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Nancy Reagan Turned Down Rock Hudson's Dying Plea For AIDS Treatment

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Nancy Reagan turned down a desperate plea for medical help from actor Rock Hudson as he was dying from AIDS, Buzzfeed has reported.

The then-deputy press secretary for the Reagan administration Mark Weinberg has said that he was contacted by Hudson’s publicist Dale Olson in July, 1985.

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After collapsing in Paris, the screen legend had been trying to access experimental drug treatment for AIDS being used in France, at the Percy Military Hospital.

A doctor there, Dominique Dormont, had secretly treated Hudson for the disease before his diagnosis had gone public, news that – along with the revelation that Hudson was gay – would shake Hollywood.

However, he had been turned down a transfer to the hospital as he was not French.

Olson sent a pleading telegram to the Reagans – Hudson had been friends with the President since his days as an actor – hoping they could help.

“Commanding general of Percy Hospital has turned down Rock Hudson as a patient because he is not French,” it read.

“Doctor Dormant in Paris believes a request from the White House or a high American official would change his mind.”

“I knew the Reagans knew Rock Hudson, obviously from their years in Hollywood, and for that reason I decided to call her,” said Weinberg.

However, the First Lady said they would not help Hudson.

“The view was, ‘Well, we’re so sorry’,” said Weinberg.

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“And she was, they were both very sorry for Rock’s condition and felt for him and all the people. But it just wasn’t something that the White House felt that they could do something different for him than they would do for anybody else.

“She did not feel this was something the White House should get into and agreed to my suggestion that we refer the writer to the U.S. Embassy, Paris.”

Hudson died just nine weeks later.

Weinberg has insisted, however, that the decision was ‘nothing to do with AIDS or AIDS policy’ of the Reagan government, which was slated at the time for its inaction over fighting the disease, and had cut $10 million from its spending on the disease that same year.

“In fairness - and I’m not saying this to you, just to people - remember where the country was in the 80s,” Weinberg added.

“We talk about it now: ‘How could he?’ Nobody knew, nobody understood. It was all brand new back then.”

LGBT activist Peter Staley told Buzzfeed that the decision was ‘strange’.

“I’m sure if it had been Bob Hope in that hospital with some rare, incurable cancer, Air Force One would have been dispatched to help save him,” he said.

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“There’s no getting around the fact that they left Rock Hudson out to dry. As soon as he had that frightening homosexual disease, he became as unwanted and ignored as the rest of us.”

After flying back to the US, Hudson died on October 2, 1985, little over a year after being diagnosed with HIV.

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Image credits: Rex Features