Even the pleading of the Assistant Secretary for Health would not make much of a difference. What did make a difference began on June 5,1984, when a man went to his doctor’s office to learn the results of a biopsy. The biopsy had been performed on a pesky purple spot on the fifty-eight-year-old’s neck. The doctor suspected what the spot signified as soon as he saw it. Nevertheless, he waited until the biopsy confirmed the diagnosis before he told Rock Hudson that he was suffering from Kaposi’s sarcoma.
