Whatever happened to AIDS?

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has caught millions of people in its path worldwide during the first 13 years since it surfaced; half a million Americans have been diagnosed with AIDS, and hundreds of thousands more are in earlier stages of HIV disease. Yet the sense of urgency one would expect should attend such awful numbers is strangely absent, prompting the bitter query "Whatever happened to AIDS?" This paper discusses the present status of progress with respect to the epidemic and explores some of the reasons that might partially explain both the inherent difficulties of research and the inappropriate public sense of quiescence. It then puts forward some suggested areas of research endeavor and/or public policy that could re-energize the flagging public response to this massive health disaster.