to the taxpayers.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — June 7, 2006 @ 12:27 pm - June 7, 2006
Yea, ummm, but, I thought George Will was your poster boy for the right. Why all the slamming?
Comment by HDBiker — June 7, 2006 @ 1:16 pm - June 7, 2006
HDbiker… he isn’t my poster boi. But I think raj baby has a crush on him and that bow tie.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — June 7, 2006 @ 3:11 pm - June 7, 2006
#8 Michigan-Matt — June 7, 2006 @ 10:02 am – June 7, 2006
raj baby, you seem to have nailed just about every slur on Geo Will you could muster… it suggests, despite the yawn, you DO read him.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. I haven’t read him for about 2 decades, and I studiously avoid the silly Disney Network sunday-morning program that he seems to have a never-ending contract with.
Comment by raj — June 7, 2006 @ 3:30 pm - June 7, 2006
Y’all might be interested in this:
George Will Distorts the History of AIDS
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Comment by WPB — June 7, 2006 @ 5:13 pm - June 7, 2006
NDT Says:
Errr… Considereing that the only time Heterosexuals are willling to put limits on sex is when its either pedophilia or male-to-male sex your arguement does not hold any water.
For that matter you could apply the same reasoning to smokers. I certainly pay for others peoples bad smoking habit in increased taxes, higher health-care and the risk of cancer from 2nd hand smoke. But I wouldn’t begrudge smokers medical or financial support when they get sick. It wouldn’t be a very charitable thing to do. You are your brothers keeper NDT.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — June 7, 2006 @ 10:26 pm - June 7, 2006
Nice site I found … Plan on coming back later.
Comment by breast enhancement — October 8, 2006 @ 11:57 pm - October 8, 2006
Will’s column is poorly researched as is usually the case. Restrictions on gay sex have been highly counterproductive in fighting HIV transmission. A good example can be found in contrasting the HIV strategies of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In San Francisco, bathhouses were closed and remain closed.
In Los Angeles, bathhouses remained open and were used by HIV educators in prevention campaigns.
San Francisco has been hit harder than Los Angeles by AIDS.
Comment by libhomo — June 21, 2007 @ 6:39 pm - June 21, 2007