Aids vs. the Crucible

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Jalal Bennett English III Pd.4 How The HIV/ AIDS Outbreak In The 1980’s Relates To The Crucible Typically people haven’t been known to deal with things they are uncertain of very well. The aids hysteria is very similar to the Salem witch trials because both cases were caused by fear. The people didn’t know how to deal with the situation. Also in both cases extreme measure were taken to keep the witches and those with aids away from the rest of society so the people who had the disease or problem wouldn’t give it to those who didn’t. Many people were also accused and given false labels during both of these times, innocent people were accused of being witches, and given the label a witch, and during the aids hysteria people were considered gay or a drug user if you had aids, even if you weren’t. Both events caused fingers to be pointed and began religious and sexual prejudice. The paranoia caused death and led to people making rash decisions. At the start of the 1980’s several reports were appearing in California and New York of a small number of men who had been detected of having rare forms of cancer and pneumonia. The cancer Kaposi ’s sarcoma, usually only happened to elderly men from the Jewish heritage and young African men. The pneumonia, Pneumocystis Pneumonia (PCP), is usually only found in people with compromised immune systems. The men were young and had very good health. The only similarity they all had is that they were all homosexual. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by HIV. Some people call AIDS the “advanced HIV infection.” HIV is a virus that slowly attacks immune system cells. As HIV damages these cells, the body becomes more prone to infections that it can barely fight against. It isn’t referred to as AIDS until it gets really bad. If not taken care of, it can take about ten years before HIV damages the body enough to be

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