Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Silence From The Great Communicator: The Early Years Of The Aids Epidemic Under The Reagan Administration, Jacqueline A. Ortiz

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

1981 not only commenced Ronald Reagan’s presidency but also marked the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The early framing of the disease as an exclusively homosexual affliction disadvantaged gay communities. This sexually transmitted disease proliferated across the United States; yet, the AIDS epidemic failed to reach the Reagan administration as a top priority until it was too late. When discussing the Reagan administration’s early response to AIDS, historians tend to follow one of two positions: avoid mentioning the disease and in its entirety; or blame Reagan’s homophobia for the deaths of thousands of …

Fairyland, Christopher R. Deacy

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Fairyland (2023), directed by Andrew Durham.

Hiv-Seropositive Patients’ Experiences With Social Workers: A South African Hiv+ Social Worker’S Reflective Log, Delarise Maud Mulqueeny

The Qualitative Report

Social workers play a pivotal role in HIV-seropositive patients’ treatment and care within South African public antiretroviral treatment (ART) programs. This article is a reflective log of an HIV-seropositive social worker’s observations and reflections on her positionality during a study on HIV-seropositive patients’ experiences of the public ART program in eThekwini, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The primary investigator (PI) utilized various tools and techniques including reflexive bracketing, participatory action research and a reflexive diary to navigate a sensitive study. This was while being cognizant of the fluidity of her insider/outsider positionality. The disclosure of the PI’s HIV-seropositive status culminated in all …

Positive Women: Emotion, Memory, And The Power Of Narrative In Women Organized To Respond To Life-Threatening Diseases, 1991-2020, Eleanor Naiman

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Note: In lieu of an abstract, this is the article's first paragraph.

"By 1992, the AIDS epidemic in the United States had reached seemingly catastrophic proportions. Over ten years after the first published report of AIDS-related lung infection, the number of AIDS cases in the United States far exceeded 100,000. It would be four years until the FDA approval of the first protease inhibitor. Over ten thousand women had been diagnosed with the disease, and experts expected over ninety thousand more were already infected. The disease, lacking effective treatment, increasingly struck women and people of color in the early 1990s; …

Quiet Heroes, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Quiet Heroes (2018), directed by Jenny Mackenzie, Jared Ruga, and Amanda Stoddard.

Grounded In Mercy: Embracing A Practical Theological Response To The Reality Of Hiv/Aids Sero‐Discordancy, Simonmary Asese Aihiokhai

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

The crises of HIV/AIDS infections and deaths in sub-Saharan Africa call for pragmatic solutions that are grounded in a broader vision of God’s mercy. While the church has and continues to be the major non-governmental provider of assistance to those communities and persons battling with HIV/AIDS infections, a critical and holistic review of its stance on rejecting any usefulness of condoms as prophylactics for preventing HIV infections. This approach is most urgent today as Africans continue to experience high rates of HIV infection among monogamous married couples who are sero-discordant.

“Work What You Got”: Political Participation And Hiv-Positive Black Women’S Work To Restore Themselves And Their Communities, Monica L. Melton

Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought

Black women’s rates of HIV/AIDS infection have skyrocketed in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups over the past thirty years. Despite these rates, HIV-positive Black women’s perspectives are rarely sought regarding best practices to eradicate and interrupt HIV/AIDS among African American women, even though historically Black women have often proved phenomenal agents of social change. HIV-positive Black women’s activism has been understudied and input from the community in crisis has rarely been deemed as valuable to public health officials in HIV/AIDS prevention and interventions. Through the narratives of thirty HIV-positive Floridian Black women, I present HIV-positive Black women’s political …

No Need To Look Back, Dan Coburn

Leaven

No abstract provided.

