THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RYAN WHITE

Reexamining the life and times of an “innocent” teenager.

Ryan White (1971-1990) was born with hemophilia and diagnosed with AIDS in 1984, during a time when those with the disease were vilified and shunned. He was in one of the so-called 4Hs, or “risk groups”: homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and Haitians. Only those groups could contract HIV/AIDS—that was the uneducated perception of the time. We now know differently, of course, and it is partly because of people like White that the stigma associated with AIDS has dissipated. In his thoughtful overview, historian Renfro rightly notes that White’s case received attention due to White’s status as “young, white, midwestern, heterosexual, middle-class, photogenic, ‘normal,’ and ‘innocent,’ media narratives [that] helped undermine reigning ideas of HIV/AIDS as solely a ‘gay plague’ or an illness for ‘junkies.’” Ryan’s death led to a star-studded funeral, an all-too-common political/cultural rift between both sides of the aisle, and the implementation of the Ryan White CARE Act, which was vehemently opposed by Republican Senator Jesse Helms, who “downplayed the severity and scale of the HIV/AIDS crisis.” Decades later, Renfro argues, some things have not changed. In particular, he cites former Vice President Mike Pence, previously the governor of Indiana, where White was born: “Pence’s sordid public health record reveals the continuities between HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 and illustrates both the continued relevance and the limits of the Ryan White story.”

A compact and knowledgeable study of the “poster boy” of the AIDS epidemic.