To Your Health

It's that time of the month again! I've rummaged through my old cartoons from 40, 30, 20, and 10 years ago for today's Graphical History Tour.

UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., April 26, 1984

This 1984 cartoon starring Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Margaret Heckler, was probably the first one I drew of the AIDS crisis (not this one).

We still didn't know what was causing the terrible new disease that was apparently targeting otherwise healthy young gay men, Haitians, and patients who had received blood transfusions. Reagan had made no public comment about it, but sent out Heckler when there appeared to be some progress in identifying what would come to be known as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

Reagan was more occupied deflecting criticism of administration foreign policy by blaming that meddlesome Congress for reverses in the Middle East and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Secy. Heckler would later say that she had difficulty getting AIDS addressed in cabinet meetings during her tenure (1983-1985) and never discussed it with the President.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., April 18, 1994

Next stop: 1994, and I hope that leading off with that AIDS cartoon today properly set up the next one.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., March 31, 1994

Cutting down the nation's smoking habit was a major emphasis of President Bill Clinton's Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, who served in that position over the objection of tobacco-state politicians from September of 1993 to the last day of 1994.

You young whippersnappers may be shocked to know that thirty years ago, the air in offices, bars and restaurants — even, in some locales, hospital waiting rooms — was often thick with tobacco smoke. (Or perhaps you may not. I hear that vaping is getting to be as common among Gen Z as cigarettes used to be among Gen Emphysema.)

I vividly recall meeting up for Saturday morning breakfasts with my now husband at a local diner where the "non-smoking area" consisted of the booths along the walls. The tables in the center of the room were the "smoking area," meaning that every non-smoking table was right next to a smoking table. 

Which was okay. If you liked your breakfast tasting like it was cooked on an old ashtray.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, April 30, 2004

I found one cartoon from April of 2004 that fits more or less into today's theme of health and wellness. Hospital systems in southeast Wisconsin were (and still are) eagerly expanding into new communities, and the editorial board of the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee has often had something to say about their efforts.

In this case, there was friction between Aurora Hospitals and those of ProHealth Care as the former sought to open a facility in the city of Oconomowoc (which I won't tell you how to pronounce because that's a word we use to spot folks who ain't from around these parts) just west of Milwaukee County. ProHealth fended off Aurora's advances, more or less; Aurora instead built their new medical center in the adjacent village of Summit.

Pronounced SUM-mit.

for Q Syndicate, April 3, 2014

Leaping ten years ahead and half a world away, yet coming topically full circle, this last cartoon laments the woeful persecution in African countries of their LGBTQ+ citizens. In this case, Uganda and Nigeria.

Uganda had just passed a law that not only criminalized being gay or lesbian oneself, but also failing to report other LGBTQ+ persons to the authorities. My original blog post for this cartoon quoted a report in The Week explaining the law's effect on controlling HIV/AIDS in Africa:

"Uganda was once an AIDS success story, but that is now changing. The portion of the population that identifies as gay is tiny, but there are many more men in Uganda — and across Africa — who have sex with other men but do not identify as gay or bisexual. These men, many of them married, are now less likely to be honest with health-care providers and less likely to get the education, free condoms, and HIV testing they need. They are also more likely to contract the virus and spread it to their female and male partners. In Senegal, after several HIV prevention workers were imprisoned in 2008, the number of men seeking sexual health services in that area dropped sharply."

Likewise in Nigeria, as reported by Mother Jones, whose sources included John Adeniyi of the International Center for Advocacy on Rights to Health, an HIV intervention organization based in Abuja:

"Eight organizations that provide HIV treatment and prevention services in northern Nigeria have cut back on HIV outreach, training, and education programs, according to Dorothy Aken'Ova, executive director of Nigeria's International Center for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights (INCRESE). 'People thought, "You know what? I don't want to be in prison because I'm providing treatment for these gay homosexual people,"' Adeniyi says. He expects more organizations will drop their programs in the coming months."

Uganda last year enacted an even more draconian "Death to Gays" law, literally mandating the death penalty for "aggravated" homosexuality. The law was upheld by the Ugandan Supreme Court earlier this month.

Nigerian military authorities continue mass arrests of LGBTQ+ citizens — 70 in one day last October. 

Just the same, it might be unfair to single out Uganda and Nigeria for criticism. Homosexual relations are illegal in 30+ of Africa's 54 countries.

And in Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Brunei, Comoros, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Jamaica, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and, for all practical purposes, Russia and Belorus.