Pain And Mourning In Vogel's Baltimore Waltz And Lavery's Last Easter, Catalina Florina Florescu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Pain and Mourning in Vogel's Baltimore Waltz and Lavery's Last Easter" Catalina Florina Florescu argues that there is something of a contrapuntal, contradictory nature when a person lives with or visits someone who spends most of his days in bed. Sitting next to a patient, his attendee faces the burdensome ticking of clocks, the ache of waiting, and the dagger-piercing questions of one's meaning. In other words, it is not only the pain of the other that intrigues and baffles us. It is also narrating and performing our reactions to that pain. In Florescu's reading, the focus …

The Disabling Nature Of The Hiv / Aids Discourse Among Hbcu Students: How Postcolonial Racial Identities And Gender Expectations Influence Hiv Prevention Attitudes And Sexual Risk-Taking, Bruce H. Wade

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This analysis reveals how some African American college students respond to the discourse on HIV / AIDS as a social disability. The methodology includes surveys (n = 217), focus groups and interviews with convenience samples of students attending a consortium of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the U.S. The findings show that the perceived risk of HIV is high in this community, that nearly half of students use condoms inconsistently even though they are well aware of the risks of unprotected sex and their levels of HIV / AIDS knowledge are high. Social stigma, gender role expectations, an …

Gender Issues In Hiv/Aids Epidemiology In Sub-Saharan Africa., Ben E. Wodi

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

"The patriarchal nature of African societies continues to shape women’s sexual behavior in the region. This in turn accounts for the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS among women in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the several factors implicated in the unequal prevalence of the disease among women in Africa, economic dependency/feminization of poverty, unequal distribution of sexual power (sexual violence and coercion), limited educational opportunities and lack of political will continue to dominate the literature (Robinson, 2004; Dunkle, et al., 2004; Martin and Curtis, 2004; Eaton, et al., 2003; Mill and Anarfi, 2002). While programmatic and financial initiatives have increased significantly in the …

Rethinking Gender Within The Context Of The Global Hiv/Aids Epidemic, Gwen Lesetedi

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Body / Antibody, Lawrence R. Schehr

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Unique object in the exchange-system, the gay body occupies a locus where a phantom identity and an imagined reciprocity define the poles of the subject-object relation. Made of the right stuff, it is an object circulating in a system that tends to reproduce the concept of identity in its search for mirror images of itself. Often rejected by the world, it has recently become a cynosure equated with sickness, pestilence, and death in the age of AIDS. The representations of that object change: no longer perceived as a part of libidinal economy, it has become a mass of symptoms, having …

Hervé Guibert: Writing The Spectral Image, Donna Wilkerson

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This paper explores the relationship existing between AIDS (in particular the body-with-AIDS or the corps sidaïque), writing, and the spectral image in Hervé Guibert. While taking into account postmodern theory on the image, photography, and the notion of the "real," this essay examines the similitude between the image as plague and AIDS in order to reveal some central components of Guibert's postmodern conceptualization—namely the complex interplay of fact and fiction as it pertains to the body-with-AIDS. For example, the body is a privileged site from which the text radiates. It can also be mistaken for the "real" body of …

We Were There, Irene Burns

New England Journal of Public Policy

Irene Burns and Robin Macdonald are friends. Neither knew Mitchell Holsman or Gretta Wren. And neither did Mitchell or Gretta know each other. All four live and work in New York City — Irene as a telecommunications consultant; Robin as a paralegal; Gretta as an office administrator; and Mitchell as a fashion designer — and all four were friends of John Krieter. It was the love inspired by that friendship that brought them together to care for him. He died of AIDS on January 24, 1988.

Aids Initiatives In Massachusetts: Building A Continuum Of Care, Nancy Weiland Carpenter

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Health Resource Office was officially established within the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in August 1985 to coordinate policy, education, research, and service response to the AIDS epidemic, and to focus attention on the social and economic impact of the disease. The actual work of the office was begun earlier, in October 1983. This article reviews the activities of the Health Resource Office from October 1983 through June 1987 in allocating resources for AIDS and ARC programs and services. It then describes the conceptual model that evolved during this period for the continuum of services needed to reduce HIV …

Hiv Antibody Testing: Performance And Counseling Issues, Michael Gross

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article assesses the performance of currently used tests for exposure to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the infectious agent associated with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS); suggests, in view of that information, guidelines for counseling people seeking HIV antibody testing; and evaluates the claim that because antibody test results will effect behavior change in those who are infected, all members of high-risk groups should be tested.

