San Francisco AIDS Foundation Marks 30 Years: PHOTO
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation is posting a 30-day series of historic images in honor of our 30th year which they're commemorating throughout April. Also on Facebook.
The first image, above: "MYSTERIOUS OUTBREAK, 1982. In the Castro, men gather around one of the many public flier posted around the community raising awareness about the mysterious disease outbreak plaguing gay men in San Francisco. Today we continue to confront HIV in populations most impacted by the disease through education, advocacy, and free direct local services."
I had just graduated college back then, and still get a shudder when reminded of those times like this. It wasn't just who's sick this week...it's who died this week.
First the public apathy, then the fear and the spectre of "the camps". Not only was "Silence=Death", but sex-itself equaled death.
Posted by: Ted B. (Charging Rhino) | Apr 2, 2012 9:46:15 AM
I lived and worked in SF at this time. A frightening time. "Did you hear? So-and-So's in the hospital", "So-and-So's got it!", "So-and-So's lover died"... I was afraid to pick up the telephone because it was another call about a friend, or an ex-lover. We were told at one time to check the bottom of our feet for black spots, as it was the first sign of infection! And that POPPERS were the cause! And our President, Reagan and his administration did NOTHING when we asked for help! They took the 'wait and see' attitude, and said "they DESERVED IT." One of the MANY reasons why I HATE all Republicans, and can't understand why ANY gay man votes Republican to this day.
Posted by: Jeff R. | Apr 2, 2012 10:23:03 AM
I'm gonna get vicious feedback, but:
At the very beginning, early stages, once it became obvious what was going on public health-wise, AIDS infected people should have been isolated from the general population, in the same manner any other person infected with a deadly, communicable disease with no cure and high mortality rate, would be, and quite commonly used to be. Many gay 'advocates' actually prevented this common-sense approach and in the end, IMO, made things A LOT worse, the disease spread rapidly, and many people unnecessarily died and suffered. There were numerous common-sense public health policies that could have also been vigorously enforced, like closing and strictly monitoring 'bath houses', and other places dudes went to have anonymous sex. Also, drug use [and alcohol] among gays were and are very high. This of course lowers inhibitions and damages a person's immune system. And yes, that includes poppers. But again, many gay advocates fought AIDS being treated simply as a deadly public health hazard for selfish political reasons. And it's depressing to say this, but more than a few wanted gay 'martyrs' for the 'cause', and were willing to look the other way. They served a greater purpose dying and dead than alive and healthy.
Yes, I understand what I said here contradicts the official gay narrative of the AIDS Crisis. Let the mean-spirited and hateful comments commence.
Posted by: ratbastard | Apr 2, 2012 1:47:04 PM
Just how were we supposed to round up these dirty infected people? With forced HIV testing for everyone in the US? Followed by internment camps? Maybe tattoo them in a prominent place in case they some how escaped into the clean public. I think you hit every one of the talking points homophobes like Jessie Helms used in the 80’s.
Posted by: ggreen | Apr 2, 2012 2:29:54 PM
@GGRENN,
You are aware people with highly infectious and deadly diseases were routinely isolated for both their's and the general population's own good and safety? Special hospitals and homes existed. Honestly, this was just common-sense both then and now. It kind of reminds me of how pretty much all the psychiatric hospitals [Mental Hospitals] were shut down and most of the mentally ill, including those seriously mentally ill, were thrown into the street [sorry, community], and told to go to out patient services and take their meds. And then laws were passed saying seriously mentally ill people can't be forced to take their meds and have a 'right' to live on the street [where of course many are abused, neglected and die.]
This all occurred as an extension of the 'civil rights' movement of the 60s and the liberation movements of the 60s-70s. And because of some real abuses that occurred in mental hospitals, but instead of improving and reforming conditions, they threw the baby out with the bath water. Progressives got to 'champion' the rights of the mentally ill, conservatives got to save $. A win/win, except for the mentally ill.
