We're beginning a big section on HIV in my antibiotics course. We've started with a film from the 90's that was made just before the first reverse transcriptase (protease) inhibitor was released on the market. It was the first drug that really had any effect on the virus. The film documents the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic.

It was first called GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Doctors had no idea what was causing it or how it was spread. Medical professionals refused to properly treat the victims. Politicians ignored the emerging epidemic because gay men represented such a small percent of their constituents. Religious authorities used the disease as vindication of their beliefs, proof that their morals were universal law and now being confirmed by medical science.

Almost everyone- doctors, researchers, politicians, the blood banks and more- wanted to belief that this was a disease indicative of the gay lifestyle. They didn't want to believe that it could spread to anyone else. Even as the evidence grew that it could be sexually transmitted and the blood transmitted, it was still ignored. It took years for any real progress to be made, mostly due to underfunding from the government and lack of support. It wasn't until thousands of people were infected that real progress started because the evidence finally couldn't be ignored and it was realized that this disease was a danger to everyone, not just a marginalized group of people that many others would like to have seen dead anyway. The disease had to spread through IV drug users, then hemophiliacs and those who received blood transfusions and finally be confirmed in other counties, like Uganda in Africa, in heterosexual populations. So many people could have been saved if action had been taken sooner, but thousands of people had to suffer and many families destroyed before anything was done. I will admit that the gay community could have done better as well. The doctors may have been reluctant to claim it was sexually transmitted but at the time the gay community didn't want to hear it. Gay activists that worked to help AIDS victims that spoke up, trying to warn gay men to use condoms and protect themselves, were ostracized.

Watching that film, seeing real footage from the 80's and 90's and learning a lot more about what happened than I knew before stirred up a lot of anger in me. I've always had some anger issues centered around being gay. I've spent a lot of time angry at bigoted Christians, homophobes and politicians... and, I'm ashamed to admit, sometimes just Christians and straight people in general.

I'm not sure how the rest of this unit is going to go. I don't like feeling this way. The anger builds up and I just get the urge to lash out. In fact, I find myself wishing that I'd run into some vocal homophobic person just so I'd have someone to lash out at. It makes me want to cry and look for a fight at the same time.

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this. I just felt so angry earlier today, a kind of helpless anger because I didn't have anyone specific to be angry at. It took a little while but it finally subsided. Now I just wonder if I'm going to feel that way again tomorrow morning when we finish the film.

It's times like this that make me think I should be an infectious disease pharmacist with a focus on HIV. It would give me something to redirect my anger at and turn it into energy to actually do some good.

Cross posted from my LJ. Might delete later, just felt the need to vent.