# I Pit actupny.org **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 14, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-actupny-org/250293 "2004-06-14T15:38:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-actupny-org/250293/1 "2004-06-14T15:38:13Z")
Act up New York, I pit thee. On your front page, you have a link to a [page](http://www.actupny.org/reports/reagan.html) essensially celebrating Reagan’s death and claiming that he ignored AIDS, with a defaced picture of the deceased president. “Reagan’s AIDSGATE”, you say. You accuse him of inaction against AIDS, which was emerging at the beginning of Reagan’s presidency. You, of course, ignore the fact that Reagan created a bipartisan[AIDS commission](http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/from_newsfile/0,10987,1101871214-145624,00.html), the findings of which you contradict; claiming that over 40000 people died by 1987, wheras the commission found in December of 1987 that 20000 people died. AIDS was a new disease. The logical thing to do _was_ to research it, and Reagan appropriated $1 billion for it. Compare with the $100 million that Congress [_failed_](http://www.tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/04/06/52530736.shtml) to pass this year. Your claims of his inaction are utterly groundless and ignorant. The page also completely ignores the fact that unprotected (mostly gay) sex was what caused the first great spread of the AIDS virus, the free-love lifestyle held over by the 1960 that your liberal radical wackos supported. If I drink myself into alcoholism, it is not the government’s fault, it’s not the president’s fault, it’s my fault and my fault alone. So don’t push your responsibility onto others, ignoring your own contribution to the epidemic. So STFU, you shameless, lying, spineless, infantile, irresponsible, ignorant, bigoted, revisionist bags of mostly rancid water. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-actupny-org/250293/2 "2004-06-14T19:30:07Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Act up New York, I pit thee. > > On your front page, you have a link to a [page](http://www.actupny.org/reports/reagan.html) essensially celebrating Reagan’s death and claiming that he ignored AIDS, with a defaced picture of the deceased president. > > “Reagan’s AIDSGATE”, you say. You accuse him of inaction against AIDS, which was emerging at the beginning of Reagan’s presidency. You, of course, ignore the fact that Reagan created a bipartisan[AIDS commission](http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/from_newsfile/0,10987,1101871214-145624,00.html), the findings of which you contradict; claiming that over 40000 people died by 1987, wheras the commission found in December of 1987 that 20000 people died. > > AIDS was a new disease. The logical thing to do _was_ to research it, and Reagan appropriated $1 billion for it. Compare with the $100 million that Congress [_failed_](http://www.tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/04/06/52530736.shtml) to pass this year. Your claims of his inaction are utterly groundless and ignorant. > > The page also completely ignores the fact that unprotected (mostly gay) sex was what caused the first great spread of the AIDS virus, the free-love lifestyle held over by the 1960 that your liberal radical wackos supported. If I drink myself into alcoholism, it is not the government’s fault, it’s not the president’s fault, it’s my fault and my fault alone. So don’t push your responsibility onto others, ignoring your own contribution to the epidemic. > > So STFU, you shameless, lying, spineless, infantile, irresponsible, ignorant, bigoted, revisionist bags of mostly rancid water. You’re an idiot. The criticism is aimed at what Reagan said about AIDS **before** 1987 – pretty much nothing – and what he did about AIDS at that time – not enough. What he did **in and after** 1987 is quite irrelevant. I believe the folksy way to say it would be “closing the barn door after the horse has run off.” Experts had been calling for public education programs since 1981, but the approval for federal funds wasn’t there. The death count has always depended on who’s doing the counting. Before 1987, AIDS was not a separately reported cause of death, and all counts are therefore estimates. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-actupny-org/250293/3 "2004-06-14T20:45:31Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > On your front page, you have a link to a [page](http://www.actupny.org/reports/reagan.html) essensially [sic] celebrating Reagan’s death and claiming that he ignored AIDS, with a defaced picture of the deceased president. Which part of the page is “essentially celebrating Reagan’s death”? A cursory review indicates to me that ACT UP and the various people it quotes on that page are not celebrating RR’s death; they are taking to task his horrifying AIDS record and the failure of the mainstream media, in its unending hymn-singing to RR’s memory, to mention it. > [@athelas](#): > > You, of course, ignore the fact that Reagan created a bipartisan[AIDS commission](http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/from_newsfile/0,10987,1101871214-145624,00.html) In the summer of 1987, and which recommendations Reagan [did not seek to implement](http://www.thebody.com/encyclo/presidency.html). That you cite the commission formed in 1987 to refute the idea that RR ignored AIDS until 1987 is bizarre to the point of lunacy. > [@](#): > > Reagan did appoint the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic in the summer of 1987; it was later renamed the Watkins Commission, after its chair. With the appointment of this commission, Reagan was able to appease those who demanded a more sustained federal response to AIDS. He also answered the concerns of the New Right by appointing an AIDS commission that included few scientists who had participated in AIDS research and few physicians who had actually treated PWAs. In addition, the commission included outspoken opponents of AIDS education. > > In retrospect, it is clear that the commission was created to deflect attention from the