[djaque]

I had no idea that he died of AIDS and that was in the 90s. It's terrifying how recent it was that he would have received public backlash for contracting a disease during a surgery.

[foldr]

I feel like you're leaving homophobia out of the equation. Asimov was ashamed, and there would have been a backlash, because society associated AIDS with gay men. If people had really believed that he'd got it through surgery, there wouldn't have been a bad reaction.

[neltnerb]

To be fair, 1990 is 30 years ago.

I remember how much of a hero Magic Johnson was presented as being for simply publicly admitting he got it during surgery and advocating.

It was brave for a multi-millionaire celebrity to admit publicly that he got it by accident. If he'd have been gay too my gosh... what scandal...

Terrifying indeed.