Sophia Hawkins Mrs. Kassar English 10 Honors 1 March 2024 Ryan White’s Postive Changes In the 1980s, as the AIDS epidemic unfolded, Ryan White emerged as a symbol of courage and resilience. He left a permanent mark on the AIDS community, causing positive change in attitudes, policies, and support systems. He was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS at the age of 13. Due to this, he faced discrimination and adversity. Ryan White's impact on the AIDS community is shown through his personal resilience and legal advocacy, which not only challenged stigmas but also led to the establishment of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. This program has proven effective in addressing the healthcare needs of individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS. He left a positive change …show more content…
The following quote is from an article by Health Affairs explaining the disparities in viral suppression due to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. “The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program is a federal program that provides care, treatment, and support services for people living with HIV as a payer of last resort. Administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the program is well positioned to contribute significantly to reducing HIV-related health disparities because it uses a public health approach to provide a comprehensive system of safety-net care for people living with HIV. Over its twenty-five-year history, it has worked to reduce disparities in HIV health outcomes related to race/ethnicity, age, gender, and other risk factors.” (Health Affairs) This quote highlights what the Ryan White program has done for those living with HIV/AIDS and mentions the reduction in those affected. This next quote is from HIV.Gov, in an article explaining the evolution of Ryan White HIV/CARE. “Five years later, just a few months after the release of antiretroviral medication in late 1995 and early 1996, death rates from AIDS plummeted in the
Elizabeth Glaser, co-founder of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, was infected with the AIDS virus during a blood transfusion when she was giving birth to her first child. Her daughter became quite ill in 1985 and after several tests and treatments the entire family was tested for the human immunodeficiency virus. Elizabeth, her daughter, Ariel, and her son, Jake, all tested positive. She then went to Washington, D.C. to help fight AIDS and raise awareness for the cause. She met with several influential politicians, activists, and first ladies including President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush to discuss ways to improve HIV care and research.
Although the “war on AIDS have contributed to the development of the Ryan White policy, such course of action came firsthand through the death of a brave young man. Ryan White, diagnosed at the age of 13 with AIDS through a blood transfusion became the driving force of change. The movement brought about much awareness. HIV/AIDS can happen to anyone. He was the first teenager, the first with hemophiliac to have AIDS. Since, the life and struggle of Ryan White, there has been changes in helping those with the disease. Ryan White’s death has sparked a national outcry for those who suffers with HIV/AIDS
At first, individuals there insisted that there were no health rules for someone with AIDS to attend an ordinary school. Even after the Indiana State Board of Health set guidelines stating that it would be safe if White attended school, the principal, school board, and teachers tried to keep him out of school. They feared he would spread the ailment, even though it was known by that point that AIDS couldn’t be spread by casual contact. White and his mother took the case to court. Eventually they could compromise with their neighbors’ by having Ryan drink out of a separate water fountain, use a separate restroom, use disposable trays at lunch, and have him exempted from gym class. Even though these changes were made, twenty students were taken out of school by their parents to avoid any contact with
Even though the United States government was already making improvements to the healthcare system, they excluded African Americans from all the progress that they made. Most believed that African Americans brought it upon themselves and that they inherited their sicknesses, and diseases. “Richmond's city officials were also aware that the high death rate of the city's African Americans, usually about twice that of whites, inflated the average for the city as a whole and negatively affected the health of all of Richm ” (Hoffman, 2001, p.177). Officials in Richmond Virginia first started to notice at how bad their death rates were when other states started to comment on it. African Americans made up the majority population in Richmond and even when they brought attention to problems they were excluded from the solutions, and the government was mostly worried about how the state looked overall. Eventually the government did have to step in and help them some. “Only in those programs administered by the Health Department's nurses did Richmond's African Americans receive anything like an equitable share ofthe benefits ofthe city's conversion to modern public health policies and practices, and even practices, and even there, the results were limited ” (Hoffman, 2001, p 188). Africans Americans were helped eventually but at a very limited amount compared to
Even after the disease and its modes of transmission had been correctly identified, fear and ignorance remained widespread. In the mid 1980s, “AIDS hysteria” became a well known term in the media and public life. For example, a magazine published details about how extensive AIDS/HIV related discrimination became. “Anxiety over AIDS in some parts of the U.S. is verging on hysteria,” the authors wrote; they later published this disturbing example:
Randy Shilts set out to make monumental changes in the world’s perspective of AIDS. He planned to enlighten, motivate, and educate the population on this tragic disease that has already claimed so many lives. He believed that virtually all the misconceptions about AIDS would be corrected and the public would insist that more be done to stop the epidemic. "I had hoped to effect some fundamental changes. I really believed I could alter the performance of the institutions that had allowed AIDS to sweep through America unchecked" (220). Shilts’s immense expectations positioned him for his inevitable sense of failure. He did not accomplished all that he had planned. AIDS was still spreading and people were still dying. "The bitter irony is, my role as an AIDS celebrity just gives me a more elevated promontory from which to watch the world make the same mistakes in the handling of the AIDS epidemic that I hoped my work would help to change"(220).
Large disparities exist between minorities and the rest of Americans in major areas of health. Even though the overall health of the nation is improving, minorities suffer from certain diseases up to five times more than the rest of the nation. President Clinton has committed the nation to eliminating the disparities in six areas of health by the Year 2010, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be jumping in on this huge battle. The six areas are: Infant Mortality, Cancer Screening and Management, Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, HIV Infection and AIDS, and Child and Adult Immunizations.
