We are continuing our coverage of the AIDS crisis during the 1980s. If you have not listened to part 1, we strongly encourage that you do so. We begin in 1983 when the crisis is finally gaining widespread medical attention. By now, the mystery disease had gone through several name changes. Starting with the misdiagnosis of pneumonia and the cancer Kaposi’s sarcoma, changing to the offensive ‘gay cancer/gay plague’, and finally landing on the well-known acronym of AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). At the dawn of 1983, 900 people had been officially diagnosed with AIDS, and time would later prove that this number was woefully inaccurate. Doctors in New York, San Francisco, Miami, and several other large cities had been treating patients for 5 years. Thirty states reported cases and 52 worldwide cases in 15 countries had been recorded so far.

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