My Own Country: A Doctor''s Story & AIDS

In Verghese's book specifically, we find the AIDS stigma raising its head when the first AIDS case comes to Johnson City, Tennessee: "Word spread like wildfire through the hospital. All those involved in his care in the ER and ICU agonized over their exposure." Not only were those who came into contact with the patient's blood terrified, so were those who touched only his skin, and even those "who had not touched the young man---the pharmacist, the orderlies, the transport personnel---were alarmed (Verghese 10).

This is the root of fear at the heart of the AIDS stigma---that the disease is transmissible through merely being in the presence of an AIDS patient---through the air, through saliva, through touch.

With respect to the AIDS patient himself, the author gives us an

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nt, the biomedical community, and the gay community. These three areas are significant because the first must be relied upon to supply the massive funding needed to support research into the disease and its treatment and possible cure; the second must be relied upon to open-mindedly deal with the disease without being sidetracked by ego, ambition and politics; and the third, as the community most at risk, must be relied upon to educate itself and change behaviors associated with the spread of the disease. In all three cases, fear and denial prevailed rather than rational funding, planning and policy. The AIDS epidemic burst forth into public consciousness during the Reagan Era, one of the most conservative times in modern American history. It is no surprise, then, that the federal government showed little or no inclination to deal effectively or humanely or reasonably with what became stigmatized as a "gay plague" (Shilts 352). The Reagan Administration turned a deaf ear to the disease and its victims. Its ignorance and cruelty were typified in Reagan's choice of the conservative C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General of the U.S., to issue a report on AIDS which the Administration believed would be a whitewash. Instead, Koop brou
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Some common words found in the essay are:
NIH FDA, ER ICU, Free Shilts, AIDS God, Rock Hudson, AIDS Epidemic, AIDS AIDS, Verghese HIV, Reagan Era, Doctor's Story, aids stigma, irrational fear, public consciousness, gay community, federal government, spread disease, gay people, respect aids, fear denial, public health,
Approximate Word count = 1344
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)