The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s
My first book, Soy Boricua, features five generations of women of a Puerto Rican family. Their every day lives are affected by historical events, politics and the clashing of cultures. As we get closer to the book's launch I'll be posting about the events and culture of the day that these women and others may have been concerned with and affected by as they went about their lives.
The 1980s were a decade of neon lights, big frizzy hair, space travel, drugs and money. The Puerto Rican boy band, Menudo, led by Ricky Martin took the world by storm and the electronic sounds and syncopated beats of Freestyle music already popular amongst Latin communities in New York City, burst into the mainstream. But all was not bright and happy in the 1980s. Adding to the exploding levels of crime and poverty that ravaged inner cities, a new dark cloud had formed on the horizon.
Since emerging on the American health scene in 1981, AIDS has stigmatized those who became infected as ignorance and misinformation ran rampant. Populations affected most by the epidemic were gay men, minorities and injection drug users. Due to a lack of screening methods for blood donation before 1985, many hospital patients who received blood transfusions received the dreaded news that they would need to go in for a blood test as the blood they received may have been tainted with the HIV antibody. By 1993, this was the reality for more than 1000 patients and their families, the most notable being Ryan White who received AIDS infected blood while being treated for hemophilia and succumbed to the disease at 18 years old.
By the mid-1980s, about 150,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS were being reported annually leading to a national campaign of education and awareness across the country with federal resources dedicated to HIV prevention becoming available to state and local health authorities. While the number of new cases has dropped dramatically over the last two decades, AIDS is still a very real problem today. As of 2013, 35 million people around the world had been infected with the virus with 6,000 new cases and over 4,000 deaths that year.
This issue hits home for Marisol Rivera and her family when her father receives news that a transfusion he received during heart surgery may have infected him. The next 72 hours are filled with revelations and confrontation as the family awaits the results.
Reference: The Center for Disease Control, Ryan White
