WEBVTT - Part Two: Ronald and Nancy Reagan: The Bastards Behind the AIDS Crisis 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:08.479 Mhm Hi everybody, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:10.760 again Behind the Bastards the Shore, where we tell you 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.440 everything you don't know about the very worst people in 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.800 all of history. Now, this is part two of our 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.959 episode on the Reagans and the AIDS crisis. Uh And 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:23.240 my guest with me as with on Tuesday is Andy 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.000 Beckerman and a couple of therapy Hey, everyone, how you doing? 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.120 How are you doing? And it's going on. I'm going 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.960 so we're recording this right after the first episode. I'm 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.480 gonna try to get my energy back. If you listen 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.000 to the first episode, you can if if you like, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.120 had a graph of my energy as we hear more 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.800 and more about just how like I knew. Look, it's 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.599 not like I didn't know that the Reagans were fucking awful, right, 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.440 I knew about Look read manufacturing consent. Chomsky and Herman 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:54.160 go all into like they're fucking Shenanigans in Central and 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.120 South America. We all know about the Iran Contra scandal. 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:03.160 We know about how they allowed crack into black communities 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.480 in the United States that eventually then destroyed those communities. 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.200 We know they're awful people, but to have like the 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.679 nitty gritty right in front of you. It just like 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.360 so the graph of my enthusiasm, and it goes from 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:20.600 like making jokes to just like these motherfucker's yeah. And 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.880 so it's it's like a downhill slope of our of 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.399 of the emotional journey we all went through that first episode. 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:28.520 But I'm gonna look, I'm gonna try to put out 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.000 the energy for this one. This episode has a hero. 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.319 So that's this episode has a hero. It does include 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.520 a hero. Was there a Wolverine comic where he fought 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.479 uh fought ray Well, he tried to fight the AIDS virus. 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.319 It did not work out well, but he was he 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:45.480 was attempting. It turns out, I don't know, he's got 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.680 superhero you know, he heals. I don't want to go 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:50.800 on this. This is not this is not a not 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.040 a healing factor and a very special X Men issue 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.640 about all this. I want Wolverine and like the was 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.280 the crossover where all that they their fall other enemies 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:05.480 like mcn fought Spider Man or something and Mandarin fought 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.760 siloc It's shocking to me that we're still able to 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:16.000 have cartoon villains called the Mandarin. Oh no, remarkable. No, 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.200 I believe he's dead now so that they could have 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:26.120 less racist characters. But wolverinverse Reagan, Hey, Marvel, get on that? Oh, 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.800 maybe make that the next X Men? When now that 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:30.880 the X Men are part of the Marvel universe, the 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.760 Marvel Cinematic universe. So did that happen? Yes? When when 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.399 Disney bought I'm behind on my Marvel news? Oh my, yeah, 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.480 you're right Disney did. Don't you read Deadline? Speaking of Fox, 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.680 Fox in the Henhouse. Actually this does segue nicely into 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.079 Fox because part of my due diligence for this podcast 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.960 was reading several defenses of the Reagan administration's reaction to 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:55.920 the AIDS crisis, And to be fair, I wanted to 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.320 find the best defenses I could for their behavior. I 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:02.600 found one such defense in a conservative journal called City Journal. 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.639 It's a quarterly publication. Uh, and it claims that Reagan 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.799 actually waged a quiet war on AIDS. That's the termam 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.840 it uses, where he didn't talk about it or approved 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.240 much additional funding. In fact, actually slashed most medical funding 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:20.239 for research anything. But he was it was a quiet war. