40 years ago today . . .

[FelineOverlord]

An article appeared in the New York Times about a strange new cancer.

Link to tweet

[Murphyb849]

1. I was a nurse at that time and lost many good friends to this.

We teased them saying they were always sick because they were in dance clubs having a good time on their nights off having no clue they were sick like that. Then all my gay coworkers died. My hemophiliac patients died. It was heartbreaking. The hatred and prejudice was so cruel. If you want to see what I lived thru and many others did not, please watch And the Band Played On. BTW Republicans sucked then too. May all who died RIP.

[FelineOverlord]

3. I was a nurse at that time and lost many good friends to this.

The book And The Band Played On had a profound effect on me.

As if I didn’t hate Reagan enough 🤬

I saw the film, too.

[riversedge]

5. I still have that book and have re-read it a few times.

[Warpy]

8. I hit the nursing profession about the time AIDS hit the hospitals

Ronnie was silent and Christian preachers all crowed about judgments from gawd.

And by the time they came in, there wasn't much of anything we could do. Their lives were measured in hours, sometimes minutes.

I lost a lot of my friends, too.

[murielm99]

12. I read that book.

I will never forget it.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

4. When I was in a psych unit

Back than there was a person on our unit that had aids.

Everyone treated him like shit. I was so pissed off.

During group I tore into the group for scapegoating and treating the guy with aids as a pariah. It broke my heart.

People said all sorts of bullshit they were told or believed about aids.

I told them it's only transmitted by sharing bodily fluids. Staff backed me up too saying the same thing.

Than I walked over to him and hugged him for a long time.

After that they treated him much better.

It took the fear level down.

[Demovictory9]

7. my gay co-workers died of it. it was like a 100% death sentence. so much has changed

[Skittles]

2. I remember reading a small blurb about it

and thinking it sounded ominous

[Demovictory9]

6. was living up in northern California, not far from SF. articles started to appear about this

cancer.

[Shellback Squid]

9. ..

[littlemissmartypants]

10. ...

[Hekate]

11. I do remember. One of my then-favorite columnists at the LA Times, Al Martinez, wrote a column...

…that could break the heart. He called it, “The Poets Are Dying,” and I wept.

[DemocraticPatriot]

13. but what was the 'rare cancer' ?