On Their Own

Recently, we had to complete a review of media on a certain topic related to management and health. My group chose to review the issue of stigmatization of HIV/AIDS patients in the media in the last 30 years. A documentary came out in 2012 that brought to the forefront what happened in the 1980’s with the United States’ response to the AIDS epidemic and specifically the response of the US government and the FDA in regard to the release of drugs to quell the rampage of the illness.

How to Survive a Plague is an extremely emotional but also thought provoking film. One of the main arguments from the leading AIDS activist group was that they wanted access to drugs that were currently being tested for efficacy sooner than the standard 7-10 year testing period that the FDA normally used. Most of those suffering from the epidemic didn’t even have nearly 6 months to live much less 6 years to wait and see the bureaucratic nightmare that was to ensure.  As I watched the documentary, and thinking of what I have been taught over the year so far, I began to reflect on how these patients were handled in hospitals, by the healthcare system, by their government and how all these sectors that are there to protect each and every one of them failed them miserably.

After approximately 7 years without a true or forceful government response, the FDA finally released the first medication to try to combat the illness. AZT was released to much avail and hope, however, with a $10,000 price tag it was out of reach for most of those effected. Within two years the majority that needed to take AZT realized how toxic it was and could not use it as a viable treatment option. Several AIDS activist groups sprang up to try to manage the response to the ongoing crisis that the government and its institutions seemed unwilling or unable to afford. These activist groups, namely ACT UP and Gay Men’s Health Crisis, began to demand a response to the according institutions that they believed were inhibiting a real response. They held accountable the NIH (National Institutes of Health), the FDA, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, personally, and the pharmaceutical companies that seemed to be delaying the much needed hastened reaction.

Imagining the crisis that they were confronting to me seems unreal. Homosexuals and those infected with HIV/AIDS in the 1980’s were already a targeted and stereotyped group and when the government’s response is nothing than I can only imagine how marginalized they felt. There are reports that hospitals and funeral homes would refuse services to those infected or who had died from HIV/AIDS. When all the institutions that are supposed to care for you don’t- what do you do? Who do you turn to? Who will make things right?

The US government proved to these groups that they were not able to manage an effective, equitable, and humane response to the crisis that was happening in the 1980s-1990s. I can only ask myself- if it were any other disease would it have been handled this way? Is it because this epidemic began in the homosexual community that it was glossed over as something that effected “them” and not “us”? Unfortunately, I do believe that that was the case. When your government will not ensure equitable treatment for you when you are ill, you turn to your fellow citizens, those who are feeling your pain or simply want to do what’s right, to do all you can to intervene and make the changes that need to be made.

ACT UP began to work directly with the pharmaceutical companies to get them to make their turnaround times quicker and ensure that they are being offered a safe and reasonably tested product. These groups had the courage to force a response but it wasn’t easy. In the midst of an epidemic there are bound to be differences in ideologies, beliefs, politics, etc. I see it as mostly fear. When everyone around you is dying and those in charge offer nothing you are on a lonesome road only with those who are just as scared as you. These breaks were seen even in the activist organizations. Lacking an empathetic response from those elected to lead, these heroes did all they could do to manage this catastrophe. It was a plague, and they were forced to take care of their own.

 

 

 -J.Nuila