AIDS Anniversary

On June 5, 1981, in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a brief note was taken of a peculiar cluster of pneumonia cases in five normal and healthy gay men. This note was the first official mention of AIDS, which at the time had no name, no transmission, no treatment, and no cure. Soon after this event in 1981, half the young men who were gay were either infected, stigmatized, ravaged by rare infections and cancers, or died. It soon reached into neighborhoods already burdened by poverty and drug abuse. This disease came to be known as "invariably fatal" by most people throughout the world. The United Nations estimates that today, H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, has infected more than 65 million people, 25 million of whom have died. AIDS has infected men and women of all religions, races, and ages. It affects everyone in a different way, whether it is a direct infection, or a person's family member, friend, or lover who has been infected. It continues to spread, and a cure is yet to be found. AIDS is a terrible, terrible virus, killing many every year, and it will continue to do this unless a cure is found.
No disease has equalled the amount of death and sickness that AIDS has caused. In America, the first discovery of HIV was found in an American teenager who died without a solid cause of death. In 1981, several men with pneumonia were treated with a very powerful drug which usually never requires a refill. Soon, the patients needed refills, which raised some serious eyebrows. Also, a cancer which usually occured in the elderly started to occur in several young gay men. Through these strange happenings, AIDS was soon identified, and it became the epidemic it is today in America.