JimmiRustle t1_jd13jcf wrote on March 21, 2023 at 1:41 AM

Reply to comment by iayork in Has the HIV virus become less deadly? by shaun3000

I want to add that the outbreak in the 80s also caused a huge panic mainly because at first nobody knew what it was or how it spread.

supercalifragilism t1_jd4mpr9 wrote on March 21, 2023 at 8:17 PM

Additionally, the rapid onset of negative health outcomes was because individuals had been HIV positive for much longer than a clinical definition for HIV positivity was developed. Treatment has improved, but for the early days of the AIDS epidemic there were people who had HIV for years before there was an official diagnosis, so the rate of time from diagnosis to death/disabling symptoms appeared shorter. Now HIV testing is part of established STI screenings, so there's (on average) less time for the virus to inhabit a person before diagnosis.

sciguy52 t1_jd5m30r wrote on March 22, 2023 at 12:13 AM

I was an AIDS research scientist in the 80's. We had the lab we worked in without any infectious material in it (did the live virus work in another room). Anyway, one day we had a plumbing issue and the plumber did not want to come into the lab where all of us were working in. I was thinking "dude you think I would be in here if there was a risk of me getting infected?".

aphilsphan t1_jd5v5ex wrote on March 22, 2023 at 1:19 AM

I was a grad student in the early 80s. There was a prof in our department who had been doing slow steady respectable RNA biochemistry work for 20 years. Not in HIV or even with whole viruses, with RNA viral enzymes. His work was barely funded, some semesters his 2 to 3 grad students taught, sometimes they’d get a break. By 1988 agencies leaving sacks of 50s on his doorstep. To his credit, this guy didn’t expand too much. He got a postdoc and better equipment and his students didn’t have to teach. It was fascinating to see that field go from backwater to front burner like that.