Quick backstory: So a relative of mine just shot down my attempts to bring reason to the current Ebola sensationalism on the news, by firing back and claiming this is the "same thing that [he] witnessed in the 1980s, with the outbreak of AIDS and officials telling everyone everything is fine".
Knowing my relative is often wrong about history (and I personally am rather outraged at his attempts to support news media fearmongering), I come to AskHistorians to provide a better viewpoint: What factors are assumed to have caused the outbreak of the HIV virus in the US?
Edit: Rules
The outbreak of HIV and AIDs in the US was largely due to how the government handled it and the Sexual Revolution that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The sexual revolution was the break away during the 1960s-1980s from the tradition of monogamous heterosexual relationships. This was a very large and quickly growing movement, particularly among young adults. During this time, young adults were having sex with a lot of people without as much regard to consequences beyond pregnancy.
The notion of "Pregnancy is the only draw back to sex" ended up setting the ground work for HIVs spread amongst the gay community, as there was no need for the use of condoms. As AIDS began taking lives in the early 80s, it was actually named the "Gay Related Immune Deficiency" due to it primarily affecting the gay community[1]. This reflected the public opinion that AIDS was largely a "Gay persons disease". This notion, influenced by the heavy homophobia of the time, caused many politicians to be weary of putting much funding behind treatment or containment of the illness. In Randy Shilts' book, "And the Band Played On", a very good history of AIDS in the US, he attests that Ronald Regan's administration intentionally dragged its feet on legislation about AIDS for fear of political backlash of supporting homosexuals. It wasn't until the middle of 1984 that the US Department of Health and Human Services declared they had found the cause for AIDS, 3 years after AIDS had began claiming lives in the US, and 15 years after AIDS illnesses were seen.
As far as the bonus question, that's both out of my realm of expertise and would violate the 20 year rule in /r/AskHistorians. I do not know the appropriate sub to redirect you to though. Please let me know if you find out, I'm pretty curious about it now!
[1] http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Books/lbb/x590.htm [2] And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
Edit because nouns are important
Hi OP. As /u/Khajor mentioned, your bonus question violates this subreddit's "20 year rule", so do kindly remove it. I'd recommend /r/AskSocialScience for that or both questions.