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.720 It was quiet. It was so quiet you might not 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.560 have heard him say anything about it until nineteen people 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.520 had died. Um. The article argues that the quietness is 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.400 okay because his administration took action to reform FDA procedures 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.880 that slowed down the development of better drugs. That's what 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.880 it's saying. What's the source again, City Journal? If you're 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.200 a conservative person, it's like it's a it's a I mean, 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.640 I am sure assuming gets funding from a bunch of 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.640 different Like one of the articles that I found on 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.360 it was called the Democrats War on Science. So if 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.960 you are a conservative, City Journal is a relatively reputable 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.720 news source. If you're looking for right wing journals of 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.400 pun the tree, what democrats are all Jews with horns. Well, 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.400 it's not quite that bad. Um. I'm going to read 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:06.960 a quote from it, trying to make the claim that 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.720 f d A reformed during the Reagan administration helped against 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.000 the age crisis. As the gravity of the AIDS threat 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.200 became clear, the Reagan FDA began writing new rules that 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.640 spelled out when't significant parts of the old rules wouldn't 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.240 be fully rigorously enforced. By doing so, the agency accelerated 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.880 patient access to desperately needed drugs. Pharmaceutical companies quickly began 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:26.880 coming on board once new policies were in place that 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.479 would speed up the approval of drugs. In short order, 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.080 the firms delivered a slew of powerful new drugs using 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.600 the new tools for designing precisely targeted drugs that were 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.799 coming of age at the time. As a National Academy 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.760 of Sciences later noted, the extraordinarily fast development of drugs 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.000 that ended up in cocktails now used to control HIV 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.880 had a quote revolutionary effect on modern drug design. Part 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.000 of this is true, uh, the research that was done 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.160 in the meta, like the the fight in order to 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.200 make effective medicine for age was a revolutionary moment in 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.280 the development of pharmaceuticals. What's really debatable is how much 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.240 Reagan's reforms of the FDA had to do with any 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.440 of this. Um Now, you can make an argument that 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:04.479 some of those reforms might have sped up the process. 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:06.120 There are certainly things that were done that made it 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.120 easier for people to get medicines that weren't officially FDA approved, 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.360 like rock Hudson had to travel to France. Could make 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.479 that argument. A lot of people would laugh at you 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.440 for trying to but you could make that argument important 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.640 to be fair, um, but it is tough to make 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.919 a evidence base case that the Reagan administration improved the 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.720 FDA because they actually gutted it and slashed its funding. 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:27.760 And this is the fun part of being fair because 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:29.800 now that I have gone into this is again the 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.599 best argument I found about how the Reagan administration took action, 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.320 and it is you can back it up with strong 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.120 facts that changes that were made to FDA procedures during 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:43.039 the Reagan administration helped certain aspects of things that people suffering. 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.440 Like that's what It made it easier to get drugs 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.320 that you know hadn't been fully approved yet for a 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.680 disease that was working at a dang. That's a that's 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.839 a legitimate achievement of that era. Debatable as to whether 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:54.360 or not you want to put it on Reagan or someone, 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.480 and it's it's a thing that was done that helped 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.120 some people. Yeah, but they also introduced a bill that 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.839 if you've ever seen one's penis in a changing room 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.280 like at the gym, then you no longer have access 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.200 to healthcare. So well, here's what they actually did, because 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.600 it's really fucked up too, So that this is why 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:13.880 this is the fun part of being fair because once 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:15.880 you dig into these things, like I I read it 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:17.839 up and it's like, okay, yeah, there are some reforms 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.200 of the FDA that we're made that improved access to 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:25.200 certain drugs. Here's what else happened. Uh So, Reagan's priority. 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:26.680 One of the big things they did when they started 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.960 slashing funding the FDA to try to streamline it. Their 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.520 goal was to make the FDA a better quote partner 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.760 for the pharmaceutical industry. That did speed some things up, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.719 but it also got lots of people killed. Here's the 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.440 New York Times uh an interview with a doctor named 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.640 Sydney Wolf from the World Health Research Group. In October 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.839 nine one, a federal government advisory committee recommended against the 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.040 use of aspirint for chicken pox or flu because of 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.840 the increased risks risk of raise syndrome. But as a 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.120 result of pressure on the aspirin systry raise syndrome, who's ray. 