Few modern health issues have received as much media interest and controversy as the AIDS virus. The AIDS virus was first named in 1981 to explain a collection of diseases that developed as a result of a compromised immune system. Individuals who were young and apparently healthy were showing signs of conditions that were typical of those with a severely depressed immune response. It was also noted, at the time, these conditions were limited to the gay community. As the disease became more prevalent, individuals, groups, and communities responded in fear and hatred toward the population they believed to be responsible for this epidemic, the gay community. Because the issue of gay rights was politically controversial and our president’s platform was essentially anti-gay, AIDS was ignored by the administration. The political and media response in the early days of the AIDS virus was essentially nonexistent. Prejudice by the American people prompted politicians, who were concerned for their reputations, to step back. The media, also influenced by a political agenda, kept their coverage benign and low key. The impact of this slow media response to the AIDS epidemic would have disastrous consequences. Health Communication Health communication, at its most effective incorporates the study and use of communication strategies to education, inform, and influence individual and societal decisions for the purpose of promoting health (Site, 2012). The goal of health communication is to promote healthy lifestyle changes and practices in a population through the use of communication methods and tools. Health communication covers a variety of health issues including disease prevention, health promotion, health care policy, and the... ... middle of paper ... ...ponse to the AIDS virus. Everyone was observing for the telltale signs of AIDS in others including Kaposi scars, dramatic weight loss, and respiratory symptoms. Infected Individuals were facing prejudices that Children with AIDS were prevented from going to school; infected adults lost their jobs, their families, and were shunned by a fearful society. Available testing for AIDS was underutilized by the gay population for fear of further social consequences. The government was finally forced to take action through media channels to manage the global threat to all people that AIDS not presented. Out of necessity to manage the virus and provide reassurance to those infected the government implemented privacy laws that protected the individuals who tested positive for the AIDS. (6.) Submit an example of a letter you could send that could influence health policy
Carl Zimmer the guest speaker of this broadcast states that in 1981 doctors described for the first time a new disease, a new syndrome which affected mostly homosexual men. The young men in Los Angeles were dying and the number of cases was growing faster and faster. The number of deaths was increasing from eighty to six hundred and twenty five in just the first few months. After the first few cases in LA, AIDS was declared to be one of the deadliest pandemics the world had ever seen after the plague in the Middle Ages.
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:
In the persuading article, “A Whisper of AIDS”, by the accomplished Mary Fisher, the author convincingly argues that the silence on the issue of AIDS is damaging to Americans. The author effectively and skillfully builds the argument by using a variety of persuasive and argumentative rhetorical techniques including but not limited to appeals to emotion, personification, and thought-provoking rhetorical questions through a careful arrangement of words.
The Movie “And the Band Played On” is the framework of the earliest years of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Also known as the Gay disease. The movie examines HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States in the earlier 1980’s and emphasizes on three crucial components. An immunologist with knowledge in eradicating smallpox and containing the Ebola virus, joins the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to attempt and recognize just what this disease is. The film also deals the administration and government side that does not seem to care. The homosexual community in San Francisco is separated on the nature of the disease but also want to know what should be done
Mary Fisher delivered her speech “A Whisper of AIDS” on August 19th, 1992 in Houston, Texas. Fisher is the mother of two young children and is an advocate and victim of AIDS and HIV. Fisher delivers this speech in hopes to end the prejudice that surrounds AIDS and HIV. Fisher gives this speech to disprove false stereotypes about victims of HIV and AIDS. Fisher contracted this disease from her second husband proving that AIDS and HIV does not necessarily stem simply from hemophilia, gay people, doing drugs, or from promiscuous activity. Fisher argues that no one is safe from AIDS and HIV and anyone can become victim to this deadly virus.
Nine years. It took nearly a decade, and more than two hundred thousand Americans’ deaths until a brave soul spoke up to encourage people to speak up about AIDS. “A Whisper of AIDS” was written to encourage people to “lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS” (Fisher). The effectiveness of this speech lies in its addressing of a problem that has affected many people not only in the 1980s, more than thirty years ago, but has continued to even in the 21st century, and through its use of many rhetorical devices it makes for a convincing and heart wrenching speech.
