37 Years Ago: RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS

[Behind the Aegis]

Last edited Wed Jul 4, 2018, 12:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.

The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment.

The sudden appearance of the cancer, called Kaposi's Sarcoma, has prompted a medical investigation that experts say could have as much scientific as public health importance because of what it may teach about determining the causes of more common types of cancer. First Appears in Spots

Doctors have been taught in the past that the cancer usually appeared first in spots on the legs and that the disease took a slow course of up to 10 years. But these recent cases have shown that it appears in one or more violet-colored spots anywhere on the body. The spots generally do not itch or cause other symptoms, often can be mistaken for bruises, sometimes appear as lumps and can turn brown after a period of time. The cancer often causes swollen lymph glands, and then kills by spreading throughout the body.

more...

Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 70 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 35 million people have died of HIV. Globally, 36.7 million [30.8–42.9 million] people were living with HIV at the end of 2016. source





REMEMBER!

[spanone]

1. K&R...

[Solly Mack]

2. I do

I miss you, Frank. Still.

Died from HIV/AIDS in 1984.

[Kali]

3. I remember.

Best friend and roommate at the time was a gay man. We talked about all the time, trying to keep up with the newest info coming out. No internet!

[melman]

4. I remember

I lost my brother to AIDS. I think about it all the time.

[sheshe2]

5. K&R

[FreeState]

6. K&R

Seems like yesterday.

[stopwastingmymoney]

7. My husband's best friend, died 1996

My close friend since we were kids, living now with undetectable level of the virus

What a difference 20 or so years have made

[Hekate]

8. I remember

[dewsgirl]

9. Boy, where they wrong.

[smirkymonkey]

10. K&R

[pnwmom]

11. That article convinced my mother to ask my father for a divorce.

The NYTimes was our main paper and I remember Mom showing the article to me.

No one knew how this strange new illness spread and she was afraid he might pass it to her or one of us.

As it turned out, most of his friends died of AIDS but he managed to avoid the infection.

When this article came out they'd been teetering on the brink of divorce for a while, I think. This article pushed them over the edge. They both ended up being better off.

[still_one]

12. and during that time Reagan was slashing the healthcare budget, cutting funding from AIDS programs,

research and education.

San Francisco under Dianne Feinstein mounted the most aggressive campaign to confront the crisis.

"In 1984 alone, San Francisco poured 7.6 million into AIDS programs, while New York with triple the case load spent little over one million dollars

In the mid-1980s, San Francisco spent more on AIDS than the entire federal government under President Reagan. When Supervisor Harry Britt brought Feinstein the first AIDS funding proposal in 1982, the mayor simply told him, "Fund everything"

"Season of the Witch", David Talbot


and she approved its doubling every year and never blinked an eye


Not only were other large cities lagging behind, but some of those cities tried to dump their AIDS patients on San Francisco.



Probably the most outrageous was in 1983 when a hospital in Gainsville Florida put a seriously ill patient on an airplane, and deposited him at San Francisco General Hospital

When the patient did passed away Mayor Feinstein commented on the inhumanity of that, and how sad the young man had to spend his final days as a Medical Outcast thousands of miles from home.


but NOT San Francisco, it was there right up front when others turned their backs and ignored it. The healthcare workers at SF General had a special ward, to treat and bring comfort to those who were suffering, before anyone knew what it was about. They were truly heroes, while the Jerry Falwells and Anita Bryants were going around saying they deserved what was happening to them.

My wife worked for City Planning for the City of San Francisco at the time, and they lost so many young people in that department


That is why I get particularly upset when some feel so inclined to trash Senator Feinstein. I suspect they know very little about her. She was a giver, and a compassionate person who spent hours visiting AIDS patients in hospitals, travelling around and meeting with mayors of other cities through the U.S. Conference of Mayors to establish and AIDS task force in 1984. The Reagan administration should have done that, but instead turned a blind eye to that because of political considerations from their "moral majority" base


This happened in the aftermath of the People's Temple and the assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. She brought the city together at one of the lowest points in its history

[Upthevibe]

17. still_one,....I had no idea that Diane Feinstein did what you just

shared. I didn't move to California until the late 80's. Thank you so much for letting us know this about her. I volunteered on the AIDS hotline from the Gay & Lesbian Center in L.A. We had to go through extensive training for two nights a week, four hours per night, for six weeks! IMHO this is the biggest failing of the Reagan Administration. It's shocking how many died in a relatively short period of time....

