Dec. 1st ~ World AIDS Day

The World Health Organization designated December 1st World AIDS Day in 1988. Reagan made sure that people with HIV/AIDS were ignored and not treated in the early '80s. Ignorance, fear and prejudice were rampant. His actions (inactions) killed so many people. Many of us had friends who had terrible lives while suffering the added diseases of cancer, pneumonia, etc., and then dying from lack of research and treatment. We miss them now.

Quite a few people with the very rare disease PML have gotten it by have immune suppression from HIV/AIDS. PML is the disease that ultimately killed Greg who got it a result of immune suppression due to a chemo drug. The lucky thing for people who get PML as a result of HIV/AIDS is that there is a drug cocktail they can take that often reverses the suppression and gives them some life back, where many others who get PML from other immune suppressing drugs never have a chance to get better. The drugs that people with HIV/AIDS can take to get better are the result of research that came in the years following Reagan.
GW Bush had a Presidential Emergency Plan that contributed to the global HIV/AIDS fight that jump started the change that took place and saved lives around the world. 

So, I'm celebrating the lives of friends I lost in the '80s to HIV/AIDS. Good guys, gone.