AIDS 
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SOURCE: Retro Report
7/2/2020
What Dr. Fauci and Others Learned About Battling Covid-19 from the Fight Against AIDS (Video)
The AIDS pandemic was marked by a slow response and a lack of clear public health messages and testing. Despite those lessons, we were still unprepared for Covid-19.
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SOURCE: The MIT Press Reader
5/26/2020
Lessons From Operation 'Denver,' the KGB’s Massive AIDS Disinformation Campaign
Historian Douglas Selvage sheds light on a conspiracy theory that reverberates to this day.
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SOURCE: New York Times
5/27/2020
Larry Kramer, Author and Outspoken AIDS Activist, Dies at 84
Even some of the officials Mr. Kramer accused of “murder” and “genocide” recognized that his outbursts were part of a strategy to shock the country into dealing with AIDS as a public-health emergency.
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5/3/2020
Trump’s Attacks on the WHO Evoke Nostalgia for George W. Bush
by Jeffrey J. Matthews
George W. Bush's promotion of cooperative international health initiaitves to fight HIV-AIDS is a bright spot in his presidential legacy.
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SOURCE: The New York Times
4/5/2020
Scapegoating New York Means Ignoring Its Desperate Need
by Kim Phillips-Fein
Blaming the city for coronavirus is a way of letting the federal government off the hook.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
3/22/2020
The Epidemics America Got Wrong
by Jim Downs
Government inaction or delay have shaped the course of many infectious disease outbreaks in our country, argues history professor Jim Downs.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
3/12/2020
We Can’t Forget Women as We Tell The Story of COVID-19
by Jennifer Brier
Women who have been medical (and political) subjects of HIV/AIDS also have much to teach us during our current pandemic.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
3/16/2020
Coronavirus: Three Lessons from the AIDS Crisis
by Laurie Marhoefer
The U.S. made serious mistakes when the HIV virus and AIDS emerged. Those errors cost many lives. But our nation learned a few things, too.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/27/19
Quest to Solve Assassination Mystery Revives an AIDS Conspiracy Theory
“We were at war,” said the former militia member, Alexander Jones. “Black people in South Africa were the enemy.”
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SOURCE: NPR
Long Before Facebook, The KGB Spread Fake News About AIDS
Back in the 1980s, the rumor that AIDS was human-made was based partially on a report written in 1986 by Russian-born biophysicist Jakob Segal.
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SOURCE: The Washington Post
3-12-18
The Russian ‘fake news’ campaign that damaged the United States — in the 1980s
by Alexander Poster
2016 wasn't the first time that Russia used fake news as a weapon against the United States.
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SOURCE: NYT
12-12-17
Fingerprints of Russian Disinformation: From AIDS to Fake News
In the 1980s, the Soviets peddled "bum dope about AIDS" around the world. Moscow's tactics haven't changed much in the years since.
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SOURCE: Science Daily
10-26-16
Cambridge historian helps clear man accused of causing AIDS epidemic in the US
A combination of historical and genetic research reveals the error and hype that led to the coining of the term 'Patient Zero' and the blaming of one man for the spread of HIV across North America.
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SOURCE: Vanity Fair
12-1-15
The Reagan Administration’s Unearthed Response to the AIDS Crisis Is Chilling
A new short film, When AIDS Was Funny, unearths never-before-heard audio reaction to the escalating AIDS crisis.
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12-14-14
The Making of an AIDS Scapegoat -- And Why We Keep Doing It
by Rod Tanchanco
He was called Patient Zero. It was a publisher’s ploy.
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SOURCE: Slate
10-26-14
In embracing an Ebola victim, Barack Obama succeeded where Ronald Reagan failed
by Laura Helmuth
"The hateful, homophobic, racist response to the AIDS crisis is one of the most shameful episodes in recent American history."
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SOURCE: Zocalo Public Square
2-26-14
Why "Dallas Buyers Club" Should Win Best Picture
by Andrea Milne
The movie captures the emotional exhaustion hundreds of thousands of Americans experienced during the HIV/AIDS crisis of the ’80s and ’90s.
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SOURCE: National Library of Medicine
9-24-13
NLM Launches “Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics, and Culture"
The National Library of Medicine has launched a traveling banner exhibition and online adaptation of Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics, and Culture.
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SOURCE: NYT
8-3-13
Hugh Ryan: How to Whitewash a Plague
Hugh Ryan is a freelance writer and the founding director of the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History.THE New-York Historical Society’s current exhibition “AIDS in New York: The First Five Years” accomplishes a neat trick: it takes a black mark in New York City’s history — its homophobic, apathetic response to the early days of AIDS in the early 1980s — and transforms it into a moment of civic pride, when New Yorkers of all stripes came together to fight the disease. It’s a lovely story, if only it were true.To judge from the opening animation — a short video titled “What is AIDS?” — this show is aimed at AIDS neophytes, and as an informational vehicle it succeeds. Many of the images and ephemera are powerful testaments. But such details sit against an apologist backdrop that sees the city through rose-tinted glasses.
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SOURCE: NYT
1-20-13
Judging Mayor Koch’s AIDS Record, Whispers Aside
There’s a moment toward the end of “Koch,” a soon-to-be released documentary by Neil Barsky on the extended political career of the city’s 105th mayor, in which Edward I. Koch, eternally single, is asked to address questions surrounding the longstanding interest in his sexuality. He responds as he has done for a long time now, declaring that it is no one’s business. He argues that his engagement with the issue would set a precedent for gross intrusions into the personal lives of political candidates, a bit of narcissistic posturing that seems to ignore the extent to which that field has already been trampled by mad dogs and wild horses.In the past, Mr. Koch, who is 88, handled the question by joking at the absurdity of any fascination with the sex life of an old man — presumably he has not kept up with the boundless tabloid interest in Hugh Hefner’s late-life erotic shenanigans or with Cialis ads. Certainly Mr. Koch has maintained a more vigilant security apparatus around his intimate life than most contemporary public figures one can think of.
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