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Request to Sandra Ford
Sandra Ford, the sole provider for Pentamidine, received an usually request for it that was very nondescriptive. -
Reagan's Presidency Beginning
With Reagan Presidency, Reagan began with his gun blazing. He put a quick end to the Iranian Hostage Crisis. What is more important was his re-budgeting. With his focus on shifting healthcare spending to make it more so state focus, the budget for the NCI goes close to extinction. As such, the idea of spending their precious money on the "gay disease" goes out the window. -
Even More Cancer
Six gay men have now been diagnosed with psoriasis cancer. -
Blood for the Baby
A supposedly healthy man donated blood to be use to be transferred to a baby. -
Ken Horne's Admission
Ken Horne officially checks into a hospital. With some tests being run, Dr. James Groundwater finds little until cryptococcus is found.
Cryptococcus is found in bird poop and is rare to be in human. -
First Diagnosis
With Ken Horne, he aids doctor by being able to have the first diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma. -
Gottlieb is Introduced
With the UCLA making their fourth contact of this disease, Dr. Weisman spread the word to the county public health department to Dr. Gottlieb, the man who will discover AIDS -
More Request for Ford
Sandra Ford keeps on getting request from the same doctor and is getting frustrated as sending in incomplete reports. The increase of her annoyance will eventually lead her to alert the government of the issue. -
Government Alert
Gs-7 drug techinician in room 161 of center for disease control’s building 6 alerted the government of the epidemic. The fight has now gain the attention of the government, now it just begins the fight to get them to actually be involved. -
CDC’s Annually Sexually Transmitted Disease Conference
At the CDC’s Annual Sexually Transmitted Disease Conference, the outbreak of pneumocystis carninii is announced. This marked an important step in the fight against the epidemic. -
Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report
Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report published its first report on the epidemic. All reference to homosexuality was dropped from it. This ,marks that period of time where they were concerned with making sure not to start mass panic within the gay community, but before it broke up rapidly enough where it was labeled only as the gay community's issue. -
Spreading Sexually
Dr. Don Francis lead the notion that the new virus was spreading sexually among gay men. The statement both helps and hurts the gay community as while it can than be understandable how the disease it spreading, it also puts the entirely of the blame onto the gay community justifying the anti-gay agenda. -
1981 Gay Freedom Day Parade
While the Gay Community was celebrating their pride while there was the building of the soon to be calamity. The Sentinel also silently questions the direction of the Gay Movement as there done not seem to be one. Is the gay movement only point is to have sex non stop in these small close-knitted communities. -
Initial Report
The First official report of Pneumocystis comes out. -
Unbelievable News
Reports coming out detailing the "gay disease" is discounted as the gay community simply disregard it as the news have an "anti-gay bias." This world-against-the-gay-community mentality only fuels the rejection of trying to get help. -
Full Force in Investigation
The Center for Disease Control deduced that this epidemic is something new that started in 1980. It is a full force on figuring out this epidemic, unfortunately with the budget cuts, there is little funding as most of it goes to the states. It is also discover that this epidemic is happening in the main cities but not in the small cities. -
Drug Addicts: Gay or Straight?
Several cases of drug addicts popped up, to which the doctors quickly assumed they had to be closeted gay as they got the "gay disease" It reveal how desperate the doctors at the time was so persistant in restricting the disease to the gay community they willfully chose to ignore investigating further when evidence arose which contradict that opinion. -
Numbers Rises
67 new cases of cancer or pneumonia bringing the total to 108 with 20 deaths. -
Fundraising Attempt
In order to combat the gay epidemic, their is effort to raise money to fund the research that will may prevent or cure it. Unfortunately though, unlike with the pride endorsement and celebrating the good times, when it comes to helping through the bad times they are not at all supportive declaring it too depressing. It reveal how unclear the gay community's objectives are as they are unable to help it when the going gets rough. -
NCI Conference
The leaders of the NCI Conference ignored many of the potential threat of the new epidemic. It confirms many people beliefs that the issues wasn’t being looked into because of the fact that they were gay. This disregard only fueled the disconnect that the gay community was dealing with trying to get help. -
Update on the Baby
The baby that received the donated blood is contracted many obscure diseases, as well as the donor getting diseases. -
Studies Begin
Drs. Mary Guinan and Harold Jaffe begin to conduct studies on the gay community to understand the epidemic more. -
Bottom Priority
With the constant request for money, NCI chiefs say "money is tight" and that "Studying gay cancer was not a priority" (Shilts 99). It any doubt was in people minds that the government was disregarding the disease because it was facing the gay community, it's gone now. -
The End of the First
Ken Horne, the first patient to be diagnosed with the syndrome, dies. -
The Bronx Experience
Dr. Arye Rubinstien with his experience in the Bronx, gather that the disease is more than just a gay community issue, but also a drug addicts issue as children are contracting it too. He was unfortunately hushed and discredited before he could present his findings. -
Bobbi Campbell Goes Public
While New York is quite loud about having an epidemic, San Francisco is hush hush about their growing problem. As such Bobbi Campbell comes out with the disease to expose it in the city and to try to gain awareness for it. -
Alternative Routes
With the NCI lack of care for the threat of the new syndrome and their lack of drive to provide funding for research pushes independents such as Don Francis to look elsewhere for research as he finds link between the syndrome and the diseases in Africa. There is also Gay Men’s Health Crisis which chose their first leader as Paul Popham. Paul is gay but doesn't want it to be public. This situation already puts the program on uneasy feets. -
Full Halt in Progress
The pursuit of research was stalled from both sides as neither the NCI wanted to waste their little budget on the gay community, and the gay community didn’t want promote funding for research for fear of causing mass fear among the community. The disease is label as Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID). -
Break in the Mainstream Newspaper
New York Times first published a piece on the epidemic. The only reason they did so was because it hit someone that “counted” and not the homosexuals (Shilts 126). While it is helpful that this makes the mainstream aware of the issue and thus increase the chance of funding, at the same time, reinforces the notion that homosexuals are just second rate citizens. -
Chemotherapy Failure
Chemotherapy is failing as doctors fail to update their procedures because they have always worked. They are either unable to and are too stubborn to adapt to the changes of the epidemic. -
Patient Zero's Linked
Connection to patient zero, Gaetan Dugas, an airline steward was linked as they found someone who told of their relationship with them. The team then goes to research just all who all Gaetan Dugas has had sexual encounters with. -
GRID Numbers
285 cases of GRID was reported across the world. -
Women Getting GRID Too!
