Oh absolutely. Ending a needle exchange program in the 21st century gave Indiana a massive aids problem. Currently due to different cultural perceptions straight people are more at risk of hiv than gay people in some places.
And also yeah, what actually made the US government take aids seriously was a young boy getting it from a blood transfusion. He was young enough that it was obvious he wasn’t having gay sex or doing drugs.
There’s an idea with HIV much like HPV that you got it due to life choices and so you deserve it. But it’s important to understand here that AIDS is an absolutely fucking horrific death and nobody deserves it. It’s a death where you’re so weak you may die from a common cold. And for the worst of it in the 80s, it was alone with doctors afraid to touch you as holy men screamed how you deserved it.