[pnwmom]

18. Could you please make an OP about this history of Feinstein's?

I think it would explain why so many people with longer memories will always be grateful to her.

[SkyDaddy7]

20. That is cool about Sen. Feinstein...

I’m not even sure how I came across this webpage a while back but like you said it made me have such a deep respect for Dianne Feinstein!! There were so many people in power who could’ve done so much more & many just choose to chose to ignore it or worse, point to it as some kind of punishment from a mythical deity!🤬

FROM ARTICLE:
“Mayor Feinstein had a long association with SFGH; her father, Leon Goldman, was a UCSF surgeon, and his contributions to SFGH are honored by a plaque at the hospital. I had known Dianne when I worked for the Democratic Party before medical school, and I contacted her early in the epidemic and set up a meeting with her, Merle, Paul, and one of her aides who lived in the Castro. Mayor Feinstein threw the weight of her office behind the SFGH’s activities, raising funds at the local, state, and national level. She also helped educate mayors from other cities about the growing epidemic. And she approved closing the gay bathhouses to help stop the spread of HIV. Unlike other politicians, Dianne never thought that HIV/AIDS was a result of bad behavior but rather a public health emergency.”


FROM CLOSING PARAGRAPH:
“Seven years ago, the SFGH Foundation started an annual Heroes and Hearts event at which fiberglass hearts decorated by local artists are auctioned off to raise money for hospital programs, including those dealing with HIV/AIDS. At the first event, Dianne Feinstein, now the senior senator for California, bought a heart that now sits in front of her home, and others can be seen around town. The one in front of SFGH was inscribed by an artist with the words “Mi Hermano, Mi Corazón” in honor of her brother, whose life was saved at the hospital. The heart is a reminder of the spirit of compassion, inclusiveness, multiculturalism, and perhaps a bit of zaniness that has been called “the San Francisco approach to HIV/AIDS.” I believe that this big-hearted approach could only have happened in our unique city, and that San Francisco deserves much of the credit for what we accomplished in combating the strange new disease.”
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210826374#post20



There is no telling how dark things are about to get with The Federalist Society/Christian NUT JOBS making ALL OF TRUMP’S JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS INCLUDING TO THE SCOTUS & there is NOTHING AT ALL we can do to stop it! Add to that millions & millions going into school voucher programs that will will lead to generations of kids being programmed (kinda like the Hitler Youth)to hate everything about America that makes it a great country & their minds will be so ruined Conservative Media will own their thinking from day one! Nothing will be done about climate change either. Of course the list goes on & on...

I’ve always managed to stay positive but I knew in the back of my head how fragile things are & now I fear for the future.

[sandensea]

13. 35 years already. Reagan should have been tried for human rights abuses for letting AIDS snowball.

Brings to mind watching 'And the Band Played On' in 1993, which is set in the early 1980s.

While controversial in some ways, it really captured the indifference and hostility during the Reagan administration toward the AIDS crisis at the time.

As Dr. C. Everett Koop pointed out, the administration, from Reagan himself on down, viewed AIDS as a problem that only affected "homosexuals and i.v. drug users" - and therefore not fit to be addressed at all.

[Metro135]

14. It was actually 37 years ago

The times article appeared in 1981. I remember because I moved to NYC in 1983, and Larry Kramer was already sounding the alarm.

[Behind the Aegis]

22. You are correct.

I made the change. I thought 1983 was "too late", but sometimes I confuse articles (I was reading another early AIDS article at the same time). I appreciate the heads-up!

[lapfog_1]

15. My cousin was one of the first... and I will always remember - n/t

[braddy]

16. My cousin wasn't one of the first but he was one of the early ones.

[pazzyanne]

19. My cousin was also one of the first to die.

He was living in Texas at the time and his brother brought him home to say goodbye to the family. It was heartbreaking. He was a wonderful young man.

[MFM008]

21. Remember it so clear

Gay men and Haitians, the rest of us said"we" were neither and carried on, and paid.