aids paper
... When most politicians were afraid to even utter the acronym AIDS, Kramer helped form the country’s first AIDS organization. ... The years following the emergence of the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in the United States witnessed homosexual men celebrating and nourishing their libido. ... Without support from the government or most gay leaders, AIDS was spreading. ... AIDS rapidly spread throughout major cities such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. ... The GMHC was the world’s first AIDS service organization committed to National Leadership in the fight against AIDS. ... html) Larry Kramer’s battle against AIDS began when he foresaw the gravity of the epidemic from day one, years before most people. ... In May 1982 GHMC started the world’s first AIDS hotline on the answering machine of a volunteer. ... Another way Kramer’s GMHC helped inform people about the epidemic was the first informational AIDS newsletter produced in which 50,000 copies are sent free to doctors, hospitals and clinics across the country . ... In a further attempt to enlighten gays GMHC opened their first office in a hotel basement and created a “Buddy” program to help people with AIDS with their day to day needs. ... He scolded Koch for his lack of interest in this emergency and attests that due to “his silence on AIDS, the mayor of New York is helping to kill us (Shilts 245)” He confronted the lack of press and media coverage due to its sigma as the “gay disease” and criticized the delayed grants and funding of the government. ... Kramer’s piece “irrevocably altered the context in which AIDS was discussed” (Shilts 245) throughout the nation. In stating what nobody in that time would Kramer’s piece influenced the fight against the AIDS epidemic like nothing else at that time. ... Without Kramer AIDS would have continued as an unspoken epidemic and many more people would have suffered and died. ... He wanted to increase his impact on the AIDS policy. ... Opening in New York, it was the first AIDS based play. ... A significant contribution Kramer made against battling the AIDS epidemic was founding the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), an organization to help protect people against governmental and societal indifference to the epidemic.