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Popular Culture Review
awareness about a crisis that was reaching pandemic proportions. In May
of that year, the Reagan government relented, and the CDC mailed a
brochure entitled “Understanding AIDS” to every household in the
United States. The pamphlet covered such issues as “Can you get AIDS
from kissing or from an insect bite?” and “Do married people ever get
AIDS?” Though the brochure, of which 126 million copies were printed,
tried