By the next Friday, face masks, rubber gloves, and ten-minute education tapes on AIDS were being passed out in every firehouse and police station in the city. The photo of an officer trying on one of the resuscitation masks started cropping up in dailies and newsmagazines across the country in the fearful weeks that followed, a virtual emblem of the AIDS hysteria that enveloped the nation because of the household contact “findings.” The second epidemic had commenced—the epidemic of fear.
