Opinion Piece Compares Terrorist Attacks to AIDS Epidemic
The devastation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is reminiscent of the "equal surgical precision" in which HIV "slipped through America's proud medical-industrial defenses" 20 years ago, composer John Corigliano writes in a New York Times opinion piece. However, he adds that "a virus is not a jihad: one is a force of nature, the other an act of will. But our responses to each vary less than you might think." Corigliano writes that the nation's efforts to pinpoint those behind the terrorist attacks are similar to its initial response to the AIDS epidemic. "As in the early stages of AIDS, we are still searching to define an enemy so that we can understand and defeat it," he states. Corigliano concludes that as he watched the attacks unfold on Sept. 11, he thought, "We are all AIDS sufferers now" (Corigliano, New York Times, 9/23).
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