It is time to recognise that the Aids scare was one of the most distorted, duplicitous and cynical public health panics of the past 30 years. Instead of being treated as a sexually transmitted disease that affected certain high-risk communities, and which should be vociferously tackled by the medical authorities, the "war against Aids" was turned into moral crusade.
Both Conservative and New Labour governments exploited the disease to create a new moral framework for society. Through baseless fearmongering, officials sought to police and regulate the behaviour of the public. No longer able to appeal to outdated Victorian ideals of chastity or restraint, the powers-that-be used the spectre of an Aids calamity to terrify us into behaving "responsibly" in sexual and social matters.
They were aided and abetted by the rump of the radical left. Gay rights campaigners, feminists and left-leaning health and social workers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, first with the Tories and later with Labour, in spreading the "glorious myth" of a possible future Aids pandemic. An unholy alliance of old-style, prudish conservatives and post-radical, lifestyle-obsessed leftists latched on to Aids as a disease that might provide them with a sense of moral purpose. |