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.320 It's a disease that causes like brain damage and can 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:02.880 kill kids. I think the taking aspirin as basically the 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.960 Federal government advisory committee was like the current medical advice 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.680 that the pharmaceutical industry really really supports is give your 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.160 kid aspirin if they have chicken poxes. I remember commercials 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.640 when I was a kid. Yeah, And so the pharmaceutical 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.360 industry obviously once anything, it gets people taking more aspirin um. 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.679 And but then there was evidence that this is actually 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:24.560 bad for kids and main fact have been killing them. 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.200 But quote as a result of pressure of the aspirin industry, 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.160 at proposal by the FDA from mandatory warning labels with 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.200 was withdrawn in the fall of Nino. As a result, 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.400 a hundred and fifty American children are dead and doesn't 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.040 have brain damage. So cutting back on f d a 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.600 red tape cuts both ways, and in this case it 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.840 cut a hundred and fifty kids to death. Anyway, that's 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.120 what fairness looks like. That's not a ton, it's only 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.559 and dozens of kids with brain damage not that bad, really, 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.240 less than two hundred total. Probably, if you're going to 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:56.960 make it easier for people to get experimental medicines, some 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.480 children are going to die from bad or from aspirin. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.920 That's just sure. Yeah, I mean, look in comparison with 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.440 how many people the Reagan administration murdered in Central and 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.360 South America, that's nothing. You know what. You know what. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:15.440 It's perspective, guys. It's perspective. It's perspective exactly. Um. And 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:17.960 now we have some perspective. I just thought we delve 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.800 into the other cases here, you know, you know, the 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.040 defenses of the administration. This is what I was talking about, 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:27.040 like part one where I was like, once the pharmaceutical 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.040 industry smelled a profit to be made, is that when 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.600 things started to pick up, like, oh, let's address this now, 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.400 I guess not not not in the period we're getting into. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.320 That's like they get better at it later on. But again, 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:40.920 most of the first medicines to treat AIDS did not 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:42.840 fucking work. And we're going to talk to them about 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.719 that in a little bit here. So um. According to 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.000 City Journal, another aspect of Ronald Reagan's so secret it 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.080 looked invisible war on AIDS was his appointment of See 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.120 Everett Coop as Surgeon General. Uh and Mr Coop is 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.320 a hero of this story, and he was appointed by 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.959 Ronald Reagan. But Ronald Reagan and his Surgeony General did 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.200 not exactly see I to eye and looked like the 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.760 colonel from KFC. Yeah, we're about to pull up his picture. 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:10.200 He looked amazing. He's he's I'm gonna go ahead and say, 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.280 probably the best aesthetic if any surgeon general we've ever had. 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.040 And he does look like I would trust his recommendation 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.520 on where by fried Chicken? If se Everett Coope was 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:20.960 to tell me, now, Son, this place has a damn 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.960 good bucket of fried bud here, I'd be like, you 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:26.440 look like the kind of man who knows where good 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.559 fried chicken is. My true Vada recipes got seven secret 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.959 herbs and spasses in it, the best, I mean, whatever, 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:40.280 the well, I guess I'll trust you. Kooby really getting 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.239 a lot of play out of the Reagan voice jokes. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.240 That's that's if I was. If I was a journalist, 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.000 Poop on Coop he used to say poop is sco 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.640 because it was funny. Look at this guy, Look at 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.480 this guy. That's what a fucking champion. That is truly 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.640 a courageous chin beard. And this picture will be on 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.800 Behind the Bastards dot com if you want to see. 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.240 I'm gonna go ahead and say the best chin beard 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.080 any surgeon general has ever had. I think that's probably fair. 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.480 Texas on who send us a message on Twitter if 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:14.440 you find a better surgeon general with a twin. If 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.280 you get a name a surgeon general that's ever Coop. 