I remember the 1980’s very clearly and neither Nancy nor Ronald Reagan were in any sense advocates when it came to fighting the aids epidemic. My take is that Secretary Clinton simply has bad political instincts.
Hillary Clinton said the Reagans “started a national conversation” about HIV and AIDS in the 1980s during a Friday interview before former first lady Nancy Reagan’s funeral in Simi Valley, California.
“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s. And because of both President Reagan and Mrs. Reagan, in particular Mrs. Reagan, we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it,” Clinton said at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
Clinton also praised Reagan for her “very effective, low-key advocacy.”
“It penetrated the public conscience. And people began to say, ‘Hey we have to do something about this too,'” she said.
But many were quick to point out Reagan’s mixed legacy addressing the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Nancy Reagan reportedly turned down a request from her friend, the actor Rock Hudson, to be transferred to another hospital so he could receive necessary treatment for complications related to AIDS in 1985, according to BuzzFeed. Hudson died less than two months later.