ronald reagan just died

[BDBionic]

Joe,
Those numbers come from the CRS report for Congress and address specifically funds earmarked towards AIDS research, not viral infections or disease research on the whole, but research, treatment and prevention of AIDS specifically and in particular.

I should point out that I'm not attempting to sit here and say Reagan was a white knight leading the charge against AIDS in the early days of the pandemic.

What I'm saying is that there wasn't a complete and total lack of action - an impression that's taken root in the minds of a lot of people.

And that it's a question of contextual relativism. The convenience afforded by 20+ years of hindsight, our own political and social prejudices and circumstances, our personal beliefs and experiences and how those affect what we see and how we interpret them. I'd not expect a gay man that lived through the early days of the AIDS epidemic to love or even not despise Reagan as it would only make sense through their particular experience that they end up there.

But I hardly find it all too unbelievable or even impossible to understand the reactions of his administration at the time. The degree to which AIDS was not understood, how it was perceived by an entire world and nation and not just Ronald Reagan.

If you see in Ronald Reagan in the early days of the AIDS epidemic indifference, ignorance, anxiety and a failure to act, I think it's a reflection of the attitudes and stance of a nation as a whole at that time. He shared the nation's response to and perception of the epidemic. He didn't cause it.