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.320 That's also fair. He is the only surgeon general whose 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.400 name I knew before I started on this podcast, So 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.840 that's a fair point. So Charles Everett Coop was called 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.040 chick by his friends in Dartmouth College because chickens living 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.800 comedy didn't wasn't really very advanced back then. What years 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:37.720 this This is like in the forties something like that, 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.240 and they get back into the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.120 Lenny Bruce was just a gleam and fatty Arbuckle's eye. 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.880 I don't know much about the evolution of comedy. Um, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.320 so yeah. Cooper was a born again Christian um In 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.920 nineteen seventy six, he published The Right to Live the 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.320 Right to Die, which argued against both abortion and euthanasia. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.560 The books sold a hundred thous copies, mostly to Christian 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.640 readers in its first year. Coop said, quote, what a scam? 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.640 How many? How how many grifters are there in like 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.160 the Christian community. He's not a grifter. I will say 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.120 this for Coop. He believes strongly everything, And I think 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.360 you might come around on this, but He's definitely not 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.200 you would think in any sort of reasonable corner right now, 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:22.760 but he believes this stuff. Look I love the beard, 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:28.000 love his aesthetic. All right, I'm already like there. Well see, 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.280 Ivert Coop wrote this book about you know how as 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.760 a physician and a Christian, he didn't believe abortion should 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.800 be legal or or euthanasian. In fact, he viewed them 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.640 as basically the same thing. That said He was also 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:40.920 had a brilliant career as a surgeon and a children's 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.560 hospital in Philadelphia, and he established the United states is 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.160 first neal natal unit in nineteen fifty six, work there 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.360 until nineteen So he was a guy with very strong, 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.680 very right wing religious conservative views. But he was also 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.320 a guy who clearly viewed his north star as taking 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.480 care of human beings and that was the thing that 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.800 was his main focus in life. And how did that 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.520 lash with his Christian beliefs. Well, we're about to get 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.160 into that, um so Coop. When he was appointed, many Democrats, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.480 including Henry Waxman, spoke out against Coop. Waxman said, quote, 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.679 Dr Coope frightens me. He does not have a public 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.400 health record. He's dogmatically denounced those who disagree with him, 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.520 and his intemperate views make me wonder about his and 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.920 the administration's judgment. Uh. Here's a quote from the book 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.800 after the Wrath of God, titled doctor Unqualified, The New 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.199 York Times editorial board latted Coop's work as a pediatric surgeon, 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.560 but underscored his lack of public health experience. Pass surge 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.120 in generals almost without exception. The article continued, have possessed experience, 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.920 specifically within the field of public health. That Coop had 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.120 shown no evidence of such experience, along with the fact 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.560 that he technically was older than the legally permitted age 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.880 to assume the position suggested that the Reagan administration's interest 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.640 in Coop had been had to be found elsewhere. Quote 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.840 that elsewhere maybe his anti abortion crusade. The Times concluded 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:52.960 with its hope that Congress would reject the appointment. For 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.520 not to do so would quote be an affront to 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.439 both the public health profession and the public. So again, 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:00.960 the start of this seems like Coop is the perfect 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.240 guy to not make a fussbile tens of thousands of 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.280 gay people die, right. It seems like the worst case 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.800 scenario for a surgeon general and an already conservative administration. 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.679 So he's like, who is the guy that's on the 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.800 Supreme Court that they thought was a conservative but then 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.560 it's actually more moderate Kennedy. Yeah yeah, yeah, So he's 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.959 like that, like that, They're like, this guy is gonna hate, 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.679 he's gonna hate all the right people was making this 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.600 Surgeon General. Um. But no, in fact, that's actually not 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.200 what happened. UH. Coop monitored CDC reports UH in their 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.000 sponsor public health services from the sidelines during the first 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:39.040 several years of the AIDS crisis. UH. Despite his his 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.680 job was essentially to a form inform the American people 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.240 about disease, about what was happening UH, and so he 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.680 wanted to make a statement earlier in the AIDS crisis 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.400 once he was conformed confirmed in nineteen eighty two, But 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.959 he says he was quote completely cut off from AIDS 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.640 by other people in the administration. He blames interdepartmental politics 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:57.880 from blocking him from any of the few conversations that 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.480 the Reagan administration had about as during the early nineteen eighties. 