Editing Moral panic (section)

==== <span class="anchor" id="AIDS"></span><!--[[AIDS panic]] redirects here--> HIV/AIDS (1980s–1990s) ====
{{See also|Gay plague}}

[[HIV/AIDS|Acquired immune deficiency syndrome]] (AIDS) is a viral illness that may lead to or exacerbate other health conditions such as [[pneumonia]], [[fungal infection]]s, [[tuberculosis]], [[toxoplasmosis]], and [[cytomegalovirus]]. A meeting of the [[British Sociological Association]]'s South West and Wales Study entitled "AIDS: The Latest Moral Panic" was prompted by the growing interest of medical sociologists in [[AIDS]], as well as that of UK health care professionals working in the field of health education. It took place at a time when both groups were beginning to voice an increased concern with the growing media attention and [[Fearmongering|fear-mongering]] that AIDS was attracting.<ref name="ATLMP">{{Cite book |last1=Coxon |first1=Anthony Peter Macmillan |last2=Gilligan |first2=J. H. |title=Aids: The Latest Moral Panic |date=1985 |publisher=School of Social Studies, University College of Swansea |isbn=978-0-947622-10-7 }}{{page needed|date=November 2016}}</ref> In the 1980s, a moral panic was created within the media over HIV/AIDS. For example, in Britain, a prominent advertisement by the government<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Pemberton |first1=Max |title=HIV/Aids treatment has come a long way– in the West |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/sexual-health-and-advice/9715372/HIVAids-treatment-has-come-a-long-way-in-the-West.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/sexual-health-and-advice/9715372/HIVAids-treatment-has-come-a-long-way-in-the-West.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=14 June 2017 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=3 December 2012}}{{cbignore}}</ref> suggested that the public was uninformed about HIV/AIDS due to a lack of publicly accessible and accurate information.<ref>{{cite web |title=Remembering the 'Don't Die of Ignorance' campaign |url=https://placingthepublic.lshtm.ac.uk/2018/05/20/remembering-the-dont-die-of-ignorance-campaign/ |website=Placing the Public in Public Health: Public Health in Britain, 1948-2010 |access-date=10 November 2024 |date=20 May 2018}}</ref>

The media outlets nicknamed HIV/AIDS the "gay plague", which further stigmatized the disease. However, scientists gained a far better understanding of HIV/AIDS as it grew in the 1980s and moved into the 1990s and beyond. The illness was still negatively viewed by many as either being caused by or passed on through the gay community. Once it became clear that this was not the case, the moral panic created by the media changed to blaming the overall negligence of ethical standards by the younger generation (both male and female), resulting in another moral panic. Authors behind ''AIDS: Rights, Risk, and Reason'' argued that "British TV and press coverage is locked into an agenda which blocks out any approach to the subject which does not conform in advance to the values and language of a profoundly homophobic culture—a culture that does not regard gay men as fully or properly human. No distinction obtains for the agenda between 'quality' and 'tabloid' newspapers, or between 'popular' and 'serious' television."<ref>Aggleton, P., Davies, P., & Hart, G. (1992). ''AIDS: Rights, Risk, and Reason''. London: Falmer Press. {{ISBN|978-0750700405}}{{page needed|date=November 2016}}</ref>

Similarly, reports of a group of AIDS cases amongst gay men in [[Southern California]] which suggested that a [[Sexually transmitted disease|sexually transmitted]] [[Infectious disease|infectious agent]] might be the [[Etiology|etiological]] agent<ref name="MMWR Weekly, 1982">{{Cite journal | title = A cluster of Kaposi's sarcoma and ''Pneumocystis carinii'' pneumonia among homosexual male residents of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California | journal = MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. | volume = 31 | issue = 23 | pages = 305–307 | date = June 1982 | pmid = 6811844 | url = https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001114.htm | author1 = Centers for Disease Control (CDC). }}</ref> led to several terms relating to homosexuality being coined for the disease, including ''gay plague''.<ref name="AIDS-Encyclopedia">{{Cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Raymond A. |title=Encyclopedia of AIDS: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Scientific Record of the HIV Epidemic |publisher=Routledge |date= 1998 |page=347 |isbn=978-1-135-45754-9 }}</ref>