There are two reasons for no AIDS vaccine: 1) it’s very hard to make a vaccine for a virus that targets the immune system and 2) it’s very hard to make a vaccine for a virus that is primarily associated with a group that one political party has a contingent that wants that group dead
More on 2: even though it's also transmitted via blood transfusions and other "innocent" ways, the main transmission risks are unprotected sex and shared needles when using drugs.
No way conservative, religious countries are putting up a grand effort to find a vaccine for promiscuous young people and drug users either, even if they aren't gay.
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.