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.520 According to Coop, the reason for this was that his 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.320 involvement would have implicated the Reagan administration in basically caring 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.079 about gay people. Coop says that because AIDS was seen 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:13.000 as a gay disease, the President's advisors quote took the 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.360 stand they are only getting what they justly deserve. Now. 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.520 Assistant Secretary for Health Edward Brandt, Coope's boss, told him 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.520 that he was not allowed to speak publicly about AIDS 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.360 during the epidemic. In nineteen eighty three, when Brandt created 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.200 an executive task force on AIDS, Coop was not invited. 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:29.840 By nineteen eighty five, he'd started to get pissed about this. 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.080 Coop thought it was outrageous that thousands of people had 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.880 died and the Surgeon General had said nothing. Now there 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.800 were people agitating that Coop should be allowed to talk 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.880 about the AIDS crisis. They were conservative Christians who sent 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.120 anonymous telegrams to the Health and Human Services Secretary asking 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:46.920 that Coope be quote unmuzzled because they thought he was 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.440 going to speak out against protecting gay civil rights. They 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.800 expected him to endorse the kind of anti gay public 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.640 health measures like shutting down bathhouses that other Reagan administration 0:14:55.680 --> 0:15:00.160 officials endorsed. Finally, in nineteen eighty five, Coop was made 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.200 a member of the AIDS task Force. In that winter, 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.920 he was ordered to prepare a report on the AIDS epidemic. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.080 Coop knew from the start that he was was going 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.000 to be a hard to write an unbiased report about AIDS. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.320 He recalled in his autobiography quote, A large proportion of 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:17.640 the President's constituency was anti homosexual, anti drug abuse, anti promesecuity, 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.880 and anti sex education. These people would not respond well 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:22.520 to some of the things that have to be said 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:26.280 in a health report on AIDS. So Coop is realizes immediately, 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:27.960 if I'm going to address to AIDS, I have to 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:29.760 talk about condoms. I have to talk about the ways 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:31.920 in which gay people are having sex that makes it 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.200 more likely for this to spread. I have to talk 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.400 about sexual health to the entire American people, which is 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.560 basically the kryptonite of a Republican in the nineteen eighties, nineties. 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.040 It's not not not an easy cell today, Coop. I 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.960 gotta talk about condoms, about to talk about biscuits, you 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.560 gotta talk about mash taters and gravy. I gotta talk 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.120 about sex. And it's weird that this is the guy 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.920 who realizes I have instruct America about safe sex. But 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:04.960 this is the guy who realized that he had to 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.600 instruct America about safe sex. And that's exactly what he did. 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.600 That's the that maybe like the last time that a 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:18.280 Republican was overwhelmed by the feeling that this that this 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.080 is going to spiral out of control if we don't 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.760 address it. Yeah, and did something, and did something, and 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.880 did something, and Coop fucking did something. Um. On October 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:32.080 twenty two, ninety six, with more than sixteen thousand Americans 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.600 dead from AIDS, Surgeon General see Everett Coop released the 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:40.000 Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Here's a 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.040 description of it from After the Wrath of God. It 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.080 presented the best medical information available to date about HIV 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.520 and AIDS and sought to alleviate the fears of the 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.920 American people. The thirty six page report called Americans to 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.720 fight the epidemic as a unified group, rather than condemning 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.960 certain populations disproportionately affected by the disease, who some felt 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.080 deserved the illness US By saying this coup attempted to 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.840 move the rhetoric of the AIDS epidemic beyond its association 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.879 with homosexuality and drug use away from the idea that 