As of today, there are many programs and efforts being made that have either already decreased the gap or are attempting to bring change to the problem of increased deaths of African American women from breast cancer. One example is a study that was done in Massachusetts that gave low-income African American women aged 50-70 resources and education for six years, and it was “concluded that the Massachusetts program appeared to mitigate the disadvantages of living in high-poverty neighborhoods” for the incidence of breast cancer in that specific area (Cunningham 595). This study shows that these women need help that has not been previously provided to them in order to reduce the disparity. In this regard, the role of affordable health care needs to be available in order to decrease this problem. The same study showed that “among women without health insurance, disproportionately large numbers are [older African Americans], providing an explanation for high rates of advanced stage cancers at presentation among [African American] women in general” (Cunningham 594). If women are to be able to access affordable screenings, affordable health care must also be provided. Once again, this brings in the role of government in the lives of African American women. Federally qualified health centers offer preventative health care and screenings for a reduced or free cost to women of low socio-economic status, many of which happened to be African American women at a particular clinic, and it was found that the incidence of breast cancer in that community was reduced from the rates that were established previously (Adams 640). Therefore, if low-income women are to be able to access quality health care, then there must be more federally qualified ...
...ity, as well as inequalities in education, employment, and housing, all contribute to health discrepencies. Health care reform, as envisioned within the ACA, should be viewed as treatment of the symptoms of an unequal system, not treatment of the cause. To speak metaphorically, America has a pre-existing condition of institutional racism. Capitalist structure, political climate and discourse, and notions of imperialism, deny treatment. The Affordable Care Act addresses this condition as a localized disease, rather than a systemic one, that’s cause is rooted in the hegemonic reproduction of ideological superstructures. Only when health care is treated as a basic right, rather than an economic commodity, and health disparites are recognized in a greater political context, can health reform offer an opportunity to overcome racial disparities and achieve health equity.
Of all the 1980’s films, that can be described as “Eighties Teen Movies” (Thorburn, 1998) or “High School Movies” (Messner, 1998), those written and (with the exception of “Pretty In Pink” (1986) and “Some Kind of Wonderful”(1987)) directed by John Hughes were often seen to define the genre, even leading to the tag “John Hughes rites de passage movies” as a genre definition used in 1990s popular culture (such as in “Wayne’s World 2” (1994 dir. Stephen Surjik)). This term refers to the half dozen films made between 1984 and 1987; chronologically, “Sixteen Candles” (1984), “The Breakfast Club” (1985), “Weird Science” (1985), “Ferris Bueller's Day Off” (1986), “Pretty In Pink” (1986) and “Some Kind Of Wonderful” (1987) (the latter two being directed by Howard Deutch). For the purpose of this study, “Weird Science” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” shall be excluded; “Weird Science” since, unlike the other films, it is grounded in science fiction rather than reality and “Some Kind of Wonderful” as its characters are fractionally older and have lost the “innocence” key to the previous movies: as Bernstein states “the youthful naivete was missing and the diamond earring motif [a significant gift within the film] was no substitute” (Bernstein, 1997, p.89). Bernstein suggests that the decadent 1980s were like the 1950s, “an AIDS-free adventure playground with the promise of prosperity around every corner … our last age of innocence” (Bernstein, 1997, p.1). The films were very much a product of the time in terms of their production (“suddenly adolescent spending power dictated that Hollywood direct all its energies to fleshing out the fantasies of our friend, Mr. Dumb Horny 14 Year Old” Bernstein, 1997, p.4), their repetition (with the growth of video cassette recorders, cable and satellite with time to fill, and also the likes of MTV promoting the film’s soundtracks) and their ideologies.
Williams, D. R., & Jackson, P. (2014, April 1). Health Affairs. Social Sources Of Racial Disparities In Health. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/2/325.short
The government played a major part in the AIDS situation. The government’s blood banks did not wish to check blood with a test developed by the CDC because it was not “cost-efficient.” The government also neglected the CDC of large sums of money needed in the pursuit of a cure or vaccine in the disease and thought more of dollar signs that the lives of people.
"Demanding that life near AIDS is an inextricably other reality denies our ability to recreate a sustaining culture and social structures, even as we are daily required to devote such time to the details of the AIDS crisis." -Cindy Patton
Moreover, systemic racism and discrimination further exacerbate these disparities, perpetuating cycles of inequality and injustice in the healthcare system. Addressing Disparities: To tackle the health disparities faced by Black residents in Los Angeles, a multi-faceted approach is necessary. Firstly, there must be a concerted effort to address the root causes of these disparities, including socioeconomic inequities and systemic racism. This entails implementing policies aimed at reducing poverty, improving access to affordable housing, and promoting economic opportunities within Black
Seeking to position lower socioeconomic status above racial/ethnic biases or vice versa is irresponsible to the goal of eliminating healthcare delivery differences at large. Both these are realities of a group of people who are not receiving the same level of care from the healthcare professionals although they exist within one of the most resource rich countries in the world, the United States. According to House & Williams (2000), “racism restricts and truncates socioeconomic attainment” (page, 106). This alone will hinder good health and spur on disparities as racism reduces the level of education and income as well as the prospect of better jobs. Blacksher (2008) cites the nation’s institutionalized racism as one of the leading factors