administration’s own inept policy response to AIDS. The Watkins Commission’s final report did recommend a more sustained federal commitment to address AIDS, but this recommendation was largely ignored by both the Reagan and Bush administrations. None of the commissions studying AIDS over the years has recommended a massive federal effort to confront AIDS at all levels of society. > [@athelas](#): > > The page also completely ignores the fact that unprotected (mostly gay) sex was what caused the first great spread of the AIDS virus, the free-love lifestyle held over by the 1960 that your liberal radical wackos supported. I don’t think anyone in ACT UP or elsewhere is claiming that the gay community in the 80s wasn’t a disease vector. Think how many fewer people might be dead if the federal government, instead of largely ignoring AIDS for years, had instituted the same sort of response to AIDS as it did to, say, the Tylenol poisonings or the Lgionnaire’s Disease outbreak. > [@athelas](#): > > If I drink myself into alcoholism, it is not the government’s fault, it’s not the president’s fault, it’s my fault and my fault alone. So don’t push your responsibility onto others, ignoring your own contribution to the epidemic. HIV can incubate for a decade or longer, so your alcoholism analogy is flawed. Drinking yourself to death, which generally takes some time and effort, is on a different order of magnitude from having sex, even indiscriminate unprotected sex, years before anyone knew there even was a disease. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-actupny-org/250293/4 "2004-06-14T20:55:28Z")
Dude, grow a thicker skin. It’s ACT UP. They make it their purpose to act as outrageous as possible. They WANT to offend. However, in this case, there’s a lot of truth. Reagan _was_ a defender of Apartheid. Reagan _did_ ignore AIDS until the last minute. He _did_ fund death squads. And that picture was not what I would call “defaced.” Reagan wasn’t a saint. Deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-actupny-org/250293/5 "2004-06-16T13:08:41Z")
> [@](#): > > The criticism is aimed at what Reagan said about AIDS before 1987 – pretty much nothing – and what he did about AIDS at that time – not enough. What he did in and after 1987 is quite irrelevant. Not really, since they basically say “Reagan didn’t say anything about AIDS before 1987 - therefore he was grossly negligent, didn’t do anything, and had photoshopped pink eyes”. The fact that he _did_ do something refutes what they’re trying to claim. (About that "he didn’t say anything until 1987…look below) > [@](#): > > The death count has always depended on who’s doing the counting. Before 1987, AIDS was not a separately reported cause of death, and all counts are therefore estimates. Yeah, and I suppose Reagan was moving heaven and earth to stop the attempt to try to get information…wait a second… > [@](#): > > In the summer of 1987, and which recommendations Reagan did not seek to implement. That you cite the commission formed in 1987 to refute the idea that RR ignored AIDS until 1987 is bizarre to the point of lunacy. Fair enough, although the fact that he created the commission shows that he did care, although he disagreed with their recomendations. But look [here](http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/murdock/murdock4.html) > [@](#): > > I would add that President Reagan indeed used the word “AIDS” in a September 17, 1985, press conference. So the widely accepted myth that he did not even utter those four letters until 1987 remains precisely that:a myth. > > Finally, while President Reagan’s critics are free to argue that he should have done more about AIDS, and perhaps he should have, the fact that total federal HIV/AIDS expenditures grew from $0 to $5.727 billion on his watch belies the notion that he “did nothing” about this vicious disease. And [here](http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2004_06_06_dish_archive.html)…from Andrew Sullivan, a gay conservative, > [@](#): > > To my mind, the important questions concern whether the role that the President plays or doesn’t play has a long-term impact on the course of the epidemic. I think that in most cases it does not. > In the 1980s activists made the case that Presidential leadership, a greater sense of urgency, and the spending of more money could have a dramatic impact on the course of the epidemic. Their arguments were focused on “a cure” for those already infected, with prevention being a decidedly secondary note. From the perspective of time, and with different leadership and the expenditure of vast sums of money, it has become clear, at least to me, that the crucial issues with regard to a cure and an all-important vaccine are scientific ones that still have not been resolved despite applying all of that time, effort, and resources to them. I have little reason to believe that a different course of action by Reagan would have significantly altered the scientific state of knowledge. And those who continue to throw those charges against him only do that, they build no plausible scientific case…If the activist case against Reagan were valid, then it would be equally valid to lay medical successes at the feet of the sitting President. When was the last time that Eisenhower got credit for the miraculous polio vaccine? The fact is, we give credit to those who actually do the work or significantly impede it. With the benefit of a longer course of history, it is clear that Reagan did little of either. I feel that the news coverage is largely justified. > \ > But the sad truth is also that there was never going to be an easy answer to HIV in the Reagan years. Throwing even more money at research in those days would not have helped much. Anthony Fauci’s NIH, goaded by heroes like Larry Kramer, was already pushing for focus and resources; FDA red tape was loosened considerably; and the painfully slow scientific process continued. The fact that we got revolutionary drugs in trials by the early 1990s was itself an heroic scientific achievement - arguably the most miraculous progress in a medical emergency since the polio vaccine.