What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Sheilbh]

dying with people wearing full PPE, or isolating patients, or wrapping bodies in bin bags

Was this commonly done by non-hospital organizations?

It was done in hospitals - I understand it was also done in Europe. But loved ones were told to pick up the body and there were cases were it was literally just dumped on the floor wrapped in bin bags because people were afraid to touch the corpse.

I think it wasn't done by other organisations necessarily - my understanding is that the hospice movement developed and learned hugely during the AIDS crisis. One of the community responses in LGBT communities around the world was caring for the dying which, especially in the early years, was done with more compassion and less fear than in the hospital sadly. It is a bit of a trope of the art around AIDS - and it was, like the families rejecting someone on their deathbed, relatively and thankfully rare - but it did happen in the early years.

Again I think if the communication was clear to everyone even within healthcare that the risk wasn't "bodily fluids" but "semen and blood" I do think that changes things.

[Jacob]

And the long term effects of his cultural ideas around homosexuality and his using those amazing communication skills to create a generation of anti-progress hatred of the government that has directly led to right wing embrace of anti-science and anti-climate policies cannot be over-stated.

Yeah, I think we're done here.

I thought it was very apt.

[Barrister]

And the long term effects of his cultural ideas around homosexuality and his using those amazing communication skills to create a generation of anti-progress hatred of the government that has directly led to right wing embrace of anti-science and anti-climate policies cannot be over-stated.

Yeah, I think we're done here.

I thought it was very apt.

You would.

[Admiral Yi]

No. I don't know where you'd get that from, or how it's relevant given that hospitals weren't a major transmission vector.

I got that from this:

"But they were important because people didn't know what caused AIDS. That was part of the entire issue and led to the really tragic treatment of people dying with people wearing full PPE, or isolating patients, or wrapping bodies in bin bags - because they didn't know how it was caught. "

[The Brain]

dying with people wearing full PPE, or isolating patients, or wrapping bodies in bin bags

Was this commonly done by non-hospital organizations?

It was done in hospitals - I understand it was also done in Europe. But loved ones were told to pick up the body and there were cases were it was literally just dumped on the floor wrapped in bin bags because people were afraid to touch the corpse.

I think it wasn't done by other organisations necessarily - my understanding is that the hospice movement developed and learned hugely during the AIDS crisis. One of the community responses in LGBT communities around the world was caring for the dying which, especially in the early years, was done with more compassion and less fear than in the hospital sadly. It is a bit of a trope of the art around AIDS - and it was, like the families rejecting someone on their deathbed, relatively and thankfully rare - but it did happen in the early years.

Again I think if the communication was clear to everyone even within healthcare that the risk wasn't "bodily fluids" but "semen and blood" I do think that changes things.

But the information from the government to hospitals was clear, if I understand your response to Yi correctly.

[DGuller]

And the long term effects of his cultural ideas around homosexuality and his using those amazing communication skills to create a generation of anti-progress hatred of the government that has directly led to right wing embrace of anti-science and anti-climate policies cannot be over-stated.

Yeah, I think we're done here.

I thought it was very apt.

You would.

I thought it was apt enough as well.

[Sheilbh]

No. I don't know where you'd get that from, or how it's relevant given that hospitals weren't a major transmission vector.

I got that from this:

"But they were important because people didn't know what caused AIDS. That was part of the entire issue and led to the really tragic treatment of people dying with people wearing full PPE, or isolating patients, or wrapping bodies in bin bags - because they didn't know how it was caught. "

Oh Okay. I don't know how they communicated to hospitals. But the CDC mainly published their developing understanding in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, through the early 80s they are clearly narrowing in on it being something to do with sex and blood primarily. That's confirmed in 1982.

They hold one public meeting on this finding (but don't reach any conclusions) in early 1983 - I believe that's the first time the CDC released information except through MMWR. Through 1983 there is lots of engagement - but it is with blood banks and the plasma industry and also publich helath bodies of different states with the focus of "how do we protect the blood supply". In particular how to protect haemophiliacs.

