Petrelis Files

There's been some debate lately over when Reagan first uttered the word AIDS in public, and I've always thought it was in the spring of 1987.

AmFAR, with great assistance from their spokesperson Liz Taylor, organized a benefit in Washington, at which Reagan spoke about AIDS. Among the guests was Larry Kramer.

Well, conservative supporters of the Gipper claim otherwise. They say Reagan initially addressed AIDS in a February 6, 1986, speech to the nation, two days after he delivered his State of the Union address.

Here's the pertinent excerpt from that talk:

"We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS."

(Source: Reagan speeches)

So it appears Reagan did mention the AIDS epidemic prior to 1987. Still, for many dead Americans and others around the world, including Rock Hudson, it was too little, too late.

For what it's worth, the New York Times ran a correction earlier this year making the claim that Reagan issued an AIDS directive in 1986.

^^^
New York Times


SCIENCE DESK | December 16, 2003, Tuesday
ESSAY; AIDS After 'Angels': Not Gone, Not Forgotten

By DUDLEY CLENDINEN (NYT) 1691 words
Late Edition - Final , Section F , Page 1 , Column 3
DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 1691 WORDS - The young clerk at one of the video stores near me vanished last month, after two-and-a-half years in which he went from noticeably thin to gaunt, with red welts that appeared and disappeared, and a personality that changed, behind the counter, from polite to brittle, and then to something more...


Correction: January 8, 2004, Thursday

An essay in Science Times on Dec. 16 about changes in the lives of people with AIDS since the mid-1980's, when the play ''Angels in America'' was set, referred incorrectly to the history of President Ronald Reagan's public statements about the disease. He indeed mentioned it in public in the mid-1980's; occurrences included a directive by the president in 1986 for the surgeon general to prepare a major report on AIDS that would outline research efforts and ways to seek a cure for the disease.