Dios defiende Nueva Zelandia

Appearance of the disease

At the beginning of the Years 1980, the doctors of the great American agglomerations started to receive young homosexual patients which suffered from diseases odd, such as Sarcome of Kaposi - Cancer that one usually meets at the old men of the populations the Mediterranean born - or pneumonia with Pneumocystis carinii (or PCP) - a rare form of Pneumonie caused by Pneumocystis carinii . The exit was each time the death of the patient.

This type of Syndrome was initially identified under the name of GRID ( Gay Related Immune Deficiency , i.e. immunodéficience related to homosexuality ). It is only later that the term of AIDS will appear ( Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome - AIDS in French), when it became clear that there was no bond between the disease and homosexuality. The discovery of the first cases among the male homosexual population was allotted on the one hand to the fact that with the the United States, the first viruses would have been introduced among this population, and on the other hand, the disease would have been spread within this community, because of relative promiscuity of its members, in the great urban centres.

A popular design identifies a patient zero , i.e. the infected first nobody, who would have been a homosexual Steward Québécois, Gaëtan Dugas. It of it is nothing; this patient zero was only the source supposed of the infection among a particular population in an epidemiological study undertaken by the Centers for Disease Control (Control centers of the Diseases, CDC). There were cases of AIDS quite former to the case of this steward. (It is even now considered not very probable that Dugas infected even the patients in the study, since the knowledge of the time over the period incubatoire of the HIV was imperfect.)

One also emitted the theory according to which, in the homosexual community of San Francisco, of the Inoculation S in series would have occurred during the use of Vaccin S against hepatitis, which vaccines would have been contaminated by the virus HIV. But there exists only one weak correlation between the people having received these vaccines and the first cases of AIDS.

A study on the subject is appeared in Annals of the American national Academy of sciences off the National Academy off Sciences on October 29th, 2007, carried out by researchers American and directed by Michael Worobey, professor of biology at the university of Arizona. According to this study, the virus of the AIDS would have arrived on the American coasts at the neighborhoods of the year 1969 (either more than one decade before the explosion of the infection). It would have been introduced by an unmarried Haitian immigrant, according to this same study, and would have been then spread in Canada, in Europe, in Australia and in Japan.

A political epidemic

With work of Steven Epstein, one of the best works treating of the history of HIV is undoubtedly And the Band Played One of Randy Shilts. The author affirms there that the government Reagan, homophobe, was implied very little in the management of this crisis, which resulted in the propagation from the virus, and the useless death of hundreds of thousands of people. It is this situation which pushed with the creation of association Act Up (Aids Coalition To Unleash Power), with at its head Larry Kramer.

Randy Shilts also reports the fact that at the beginning of the epidemic, the Croix-Rouge did not refuse the homosexual blood donors, contrary at the request of the CDC. This resulted in the contamination and the death of hemophiliacs and transfused people.

The academic elitism of Robert Gallo was another obstacle with the eradication of the disease. The American scientist Robert Gallo belonged to these researchers trying to discover if this disease were due to a new virus. He found himself involved in a series of legal battles against his French counterparts, trying to satisfy his need for glory and fame. This legal quarrel did nothing but slow down research, while the patients continued to succumb.

Publicity campaigns were launched to counter the image of disease of homosexual the which was generally perceived by the public, and to replace it by medical data and councils which could possibly save lives. One will retain, in this context, the case of Ryan White, the countryside Red Ribbon (red ribbon), Celebrity dinners, the film And the Band Played One , the school programs of sex education, televised publicities, etc

The scandal of the orphans

Several studies revealed by the Associated Press the May 6th 2005 revealed that lInstitut national health (NIH) financed studies in seven States on hundreds of HIV positive orphans mainly resulting from underprivileged mediums. These children received treatments of which one did not know the effects on the children, but having serious side effects known in the adults.

Certain children died during the study: if it is not possible to affirm that the death is directly related to the drugs, a study notes a “disconcerting” death rate.

In the absence of parents, the NIH would have had, according to the law étatsunienne, to designate guards independent in order to explain the risks and to make sure of good progress of the study, but this was seldom the case.

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