The swine and the flu

[rsc]

I wonder how many other people -- not you young folks, of course -- found that a sudden panic over Swine Flu brought them back to the 1980s, when Charles Ortleb, publisher of the New York Native, spent gallons of ink trying to convince every gay man he could reach that "AIDS" was actually a form of swine flu that had escaped form a lab, and had nothing whatever to do with HIV.

Comments

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

I don't remember that particular issue, though I do remember when HIV was known as HTLV-III and getting tested for it when a partner tested positive back in the early/mid 80s.

I also remember quite vividly SARS, which was quite traumatic for Toronto

[arfur]

Wasn't it just two years ago or so that AIDS Action officially denounced a similar position?

(spoken as a true young person :-)

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Might have been. I'm vaguely aware that there are still a few HIV deniers out there, but I certainly haven't seen swine flu mentioned in that connection for many a year. But there's a lot of stuff out there that I don't read.

[arigin.livejournal.com]

I was in NYC during the onset of the pandemic. I also worked for many years in medicine. I remember exactly what you mention. We've come a long way, though not far enough. Perhaps...if only more people had paid attention we might be closer to resolving this disaster.