the report created a lasting impression on the public that would raise the hysteria level around AIDS for years to come. Scientists just aren’t sure how AIDS is spread, the thinking went. Because of the long incubation period, possible transmission routes existed that might not reveal themselves until later—until it was too late. Anthony Fauci had said as much in his ill-considered editorial. Indeed, transmission routes may have seemed mysterious in 1982, but by 1983 the mysteries were solved. All the ways to get AIDS were established by then, and scientists, at least at the CDC, understood
...more
