AIDS has not been a known disease since the 1800s. In fact, it wasn't even known as AIDS until a couple of years after its discovery in the 1980s. It used to be called gay-related immunodeficiency disease, or GRID (“Natural History of HIV/AIDS”). And because it was only discovered in the 1980s, people feared the disease and still fear it today. Thirty years have passed and many are still not adequately informed about AIDS (Hawkins 16). Fear, stigmatization and discrimination of people with AIDS and the disease in general have many underlying factors. People have feared and still fear AIDS today because of their misunderstanding of how AIDS spreads, their aversion to homosexuality, and their pre-existing prejudices against many of the groups affected by AIDS. In the early 1980s, AIDS was first discovered, but doctors and scientists at the time didn't know how it was spreading. Numerous cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and Kaposi syndrome have been diagnosed in immunodeficient gay men, meaning they couldn't fight off a simple infection. The disease then quickly spread to drug addicts and hemophiliacs (“Natural History of HIV/AIDS”). Many possible causes were considered, but none of them were correct. The sexually transmitted disease HIV was soon discovered to be the cause of AIDS, but even then people were wrong about how AIDS really spread. In 1985 a doctor at Elmhurst General Hospital in New York believed that AIDS could be spread through a few drops of urine on the toilet seat (Rimer). Part of the public believed that the virus “spread through the air, through food or through casual contact at home, work or school” (Rimer). The misunderstanding and not knowing how AIDS spread... at the heart of the paper... Parker, Richard, Peter Aggleton, Kathy Attawell, Julie Pulerwitz and Lisanne Brown. “HIV/AIDS-Related Stigma and Discrimination: A Conceptual Framework and Agenda for Action.” USAID.GOV. Horizons program. Network. November 2, 2011. Parmet, Wendy E. “Stigma, Hysteria, and HIV.” Hastings Center Report 38.5 (2008): 57. Premier academic research. Network. 24 October 2011. .Rimer, Sara. "FEAR OF AIDS GROWS AMONG HETEROSEXUALS - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking news, world news and multimedia. The New York Times Company, August 30, 1985. Web. October 23. 2011. .