Reagan did nothing to battle AIDS, and never once spoke publicly about it, until after Rock Hudson's death in 1985. Even as late as 1988 the epidemic was treated by Reagan as a threat only to gays, blacks and hispanics, and not a serious threat to his kind of Americans. It got so bad that Surgeon General Everett C Coop had to do a covert end run around Reagan to notify Americans of the mortal danger and how to protect themselves against it by mailing a letter to every single American household. Had he acted like a President during his first term and funded research as soon as the threat was known, perhaps half of the 659,000 Americans who have died of AIDS-related illnesses in the USA might still be alive and uninfected. We might have found a cure by now.
He did fund research as soon as the threat was known. Rock Hudson was a dear friend of his. He personally felt the effect and loss. But nice story anyway. Reagan said, "It's been one of the top priorities with us, and over the last 4 years, and including what we have in the budget for '86, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that we have provided for research on AIDS in addition to what I'm sure other medical groups are doing." He also remarked, "Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer." Annual AIDS related funding was $8 million in 1983, 2 years after he took office, and was $1.6 billion in 1988, an increase of over 1000 percent.[88][89][90]
