Reagan and AIDS

Comment in response to article on Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/politics/140438/was_ronald_reagan_an_even_worse_president_than_george_w._bush/?page=4

Was Ronald Reagan an Even Worse President Than George W. Bush?
By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted June 5, 2009.

Posted by: laweat on Jun 5, 2009 1:53 PM

Robert Parry's main thesis is strongly reinforced by the amount of additional evidence cited in these comments. One writer (so far) has mentioned AIDS, but Reagan's abdication of responsibility for the emerging AIDS epidemic deserves a closer look. Reagan was in a unique position to provide leadership to curb the spread of AIDS when it mattered most. His failure in this regard was shocking and, many would argue, criminal. Not only did he famously refuse to speak of AIDS until 1987, but he and his allies in the "religious right" ensured the suppression of effective public health responses and nurtured an atmosphere of fear and stigma that caused great suffering. In the long run, Reagan's inaction and hostility to minority communities surely helped catalyze the global epidemic we know today.

According to a 2004 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Reagan would ultimately address the issue of AIDS while president. His remarks came May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.... [T]he tragedy lies in what he might have done. Today [2004], the World Health Organization estimates that more than 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide. An estimated 5 million people were newly infected and 3 million people died of AIDS in 2003 alone.