Hiv in America: Is the Epidemic Getting Worse or Better?

HIV in America: Is the epidemic getting worse or better?

A Review of the facts

When the first case of HIV cases hit the United States in 1985 (Kellerman, 2006) the gay community had been hit hard by a disease it was just beginning to understand. Thousands of individuals had been infected with HIV, and many Americans believed the affliction to be wholly a “gay disease.” But as the years wore on it became apparent that anyone could be infected, and slowly this preconceived notion melted away as modern medicine perfected better ways to treat the virus and keep it from progressing into AIDS (Kates, 2004). With these new techniques, the death tolls slowly began to plummet and the stigma attached to the disease began to plummet. One of the primary reasons behind this has been the fact that certain age groups are passing the virus to unsuspecting sexual partners because they do not exhibit symptoms.

With the advent of a new drug called Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) in 1996, the incidence