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.400 it was the just desserts for a moral behavior. As 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.879 he noted, we're fighting a disease, not people. Could you 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:18.040 imagine at at any time in your life thinking of 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:24.240 population just deserves something for Yes, I mean, look, I 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:31.880 I think, uh, that sociopath deserve to be excommunicated from 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:36.120 civil society. I thought that's because they have proven themselves 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.600 to be destructive to the general social fabric. I think 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.000 the behavior Coup is fighting against is the behavior you 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.000 see on every side of the island different things. Right now, 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:46.919 among the left, there is a strong chunk of the 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.760 American left that believes but char al Assad is a 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.840 basically good guy. The gassings of his people are part 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.760 of a propaganda campaign. Sorry, who on the left believes 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.200 that he's a good guy talking to me about the 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.200 red Rose avatar on Twitter and talk about the gassing 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.240 of people, Like I've met some of these people, Like 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.600 there's like tankis in the United Kingdom, which, like the 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.800 term started because the Soviet Union essentially invaded like countries 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.040 and its dominion who are trying to like agitate for 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.560 more independence and civil rights outside of the USSR, and 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.840 so like these British socialists were like, no, it's good 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.560 that the USSR is crushing resistance with tanks and those people. 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.160 There's a strong strain of that in the left who 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.199 believes that Bashar al Assad, like the campaign against him 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.359 is part of like a NATO conspiracy to try to 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.199 ouse this guy to get serious oil. There's also the 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:36.919 same thing with Ukraine where people will write off the 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.840 Maidan revolution in Ukraine is they're all neo Nazis. Their 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.800 neo Nazis fighting against the Russians there, and the Ukrainian 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.720 government is a Nazi government because there are neo Nazis 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.800 in Ukraine. Like it's it is. It is very easy 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:50.600 for people on and it's the same thing you see 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.520 on the right with like, well, everybody in fucking Iran 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.040 is a religious extremist who hates America or whatever. Everybody 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.520 finds it easy when you're separated enough from a group 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.080 of people that have complex interests, some of which run 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.200 counted to your own. Anybody can be convinced to condemn 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.080 a group of people. It just depends on how far 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.439 away they are. But like I'm saying, let's condemn people 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.480 who don't have empathy for others. I think that would 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.600 be great. Um, but they will give them Gults culture, 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.280 will give them an island of their own. So if 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.399 you don't have empathy, look, I'm saying, we create a 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.760 test and then for people who to see whether they 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.840 have empathy or not. And then if you don't, then 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:31.480 we put you on a little island and you get 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.439 to live the rest of your life there. You can 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.439 do what you want. We call it Gults culture, and 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.800 they'll all be like, you know, they'll all they'll all 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.520 be erect from living in their iron rams. I thought 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:47.000 you're describing New Hampshire. But no guns. They don't get guns, 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.000 So it's not like they're not gonna be happy. They're 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.280 not gonna be happy with that. Or maybe maybe guns 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.280 with blanks. Yeah, that might do the trick. I mean 0:19:54.400 --> 0:20:01.119 like West World. But yeah, so Coope is doing the 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.960 right thing here. Uh that's hanging with Dr Coop. Hanging 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:09.600 with Dr Coop that surprisingly woke Dr Coop. Uh everything 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.040 else about his life. Yeah, there you go. So we're 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.679 gonna get into some more things Coop proposed, and we're 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.320 gonna get into the right wing backlash against his idea 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.440 of talking about the concept of condoms. Uh, and how 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:34.200 controversial that wound up being. But first, ads and we're back. 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.480 We're back, and we're talking about see Everett Coop. He's 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.200 just released his nineteen eighties six report on AIDS. Coop's 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:45.160 report opposed mandatory HIV testing and quarantines for those infected. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.080 He said that it wouldn't work. Both of those were ideas, 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.560 though that conservative politicians close to the Reagan administration had suggested. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:53.840