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.