HIV testing is likely to yield a high proportion of false-positive results in low-risk populations and infants born to infected mothers. A negative result may not establish freedom from infection in high-risk groups or the …

Neuropsychiatric Complications Of Hiv Infection: Public Policy Implications, Alexandra Beckett, Theo Manschreck

New England Journal of Public Policy

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects the central nervous system (CNS), causing symptoms in most persons with AIDS-related complex (ARC) and AIDS, and in a significant proportion of those classified as asymptomatic seropositive. The most common clinical syndrome secondary to CNS infection is known as HIV encephalopathy. When sufficiently disabling, HIV encephalopathy is known as AIDS dementia, and must be reported to the Centers for Disease Control as a case of AIDS.

AIDS dementia is a complex of cognitive, affective, behavioral, and motor symptoms which varies widely in its presentation. In some persons, cognitive impairment predominates, manifesting in a loss …

Behavioral Change In Homosexual Men At Risk Of Aids: Intervention And Policy Implications, Suzanne B. Montgomery, Jill G. Joseph

New England Journal of Public Policy

With more than fifty thousand cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) diagnosed since its initial recognition in 1981 and no cure or vaccine in sight, experts agree that prevention is of the utmost importance. Yet very little research has investigated how existing social-psychological and health behavioral knowledge can be applied to the special circumstances of programmatic responses to AIDS. One of the central aims of our own research group has been to describe the psychosocial determinants of successful behavioral risk reduction among homosexual men, the largest affected group. This work is reviewed and its implications for the development of intervention …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

On occasion, the New England Journal of Public Policy will devote an entire issue to consideration of a public policy matter of major importance. The AIDS epidemic is such a matter, with a likely impact of overwhelming consequence well into the twenty-first century. The epidemic raises fundamental questions regarding the nature of individual freedom, our responsibilities to others, the always delicate balance between private rights and the public interest, and society's obligation to its "out" groups — whose members it has stigmatized, discriminated against, ridiculed, and treated as less than full and equal citizens. Indeed, it requires us to ask …

Aids: An Overview, Loretta Mclaughlin

New England Journal of Public Policy

"We stand nakedly in front of a very serious pandemic, as mortal as any pandemic there ever has been," said Halfdan Mahler, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO). "I don't know of any greater killer than AIDS, not to speak of its psychological, social and economic maiming. Everything is getting worse and worse with AIDS and all of us have been underestimating it, and I in particular. We're running scared. I cannot imagine a worse health problem in this century." When asked to compare AIDS to other epidemics, such as smallpox, that have infected and killed over the course …

The Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome In New England: An Epidemiological Review Of The First Six Years, Laureen M. Kunches, Jeanne M. Day

New England Journal of Public Policy

Between 1981 and 1987 — the six-year period following initial recognition of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) — 1,475 cases were reported among residents of the six New England states. Of nearly 40,000 cases nationwide, 3.8 percent occurred among New England residents, though the region 's population represents 5.5 percent ofthe total United States population. The groups most affected include homosexual or bisexual men (65 percent) and intravenous drug users (20 percent). However, in the two southernmost states — Rhode Island and Connecticut — 32 to 40 percent of all cases have used intravenous drugs. In these states, the male:female …

Epidemiology And Health Policy Imperatives For Aids, Katherine Hill Chavigny, Sarah L. Turner, Anne K. Kibrick

New England Journal of Public Policy

The purpose of this article is to describe the statistics and epidemiological facts about the most virulent epidemic of our age, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The discussion argues for broadened public policy to promote the surveillance of communities in order to enhance the effectiveness of data gathering for epidemiological reasoning, analysis, and control measures. To accomplish these goals, the essential characteristics of epidemiology are defined. The use of deductive and inductive reasoning is applied to describe and analyze known facts concerning the AIDS epidemic. Hypotheses are suggested from current amorphous and continually changing information to assist in further explanations of …

Other Journeys, Phillip Dross

New England Journal of Public Policy

Phillip Dross was a writer. He was forty-three years of age when he died of AIDS in January 1987. Four years earlier, he had come to Newburyport, Massachusetts, to live and to face hard realities about himself — the legacy of a painful, confusing childhood in Florida, where he grew up, bouts with alcoholism, and his own shortcomings as a writer, for although he drove his friends to distraction talking about writing, he could not endure long hours alone, especially at the typewriter.