The total count of women who has contracted GRID rises to 10. With each woman that contracts the disease it disprove the Gay-Related part of GRID and thus to push the disease into a human population issue and thus the threat to the world will be considered as a worth wild cause to fund. -
Patient Zero's Defiance
Gaetan Dugas, when advised to stop having sex to avoid the spread of the disease, out right refuses to do so as someone gave the disease to him. This mentality was constant throughout the community as they saw the entire syndrome as unfair. This disregard for ruining other people lives because one own life has been infected only fueled the spread of the disease as everything else is working against preventing the spread of GRID. -
Gay Men's Health Crisis First Benefit.
The first benefit of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis gain a large outcome. It was an uplifting outcome from the expectation of the previous times where there was out right rejection. It was a time where the gay community was united behind a common goal to fight this epidemic. -
Unfair Funding
Henry Waxman publicly announces the unfair treat GRID is receiving compare to the disease that target more than just homosexuals. Both Legionaire's disease and Toxic Shock Syndrome received massive funding due to targeting the heterosexual population. -
Tinfoil Hat Day
Theories are being spread around that the government is the one creating this disease against the gay community. Not only did this signified how afraid the community was when their love ones are dying as they think this theory has solid backing to it so much that's it believable. It also displayed how stubborn the community still is. They persist in living their lifestyle with their rebellious attitude thinking everyone is against them. -
A Grant or A Joke?
Dr. Bruce Chamber announces 1 million grant country wide to Kaposi’s sarcoma research. It's a laughable amount of grant and mostly an insult to received such a tiny sum. It still showed that the head of the government are not talking the soon-to-be calamity seriously. -
Suggestion to the Bathhouses
Dr. Dan Williams Confronted a bathhouse owner is order to offer safer options to control the disease. He was outright ignored as they will not limit someone freedom within the building. Reinforces that the gay community refuses to give up their rebellious side. -
AIDS Hits a Big Target
After the death of a Middlesex and Harvard Graduate, the family not only spread his name around, but also the potential threat of AIDS to anyone. -
First National Aids Forum
Opening a program to help prevent the program, but to also help support those that have contracted the disease, yet no big leader attended the event. It displayed the clear misdirection of the group willfully ignores a huge threat to their politcal movement -
Spilling Over
News Sources were reported on AIDS very actively for a short while, even though it was blaming the community for infesting the general population with their problem. While this meant AIDS was getting the attention it needed to hopefully be more research, it meant that the gay community was thrown under the bus and thus making the divide between heterosexuals and homosexuals even further apart. -
Huge Investment
With the determination of Bill Kraus and Tim Westmoreland, a huge budget improvement was added to the AIDS funding. Compare to the measly few thousands that was raised beforehand, the millions that came in were game changing as this marked one of the first time that the doctors were given enough funding to try to actually combat this epidemic. While they didn't have Reagan administration behind them, it didn't matter as they were being force to support them by the rules of the game. -
The Tylenol Incident
With hundreds dying to the AIDS Epidemic and the government and news media at large ignoring it, the cyanide in some Tylenol capsules revealed just how much they are choosing to ignore it. When all it took was a matter of weeks to get the government fully operational and active over something as little as this, they hold no defense over why they cannot do the same for the AIDS. As such, it exposes how little the government care for the gay community. -
City Hall Meeting
Gay Men's Health Crisis met with the Mayor's aid to help further their organization. While they expected much resistance, what they got was a surprisingly nice agreement as the government's wheel of productivity seems to finally to be going in their favor. -
Blood Donor Exposed
At the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank, one of the donors is exposed to have AIDS and thus transferring that to newborns. It meant that now the AIDS breakout is finally reaching out into the general population. The double edge sword means that while more lives will be taken, the disease will now be forced to be taking seriously. -
Live-In Lovers Law
With veto of the law, which recognized unmarried partners equal benefits to those of spouses, much turmoil arose. Due to not being "specific enough," Major Dianne denied it when the real issue was whether gay partners were equal to heterosexual partners. It's bad enough when the government subversively shows the inequality to the gay community, but when it is so obvious, protest will ensue. -
AIDS Blood Transfer Goes Public
The announcement the blood transfer resulted in many different reactions. Some thought they were just trying to get attention for more funding while others were trying to downplay its seriousness to avoid losing their credibility.
