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The <strong>Gateway</strong> <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />
country and despite the acknowledgement in 1985,<br />
the federal budget in 1986 saw an 11% reduction<br />
in AIDS spending from the level 1985. Though<br />
future funding increase, the deaths that could have<br />
been prevented by more immediate action cannot be<br />
ignored.<br />
When the subject of AIDS was raised in early<br />
White House press conferences, the response<br />
showed Washington wasn’t taking the issue seriously.<br />
On October 15 th , 1982 Lester Kinsolving asked<br />
Ronald Reagan’s Press Secretary Larry Speakes<br />
about AIDS, prompting a chorus of laughter from<br />
journalists at the conference. Speakes then asked if<br />
Kinsolving had the illness himself with the implication<br />
that he was gay and the press once again<br />
erupted with laughter. HIV would continue to be<br />
treated as a subject of humour with Speakes making<br />
jokes speculating on Kinsolving’s sexuality over the<br />
next few years, greeted each time by amusement<br />
from journalists. Even when Reagan acknowledged<br />
the AIDS crisis, a central tenet of his solution was<br />
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