He made progress — the slow, plodding progress that characterizes the struggle within oneself that can be …

Understanding The Psychological Impact Of Aids: The Other Epidemic, Marshall Forstein

New England Journal of Public Policy

HIV has created two epidemics, one of disease, the other the consequence of the psychological response to that disease. Thus far, behavioral change is the only effective means of interrupting the transmission of HIV. The underlying psychological dimensions of the societal and individual responses to AIDS are discussed, with suggestions for how both rational thinking and irrational fears and anxiety contribute to the development of public policy. Examples are given of how short-term solutions to reduce anxiety may actually create long-term problems, potentially increasing the risk of transmission of HIV. Specific psychological mechanisms that contribute to the epidemic of fear …

Hiv Antibody Screening: An Ethical Framework For Evaluating Proposed Programs, Ronald Bayer, Carol Levine, Susan M. Wolf

New England Journal of Public Policy

The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) poses a compelling ethical challenge to medicine, science, public health, the legal system, and our political democracy. This report focuses on one aspect of that challenge: the use of blood tests to identify individuals who have been infected with the retrovirus human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In this article, we follow the terminology recently proposed by the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses; that is, we use the term human immunodeficiency virus. This replaces the more cumbersome dual terminology of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus (HTLV-III/LAV).

The issue is urgent: the tests are …

The Hiv Seropositive State And Progression To Aids: An Overview Of Factors Promoting Progression, Paul H. Black, Elinor M. Levy

New England Journal of Public Policy

We have considered factors that predispose to infection by the human immunodeficiency virus as well as the clinical consequences of infection. We have also reviewed what is known about the virological status of the asymptomatic carrier, particularly the female, and the fact that pregnancy may be a cofactor for progression of HIV disease in seropositive women. Additionally, we have discussed several other cofactors that may promote the progression of HIV infection. These include intercurrent infection, excessive use of recreational drugs and alcohol, malnutrition, and stress. With respect to stress, we have reviewed evidence indicating that certain personality factors, by buffering …

Ethical Issues In Aids Research, Michael A. Grodin, Paula V. Kaminow, Raphael Sassower

New England Journal of Public Policy

There is a need for carefully controlled and scientifically rigorous research studies of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The morbidity and mortality associated with AIDS patients and the public health concerns for control of this epidemic have distorted the usual process of research. The Institutional Review Board at Boston City Hospital is suggested as an appropriate mechanism for clarifying the distinctions between research and innovative therapies and for assuring the protection of this vulnerable population of research subjects. This article addresses ethical concerns relating to the time frame of research, drug and antibody testing, vaccine trials, and questions of justice …

The Quest For An Aids Vaccine, Robert T. Schooley

New England Journal of Public Policy

More than fifty thousand cases of AIDS have been reported in the United States since the disease wasfirst described in 1981. Many times this number of people are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which has been identified as the agent responsible for the illness. The seriousness of the disease, coupled with the relatively rapid spread of HIV, has fueled the effort for development of an effective vaccine.

Much is now known about the life cycle of the virus, and about its structural components. This information, and information about methods of transmission of the virus, form the basis for a …

The Role Of Education In Aids Prevention, George A. Lamb, Linette G. Liebling

New England Journal of Public Policy

The severity of the current AIDS epidemic, combined with the lack of successful biological interventions, necessitates an active educational program as the primary intervention strategy. Health education theories abound, but relatively little definitive application of these theories has been made to the issues involved with HIV transmission: sexual behavior and the sharing of intravenous drug apparatus. Significant behavior changes have occurred in some people, but the consistency of the behavior change may be difficult to sustain. Thus, the authors suggest that health education should be delivered repeatedly in culturally acceptable language and format, by community leaders, and through many different …