Dr. Margaret Craven discusses HIV/AIDS from the perspective of a front-line clinician. AIDS is unprecedented in both the speed with which it spread across the globe and in the mobilization of efforts to control it. It is a disease of modernity. Along with the relative ease and velocity of modern transportation methods, other background conditions include Western medicine, with hypodermic needles and bloodbanking, intravenous drug use, and the development and concentration of gay culture. In the U.S., early public health attempts at understanding and combating the virus were hindered by right-wing domestic political and religious forces. Successful containment of epidemics cannot be achieved under the spell of hypocrisy and politicization; rather, medicine and education must be evidence-based and practical.