Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, was first recognized as a disease in 1981, when it led to the deaths of 130 Americans. The number of annual AIDS-related deaths rose dramatically over the ensuing fourteen years, reaching a peak of 51,414 in 1995. Then, with the introduction of widely available antiretroviral therapy in the mid-1990s, the incidence of AIDS in the United States began to decline sharply. Since 1998, the yearly death toll from AIDS has ranged mostly between 17,000 and 19,000 – with a low of 15,798 in 2004, the lowest total for any year since 1986. According to UNAIDS, by the end of 2005 there were 1.2 million people infected with HIV/AIDS in North America, of which 43,000 had been diagnosed during that year. All told, between 1981 and 2004 some 944,306 people were diagnosed with AIDS. Fully 56 percent of those – or 529,113 – died of the disease. As a percentage of the overall adult population of the United States, the proportion of people infected with AIDS is 0.7%. The corresponding figures for other regions of the world are as follows:
- South/Southeast Asia, 0.7 %
- Latin America, 0.6%
- East Asia, 0.1%
- Eastern Europe/Central Asia, 0.9%
- Western/Central Europe, 0.3%
- Caribbean, 1.6%
- North Africa/Middle East, 0.2%
- Oceania, 0.5%
The most notable crisis is in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are currently 25.8 million people (7.2% of the adult population) living with HIV/AIDS – with an additional 3.2 million newly diagnosed cases and 2.4 million AIDS-related deaths each year.
In this section of DiscoverTheNetworks, the category titled Unpopular Facts About Treatment, Funding, and Containment of AIDS is devoted to debunking popular mythology about AIDS and the HIV virus. It addresses such issues as the disease's prevalence, its distribution across various demographic lines, and the amount of public funding it receives for research and development of new treatments. Resources in this category also explain how AIDS has become a highly politicized disease, with activists claiming that its treatment (and the scientific research related to that treatment) has been underfunded because of alleged societal biases against homosexuals, who constitute a highly disproportionate share of AIDS victims in the U.S.
The category titled How Political Radicalism Has Led to AIDS-Related Deaths exposes the leftist dogmas and agendas of the gay lobby which have prevented American society from taking steps that could have saved the lives of many thousands of AIDS victims. For example, AIDS activists have generally condemned calls for mandatory testing or for safer sexual practices among homosexuals, characterizing such recommendations as symptoms of societal “homophobia,” “sex-negativity,” and assaults on civil liberties.
The category titled Heterosexual AIDS exposes the falsehood of the gay lobby's longstanding insistence that AIDS in the United States is not primarily a gay disease, and that it eventually will afflict heterosexuals at rates no lower than those of homosexuals.
The category titled AIDS in the United States examines issues related to the prevalence and transmission of AIDS and the HIV virus in the U.S.
The category titled AIDS in Other Nations examines issues related to the prevalence and transmission of AIDS and the HIV virus in countries other than the United States. It explores the cultural, social, and religious factors that have exacerbated the problem in certain regions.
The category titled Charges of Racism and Conspiracy examines the notion that the high prevalence of AIDS in nonwhite minority communities is the result of an orchestrated, racist campaign designed to kill off large numbers of blacks and Hispanics. Particularly during the period of AIDS’ rapid ascendancy as a public health concern in the 1980s, theories were advanced claiming that the disease was in fact created by diabolical white or Jewish doctors to exterminate blacks (who historically have been infected at rates far higher than those of whites) or homosexuals.