In 1981 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report first rare cases of what is seemingly pneumonia in young gay men. These cases were then grouped together and the disease known as AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) takes its root in American Society. This disease spread quickly and the events following are responses to the spread of the disease in America known as the AIDS Crisis, where the response of both the people and the government would impact and change society and American culture and lead to emergence of a gay identity, persecution and fear of those with the disease, marketing of safe sex, and the deterioration of class barriers.
In the year 1981, the condition known as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), had a considerable impact on the health of many Americans. It was until the actual discovery of the syndrome in the early 80s that doctors suddenly gained noticed of a new form of cancer, the likes of which they’ve never encountered before, and since the syndrome’s first public outing in the United States on the summer of 1981, the number of reported cases and human casualties greatly increased due to doctors’ and health officials’ inability to understand what was actually killing them. The rise of this illness became prevalent in the 1980s because even when though it was originally thought that the disease only affected homosexual men who encountered in anal
Forty million people worldwide are infected with the HIV virus. About six percent of them will not inform their intimate partners about their health condition. Many efforts that have been made over the past decade towards establishing a HIV/AIDS law, have finally paid off. The act of disclosing the virus was written in 1990. It caused quite a stir among the citizens of the United States. Many people concluded that there were holes in the disclosure law concerning HIV/AIDS because it lacked complete thought. Some felt that if HIV positive people had to tell others about their condition, they would be more susceptible to discrimination and rejection. Essentially, it was a law that ended a few problems and then led to a massive predicament.
drops of urine on a toilet seat (Rimer). Some of the public believed the virus “was spread through the air, in food of by casual contact at home, at work or in school” (Rimer). The misunderstanding and not knowing how AIDS was being spre...
...easures. In 1990 HIV-infected people were included in the Americans with Disabilities Act, making discrimination against people with AIDS for jobs, housing, and other social benefits illegal. Additionally, the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act established a community-funding program designed to assist in the daily lives of people living with AIDS. This congressional act was named in memory of a young man who contracted HIV through blood products and became a public figure for his courage in fighting the disease and community prejudice. The act is still in place, although continued funding for such social programs is threatened by opposition in the U.S. Congress.
In the movie “And the Band Played On”, illustrated the origin of the AIDS virus, how it was spread across the world quickly. It began with a scene in 1976, Central Africa, shows how the Ebola disease affected a village and was contained before it was spread. This was to show the beginning of another serious disease called AIDS. The world was not prepared to handle such a contagious plague. Doctors treating people with this virus thought that the first cases of the HIV virus was just an abnormality disease. The disease started to spread all over, especially gay men. Throughout the movie, I was able to see different points, such as the beginning of AIDS, the misconceptions it had, and the anguish it brought to the doctors as well as people around the world.
In the movie And the Band Played On, stakeholders’ interests stymied public health efforts to research and implement health policy to control the rapidly emerging disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The stakeholders within the movie, those whose interest would be impacted by policy change, included the affected populations, scientists, state and federal public health officials, and organizations including blood banks. Early in the epidemic, the Center for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were tentative in disclosing vital information – many homosexual men were becoming infected in the bathhouses (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). Despite having the supporting evidence of patient zero and a sexual cluster
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.
...t was solely seen as a gay disease, and at the time society was comprised of mostly homophobic individuals. In its infancy, people were terrified of the disease; no one reacted at first due to fear, not even the gay community itself, but just as fear immobilizes, it can be a perpetual motivator. “Watching a generation of gay men wither and die, the nation came to acknowledge the humanity of a community it had mostly ignored and reviled” (Osmond). Slowly but surely the disease became official and accepted as what it is in media, television, movies and society. AIDS changed many things in America, from how Gays were being portrayed in the media, to how they were being treated in society. AIDS did however, have one good outcome; it increased patience and support for other causes, initiating ‘patient activism’ which is helping said causes find treatments and cures.