Còn tin gì khác không?

như bốn thập kỷ trước đưa tin về AIDS, reo giắc sợ hãi, và Fauci cũng lại quay ngoắt 180 độ sau 2 tháng...

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Here’s another slice from Tierney’s superb WSJ essay:

When AIDS spread (lây lan) among gay men and intravenous (tiêm tĩnh
mạch) drug users four decades ago, it became conventional wisdom (kiến thức thông thường) that the plague (đại dịch) would soon devastate (tàn phá) the rest of the American population (phần còn lại dân số Mỹ). In 1987, Oprah Winfrey opened her show by announcing, “Research studies now project that 1 in 5—listen to me, hard to believe—1 in 5 heterosexuals could be dead of AIDS in the next three years.” The prediction was outlandishly (kỳ quặc, kỳ dị) wrong, but she wasn’t wrong in attributing the scare (nỗi sợ hãi) to scientists.

One early alarmist (cảnh báo) was Anthony Fauci, who made national news in 1983 with an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association warning that AIDS could infect even children because of “the possibility that routine close contact, as within a family household, can spread the disease.” After criticism that he had inspired a wave of hysterical homophobia, Dr. Fauci (who in 1984 began his current job, as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), promptly pivoted (nhanh chóng xoay/quay ngoắt) 180 degrees, declaring less than two months after his piece appeared that it was “absolutely preposterous (hoàn toàn trái với lý lẽ thường; ngớ ngẩn, lố bịch)” to suggest AIDS could be spread by normal social contact. But other supposed experts went on warning erroneously that AIDS could spread widely via toilet seats, mosquito bites and kissing.

Robert Redfield, an Army physician who would later direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the Covid pandemic, claimed in 1985 that his research on soldiers showed AIDS would soon spread as rapidly among heterosexuals as among homosexuals. He and other scientists became much-quoted authorities for the imminent “heterosexual breakout,” which was proclaimed on the covers of Life in 1985 (“Now No One Is Safe from AIDS”) and the Atlantic in 1987 (“Heterosexuals and AIDS: The Second Stage of the Epidemic”).

In reality, researchers discovered early on that transmission through vaginal intercourse (giao hợp qua âm đạo) was rare, and that those who claimed to have been infected that way were typically concealing intravenous drug use or homosexual activity. One major study estimated the risk of contracting AIDS during intercourse with someone outside the known risk groups was 1 in 5 million. But the CDC nonetheless started a publicity campaign warning that everyone was in danger. It mailed brochures to more than 100 million households and aired dozens of public-service announcements, like a television ad with a man proclaiming, “If I can get AIDS, anyone can.”

Bài trước: Quá mới