Once researchers-and then the public-discovered that the nation’s blood supply has been tainted, panic spread. The only hospital in New York City that would admit GRID patients was the New York University Medical Center, but soon even NYU changed its policies so that patients could only be admitted to the emergency room, often receiving treatment, and dying, in hallways. The Reagan White House slashed its GRID budget in an attempt to cut government spending even as the mysterious disease spread wider. Making matters worse, the hurdles GRID patients faced from both the health care and political systems that were meant to protect them were considerable. Other opportunistic infections, like KS, had no agreed-upon treatment. Very few doctors realized they needed to provide preventative care for PCP, the strain of pneumonia that was most likely to kill you but could be prevented with a common drug called Bactrim. If you died without a will, your estranged family could claim your belongings and your partner would get nothing. You could be evicted from your apartment. Once KS lesions were visible on your face or hands, you would likely lose your job, because neither gay men nor GRID patients had any legal discrimination protections. In early 1982, no one knew for certain what caused GRID, or how, exactly, it was transmitted.
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