The blog was written by Emily Kulpa, a summer intern from Rutgers University.

Despite being decades apart, the tuberculosis outbreak in the early 1900s and the AIDS crisis in the 80s-90s share a striking similarity, namely with how people responded to them. Both outbreaks were defined by a large response from the public, but also by the fact that they were ignored by state and local governments. One can celebrate the work that was done for these epidemics while also recognizing that more could have been done if not for public biases or political corruption.