ABSTRACT
The unexpected emergence of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the early 1980s seemed to reverse the historical trends of the twentieth century. Newspapers document the cost of treating AIDS patients and offer poignant accounts of the lives spoiled by the disease—drug users, children, Ugandan wives, hemophiliacs, heterosexuals, homosexuals, hospital workers, the famous, and the unknown. Both kuru and AIDS thus elicited an agitated public response. By 1992 AIDS had become the leading cause of death for men between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four, and the fourth leading cause for women in the same age group. Popular views associating gays and the dangers of Human Immunodeficiency Virus were given fresh life in June 1995 when Secret Service agents wore rubber gloves to escort a delegation of gay elected officials at the White House. In the case of AIDS, the relationship between personal experience and reaction is more complex.
