User:Wasianpower/sandbox/Ronald Reagan and AIDS
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, oversaw the United States response to the emergence of the HIV/AIDS crisis during the 1980s. His actions, or lack thereof, have long been a source of controversy, and have been widely criticized by LGBT and AIDS advocacy organizations.
AIDS was first medically recognized in 1981, in New York and California, and the term AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) was created in 1982 to describe the disease. Reagan would not publicly acknowledge AIDS until 1985. Several reports, notably those of C. Everett Koop and James D. Watkins were provided to the Reagan administration, and provided information about AIDS and policy suggestions on how to limit its spread, but the administration largely disregarded their recommendations. Towards the end of his Presidency in 1988 and 1989, Reagan took steps to provision federal funding to stop the spread and fund treatment research for AIDS, though these actions have been criticized as not wide enough in their scope, and too late in the crisis to prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.[1]
As LGBT people (homosexual men and transgender women in particular) were disproportionately afflicted with AIDS, some critics have suggested that Reagan's lack of action was motivated by homophobia. A belief among Christian conservatives at the time, including those in the White House and activists close to it, held that AIDS was a "gay plague", and any response to it should emphasize homosexuality as a moral failing, though it is unclear to what extent Reagan himself took to these views.