ABSTRACT
Few young people knew they were HIV infected or even at risk because AIDS was thought to be a problem only for gay men in their 30s-40s or for new born babies. We got our own building because we promised the president of the hospital that if he would assign it to us, I could get the Surgeon General of the United States to come for ribboncutting ceremony. At the time, many hospital administrators were reluctant to advertise the fact that they were treating people with AIDS, because irrational fear of contagion was pervasive. Blood and blood products used for transfusions were only beginning to be screened, so there was a degree of nervousness based on incomplete understanding about how and why the epidemic was expanding. We were getting ready for what we thought would be the next wave of the HIV epidemic-adolescents.
