When Institutions Fail: HIV/AIDS in the 1980s

During the early 1980s, young gay men in urban centers such as San Francisco and New York City began contracting a mysterious illness that would come to be known as HIV/AIDS. A diagnosis meant almost certain death, with a less than 1% survival rate. Conflicting priorities and agendas within a range of institutions—such as federal and local governments, the medical bureaucracy, incentive structures, and religious convictions—resulted in a failure to mitigate the outbreak. HIV/AIDS infections grew to pandemic proportions leading to one of the largest public health crises in American history.