User:CommunicationandRhetoric/Elizabeth Glaser

Article body
Life:

Elizabeth was born on November 11, 1947 in Hewlett Harbor, New York.1 Her parents were Max and Edith Meyer and she had one younger brother named Peter. Growing up her father worked at the General Cigar Company, while her mother was the director of urban renewal for low-income housing for the poor.2 When she reached college age, she decided to attend the University of Wisconsin- Madison, then Boston University getting her degree in early childhood education.1She then decided, in the early 1970’s, to move to west Hollywood and taught special education to children in need.3

Illness:

In 1981, very early in the AIDS epidemic, Glaser contracted HIV after receiving an HIV-contaminated blood transfusion while giving birth. Like other HIV-infected mothers at the time, Glaser unknowingly passed the virus to her infant daughter, Ariel, through breastfeeding. Her pregnancy has complications due to the bleeding in the 7th-8th month.4 The bleeding was so severe, the doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles where concerned she needed a hysterectomy.4 After 7 blood and 4 plasma transfusions Elizabeth and her new girl Ariel left after 7 days.4Ariel developed advanced AIDS at a time when the medical community knew very little about the disease, and there were no available treatment options. Members of the public reacted with fear, and Los Angeles preschools would not allow Glaser's then-4-year-old daughter to attend.[5]

Early in 1987, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally approved AZT as an effective drug to extend the lives of AIDS patients, but the approval only extended to adults. With their daughter's condition rapidly deteriorating, the Glasers fought to have her treated with AZT intravenously. However, the treatment came too late, and the child succumbed to the disease late in summer 1988.[3]

That year, Glaser created the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), to raise funds for pediatric HIV/AIDS research.[6][7]

Glaser entered the national spotlight as a speaker at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, where she criticized the federal government's under-funding of AIDS research and its lack of initiative in tackling the AIDS crisis.[8] This speech is listed as #79 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century listed by rank.[9]

On December 3, 1994, Elizabeth Glaser died at the age of 47, from complications of HIV/AIDS, at her home in Santa Monica.[6][2] Her son Jake, born in 1984, contracted HIV from his mother in utero, but has remained relatively healthy due to a mutation of the CCR5 gene that protects his white blood cells.[5] As of November 2021, he lives in Venice Beach with his girlfriend, Kerry Corridan, and is the owner of a plant-based food company called Cool Foods. He is also as an ambassador for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), for which he speaks to at-risk children around the world, and mentors HIV-positive youth in Africa.[5][6]