June is AIDS Education, LGBT Pride and Men’s Health Month.
The Centers for Disease Control announced the so-called Gay-related Immune Deficiency June 5, 1981, during the Reagan administration. Reagan remained silent about HIV/AIDS. He died June 5, 2004. Ironically, the next day is the anniversary of D-Day.
Reagan was virtually silent during the seven-and-a-half years remaining in his administration after the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It would have been a huge splash in all media had he died on the anniversary of D-Day.
Personally, it’s poetic justice. For those who died, justice was not served. Living with HIV since testing positive Sept. 27, 1988, has nonetheless been devastating.
Will the media ever be vocal and inform the public about the irony of his death anniversary? After all, Reagan personified Silence=Death about our D-Day!
I remain positive, living in Philadelphia.
— Mark A. Davis, Philadelphia