When I was in the process of writing “The Sea of Peroxide,” my recent title on my experiences as a New York City Paramedic during the AIDS crisis, I would occasionally encounter people who would ask, “Why are you writing about a disease that happened all those years ago? You should be talking about Covid-19.”
Short Memories
The comparisons are understandable. Modern society tends to lump things into quickly dismissive categories, ranging from the arts to wellness.
It is natural for many to think of disease, all disease under one banner. So, if Covid-19 was at least curtailed through a vaccine (a solvable problem), then AIDS was defeated by science “a hundred years ago, right?”
Covid, for a while, wrecked havoc on the world, especially economic disruptions. However, even during the worst of it, before the vaccines, most who contracted it, recovered. Those who did contract Covid might have been thought of as stupid or irresponsible or unlucky.
When the unfortunate died of Covid, generally it was the older among us. As the pandemic unfolded, virologists were compelled by the weight of opinion, research and funding to solve the problem. The government saw curing the disease as a major priority and more so, no one judged.
About HIV
Anything said above about Covid-19, cannot be said about HIV/AIDS. We will start with the obvious: there is no cure, no vaccine and certainly, no breakthrough. When my fellow paramedics first saw the disease in the late 1970s, early 1980s, it had no real name. In interviews with old-time first responders, they said they saw (primarily) men who were wasting away. Many of them were IV drug abusers. The virus followed blood.
Whether the first victims of that blood-borne disease were gay or drug abusers, they were generally mocked. In fact, the government under Reagan, media and even some prominent entertainers could make cruel jokes. In those early days, despite the pleading of gay activists, the amount of money spent on research was pathetic. To his credit, a young researcher at NIH, Dr. Anthony Fauci, became so frightened of HIV’s potential devastation he claimed it gave him PTSD.
The disease almost always killed. It cut through the gay community, then the IV drug community, then hemophiliacs, then any unlikely person who was a victim of an untested blood transfusion with a devastation nearly unmatched to the present day.
A Family Picture
The image featured in this post was my cousin. I prefer to not give her name. I will call her “RP.” She died of AIDS in 1992. In the late 1980s, she was rushed to the hospital as she was hemorrhaging from an ectopic pregnancy. She was in the Navy, newly married and simply wanted to live a quiet life with her husband. During her surgical procedure she was given three units of blood. The blood should have been tested for HIV, but who can say how the hospital sourced its blood? One of those units was infected.
RP started having problems consistent with immune deficiency, and soon it was determined she was HIV positive. Within weeks, it seemed, the walls of judgment went up around her. She was excluded, judged, mocked and demeaned. She was drummed out of active duty. HIV was like that and largely, still is. The fear around her was palpable. Her crime was that the blood supply in the hospital that should have been tested, wasn’t.
Covid was never HIV. The tragedy of AIDS was that those in power, people who could have said something, didn’t. Yes, there are now medications to suppress the virus but people still die of AIDS and there is still no cure. If “The Sea of Peroxide” never comes close to being a bestseller; if it is never a recommended book club book or even an honorable mention in something or other, let me re-state the obvious: in those days, no one who could have done something, cared.
