Equality California

CALIFORNIANS MARK 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF AIDS EPIDEMIC

By Suzanne Potter, California News Service

Photo: Creative Commons by NC-ND via Bing

June 14, 2021 (San Diego) --  Forty years ago this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first cases of what would become known as HIV/AIDS, and touch off an epidemic that took 32 million lives across the globe, and 700,000 in the United States.

Rick Chavez Zbur, outgoing executive director of Equality California and a candidate for Assembly District 50 in the Santa Monica area, said Americans mustn't forget the terrible toll of this disease.

"I lost literally scores of friends to the disease, and watched our government pretty much do nothing about it for over a decade," Zbur recounted. "And so, as I think about the 40th anniversary, I think we need to remember all the people that were lost."


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