Posted by: ratbastard | Apr 2, 2012 2:48:38 PM
@ratbastard I see you point but its thinking like yours that fueled the fear back then and instead of a society working together to locate a cure, it isolate one group of people because they were the ones who visually had the disease the most.
You can round up the confirmed infected but back then there was no set HIV/AIDS test until 1985, so how would you propose all the untested people be tracked down and put away as well? This novel idea of yours has an underlying theme of a totalitarian state.
Posted by: Craig | Apr 2, 2012 7:11:38 PM
You simply do not understand the difference between a contagious disease and an infectious disease. Either that or you're being intentionally outrageous. Unlike those illnesses for which quarantines may be imposed, HIV is actually very, very difficult to contract and very easy to avoid. Unprotected sex, blood-to-blood contact. That's about it.
Were HIV an easily transmitted disease, transmitted by coughing, sneezing, kissing, tears, and so on, it would have spread immediately and widely throughout the general population. It did not. This much as least was understood (at least by public health officials if not by the public in general) even at the very beginning of the epidemic when virtually nothing was known about AIDS. There was not then and is not now any compelling reason to imprison people who live with HIV.
Posted by: Bob | Apr 2, 2012 8:03:37 PM
@Bob,
Actually, experts weren't sure at all how easily transmittable the disease is. But, they knew it hit primarily gay men, especially gay men who engaged in promiscuous and risky behavior, like substance abuse [weakens immune system] and engaging in unprotected sex with multiple partners. They also knew it was transmitted through infected blood. Yet, gay 'advocates' fought the closure of places where anonymous and risky sex occurred, and even got angry about blood donation bans.
And yeah, isolating [guaranteeing] AIDS patients as soon as their condition became known, and making serious attempts to track down their sex partners where possible, would have saved many lives and greatly slowed the spread of the disease. AIDS was politicized, not treated primarily as a deadly public health hazard.
Posted by: ratbastard | Apr 2, 2012 10:20:49 PM
Ratbastard, there's no need for any mean spirited comments. Your own chosen stances reveal much about your lack of character. It's obvious why your family hates you, and how much their rejection of you has messed you up. You're absolute scum.
Posted by: Jay | Apr 2, 2012 10:28:33 PM
Ratbastard,
As I recall, the "substance abuse" aspect was not a primary suspect in the beginning. I myself didn't know that so many gay men had been using meth, much less intravenous drugs. My doctor never once mentioned drug use, just sex. My friends and I didn't like meth, which is not to say that we were saints. Personally, I found meth too harsh.
Oddly, I was one of the people to be diagnosed early on with "this new gay cancer", but in reality I did not have it. I think they were a little too eager to have a young white male with good health insurance to study. And study they did. Then, after my parents came and took me home and the real health conditions were taken care of, I returned to SF. My SF doctor called and asked me if I would participate in a study of gay men who SHOULD have AIDS but appear to be resistant. I think he called us the Northumberland group because we were all of endogamous British stock. He died and I never heard anything else about it.
Posted by: David Hearne | Apr 3, 2012 1:05:16 AM
Jay: Are you channeling Kiwi now?
Go on Craiglist, Manhunt, or any of those sites. There are still gay men who are trying to spread AIDS, not to mention hepatitis. People act like AIDS was the first STD to kill in modern times. Hep has killed a lot of people, and you still see ads by people seeking the exact behavior which spreads it best.
Posted by: David Hearne | Apr 3, 2012 1:09:30 AM
Bob,
Epidemiologists did indeed suggest that identification and isolation was a standard and recommended first move. The reaction in SF wasn't "I don't want to go to a leper colony." it was "You have no right to tell me I can't have sex." Seriously, I was there.
My own position was that everyone should simply stop having sex for awhile, until we figured out what was going on, who was sick, etc... You would have thought I had proposed genocide. Seriously, those people could not imagine doing without sex for six months or a year. And they still can't.
Posted by: David Hearne | Apr 3, 2012 1:14:33 AM