Who is Ryan White?
Ryan White was an American teenager who died from AIDS in 1990. He was one of the first public faces with AIDS in the United States, and he helped to change perceptions about HIV/AIDS; despite his illness, White was an outspoken advocate on HIV and AIDS issues until his death, speaking everywhere from Congress to national television. Along with people like Rock Hudson, Magic Johnson, and Freddie Mercury, Ryan White humanized HIV/AIDS for Americans, and illustrated the importance of addressing the AIDS epidemic. White was born in 1971, and at three days of age, he was diagnosed with hemophilia. For much of his young life, he was in and out of the hospital, and he was also obliged to receive treatments with blood products. One of the blood products used to treat Ryan White was tainted with HIV, a common problem before HIV/AIDS was formally recognized and a test was developed to screen blood. By 1984, White had full-blown AIDS, discovered during a surgical procedure to treat the complicat
