When Babylon fell.....

  Let me ask you a question.  What was the one period in time that makes you shake your head in wonder and or disgust?   For me, it was the uncertain time that centered around the early years of the AIDS epidemic.  One of the best films of the year, Dallas Buyers Club, perfectly defines this particular era.  This was a time when the ground opened up and people were suddenly swallowed whole.  And as Babylon fell away,  the most over rated of our presidents, Ronald Regan, did absolutely nothing.  When Regan finally DID awaken from his slumber and when he finally did acknowledge the epidemic before him, 25,000 lives had already been lost.  The nation needed a leader during that time, we needed a strong figure to calm the fears of a nation that was threatening to divide against itself.  Instead, Regan's apathy allowed panic and fear and almost chaos to fester into a state of narrow minded ignorance that would ultimately prove fatal as the years wore on and the disease known as AIDS preyed on not only homosexuals but heterosexual men and women and babies and intravenous drug users.  I can still hear the words of a fellow I once knew.  "I thought it was a fags disease" he said, shrugging indifferently as his life quickly ticked away.  My friend, god rest his soul, became the symbol of blind indifference; an indifference that would cost not only his life but the lives of millions more.  There were preachers spewing hate and there were profit seekers and bureaucrats and scientist fighting the Regan era red tape in a futile attempt to stop the old butchers bill from growing ever larger.

   There's a moment in Dallas Buyers Club where a judge stands before Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaghey) and declares sympathy for his plight; IE, the fact that he's dying from AIDS and is being denied the right to access the drugs needed to prolong his life.  This same judge then spits out a litany of terms such as "regulations" "studies" "protocols" and "side effects."  People like Ron Woodruff were fighting to survive and we basically told to fill out paperwork and express their feelings while a time bomb was set to go off inside their bodies.  In sickness there was profit and god bless the FDA for living up to this mantra as they partnered with doctors and various hospitals to give their patients sugar pills and a treatment known as AZT that proved ineffective in the treatment of AIDS.  According to the FDA, thinking outside the box to save one's life just wasn't attractive to the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies who interests they ultimately protected.