Kramer: AIDS Was Allowed to Happen

"AIDS was allowed to happen," writes Larry Kramer in an article for CNN that lists "10 Realities About AIDS" the activist says he has learned the hard way. "[AIDS] is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning."

In his intro, Kramer writes, "I want this article to break your heart. But it deals with a subject that has had a tough time of it in the break-everyone's-heart department. I'll bet that a number of you will be more angry at me than sympathetic by the time you finish reading it. If indeed you finish reading it.

"From its very beginning, most people have not wanted to know the truths about AIDS. This is an indisputable fact that continues until this very minute. I have been on the front lines since Day 1, so I know what I'm talking about.

"Too many people hate the people that AIDS most affects, gay people and people of color," Kramer says. "I do not mean dislike, or feel uncomfortable with. I mean hate. Downright hate. Down and dirty hate."

He also calls AIDS "a plague that is not going to go away. It is only going to get worse."