As far as I'm aware there was no similar engagement or campaign to inform hospitals or public health bodies from the perspective of how is it transmitted, how do stop people from transmitting and how do we behave towards the people who are ill. So my understanding is the information was available - and so it had been "shared", but I don' t think it had been actively shared.

I don't know if this is the case in the US - but in lots of Europe AIDS cases really kick off a little bit later and there are examples of hospitals behaving in that way after the late 82/early 83 confirmation that sex and blood were the two key vectors.

[Admiral Yi]

As far as I'm aware there was no similar engagement or campaign to inform hospitals or public health bodies from the perspective of how is it transmitted, how do stop people from transmitting and how do we behave towards the people who are ill. So my understanding is the information was available - and so it had been "shared", but I don' t think it had been actively shared.

We return to the fact that there were no public service announcements about the danger of unprotected anal sex.

Now as I said before it seemed like common knowledge at the time.  Relatively quickly I knew, and everyone I knew knew, that unprotected anal sex was a BAD IDEA.  (Only later did we learn that unprotected anal sex between two straight people that didn't share needles was not such a bad idea after all.)

You bring up the toilet seats and door knobs.  My personal recollection is that only kooks thought that way, and 24 hours a day of public service announcements wouldn't have changed their minds.

[Sheilbh]

We return to the fact that there were no public service announcements about the danger of unprotected anal sex.

Now as I said before it seemed like common knowledge at the time.  Relatively quickly I knew, and everyone I knew knew, that unprotected anal sex was a BAD IDEA.  (Only later did we learn that unprotected anal sex between two straight people that didn't share needles was not such a bad idea after all.)

You bring up the toilet seats and door knobs.  My personal recollection is that only kooks thought that way, and 24 hours a day of public service announcements wouldn't have changed their minds.

When are you talking about in terms of your memories?

And we return to this point - because it's what you've asked about. I'm happy to also dig out the information on funding and research and bureaucratic infighting to avoid being responsible for AIDS if you want to talk about those points as well. But I would largely be citing The Band Played On which is, as I say, a genuinely very good read on this and very informative. Some of its points and perspectives are wrong - especially the whole Patient Zero strand - but most of it is still valuable.

[crazy canuck]

And the long term effects of his cultural ideas around homosexuality and his using those amazing communication skills to create a generation of anti-progress hatred of the government that has directly led to right wing embrace of anti-science and anti-climate policies cannot be over-stated.

Yeah, I think we're done here.

I thought it was very apt.

You would.

Well, I hazard to say most would think it was apt. 

[Admiral Yi]

When are you talking about in terms of your memories?

I can't give you a timeline.

[Sheilbh]

When are you talking about in terms of your memories?

I can't give you a timeline.

But roughly when?

I don't mean dates or anything

[Admiral Yi]

But roughly when?

I don't mean dates or anything

I attended college from 81 to 85.  AIDS was always at least a lurking issue.  At the beginning it was a terrifying issue.

[crazy canuck]

But roughly when?

I don't mean dates or anything

I attended college from 81 to 85.  AIDS was always at least a lurking issue.  At the beginning it was a terrifying issue.

In 81?  I don't think so.  I can't remember the year it became public knowledge but it was later than that.   I do clearly recall it being described as something that only afflicted homosexuals and a lot of right wing evangelicals saying it was God's punishment for being gay.

[Berkut]

I argued long and hard with Marty when he was here about Reagan and AIDS.  Funding for research skyrocketed.  The principle indictment was he didn't air public service announcements to tell people something they already knew, which was that unprotected butt sex could give you AIDS.

Have you read The Band Played On? I'd recommend it on the failure of the Federal government (and other bits of government) in their response. It's far more than public service announcements.

I would have thought that the last 18 months would have taught us how difficult it is to deal with a novel viral pandemic.

And HIV was dramatically more complex to figure out than Covid.  Covid is a coronavirus, a very common type of virus well understood.  HIV is a retrovirus which were only really discovered by the 60s-70s.

Nobody expected Reagan to go stroll into the CDC and figure out AIDS.

He was expected to give it the attention it deserved, and the attention the health officials and scientists were asking for it to get, rather then laughing it off as the "gay plague" and not giving a shit.

That is not "difficult" to do.