AIDS Awareness Day was Thursday. There was the annual conference attended by luminaries in the field from around the world. Newspapers covered the event on their front pages. Television news shows also gave it great play.

I remember the early days of the pandemic. We had no idea what was causing it. We had no idea how it was spread. And we certainly had no idea how to cure it once you had it–or even how to slow it down. I remember thinking at the time, “Is this the beginning of the next Black Death? We need to figure this thing out–and we need to do it in a hurry.”

People I knew died from AIDS. The school paper I was advising at the time interviewed a teenager who was in the hospital with it. One of my best friends had a brother who discovered he was HIV positive.

Today, there are about 1.2 million cases of HIV/AIDS in the US. Eighty percent of those people have been diagnosed. The other 20 percent still do not know they have it.

Last year, the US government alone spent $2.9 billion on AIDS research. Additional money was raised privately.

There is reason to believe that as many as three million people in the US have NETs as I write this. Significantly less than one percent of them know they have it. We have few reliable tests for the disease. We do not know what causes it–and unless we catch it very early, no idea how to cure it.

Last year, we spent less than $2.9 million on NET research total–including all federal and private monies.

On NET Awareness Day on November 10, no major newspaper or major broadcast medium  in the US ran a single story on it.

I don’t want to stop spending money on AIDS research. I don’t want to stop spending money on AIDS/HIV education programs. And I don’t want the media to stop covering the problem. Those things are too important.

But NET research, education and awareness programs are just as important.

If they were funded and covered that way maybe I would not be decorating the house for the holidays alone this year.