Keywords
History of HIV
AIDS
Stigma
Ryan White
David Kirby
Abstract
In the 1980s, AIDS triggered a huge wave of fear, as always happens when unknown, deadly diseases emerge. The fact that gay men were among the first to be infected with HIV and to manifest the disease prompted public opinion to link the infection to behaviours that were, at least at that time, transgressive and therefore unacceptable and shameful. AIDS sufferers were therefore exposed to discrimination from the outset.
The case of young Ryan White prompted much-needed reflection in the mid-1980s. Born with a severe form of haemophilia, Ryan contracted AIDS through the therapeutic administration of an infected blood product. This demonstrated that AIDS was not a disease that affected only homosexuals and drug users; it could strike anyone.
Through the story of Ryan White, an “innocent victim” of AIDS, the authors highlight the changes that occurred between the 1980s and 1990s, and which led civil society – as well as researchers – to modify its perception of the disease.
This was no easy process, since discrimination and stigma have deep roots, exerting a cascading effect that is very difficult to counteract, and which sometimes proves even more harmful than the disease itself.