The world has rarely known a disease that has aroused so much controversy and uncertainty in its understanding and origin as AIDS.

For years scientists and doctors have scrounged for information on the characteristics of AIDS and the virus that causes it, HIV.

The 1980s
Around 1981 a handful of homosexual men in the U.S. were diagnosed with the rare conditions of Kaposi’s sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia, which were soon connected to immune deficiencies.

Because of this, people in the U.S. automatically categorized AIDS, originally known as Gay Related Immune Deficiency, as a disease of homosexuals.

It wouldn't help that later research pointed to a homosexual flight attendant being suspected of bringing AIDS to North America.

But it wouldn’t be long before doctors would find AIDS in women and in patients who had received blood transfusions. And AIDS would begin to spread at a rapid pace.

In the summer of 1981 various media giants such as the Associated Press and The New York Times began running news articles on AIDS.

Throughout the 1980s outrageous incidents of discrimination occurred against people infected with AIDS. One of the most highly publicized cases was that of Ryan White, a teenage boy from Indiana who was expelled from a public school after being diagnosed with AIDS. White contracted AIDS from a product that he was given to treat his hemophilia.

The 1990s
During the1990s celebrities and athletes began to announce that they were infected with HIV or AIDS. Basketball great Magic Johnson announced he had HIV in 1991, and tennis champion Arthur Ashe admitted to having AIDS in 1992.

Throughout the 1990s HIV/AIDS awareness groups as well as research on AIDS helped to calm some of the panic and discrimination surrounding HIV/AIDS.

The Origin of AIDS
Although the actual place of origin of AIDS remains uncertain, many scientists now believe it originated in African monkeys and was then transferred to humans.

Other theories abound. In the attempt to place blame, different racial and ethnic groups have invented various theories about AIDS. Possibly the most famous conspiracy theory claims that the CIA, or another extension of the U.S. government, created the disease in an attempt to exterminate the African race or to control the world population.

At times, Africans and African Americans find themselves being blamed for the spread of AIDS because AIDS was most likely transferred to humans in Africa. Also, HIV/AIDS infection rates in the U.S. are consistently higher among African Americans than among members of other racial groups.

Throughout the short history of AIDS, the condition has taken on different faces and has been linked to many different groups. The fact remains that AIDS still kills, and kills by the millions.

Audio

Professor Hansjoerg Dilger
Department of Anthropology and Center for African Studies, University of Florida

Professor Dilger discusses the presence of AIDS in Africa and the future of the epidemic.