American Decades
Aids
The New Reality.
Identified in 1981, the incurable disease known as AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) has had a major impact on American society. As ignorance and misunderstanding of the inevitably fatal disease—most commonly transmitted by intravenous drug use and sexual activity—gradually gave way to fuller knowledge, the number of reported cases in the United States rose from 225 in 1981 to 40,000 in 1987. By the end of the decade hundreds of thousands of Americans were known to be infected; it looked as if the nation were in the midst of an epidemic; and thousands of people began to transform their lifestyles in accordance with the new reality.
Discovering AIDS.
In 1980 doctors in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco began noticing patients who were dying because their immune systems had been rendered inoperative, making them susceptible to opportunistic infections. Researchers...
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1980's Lifestyles and Social Trends
