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Bang, you’re dead!, New York City Department of Health, 1980s

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Black and white photograph of a white man and woman naked in bed kissing, the man is on top and obscures most of the woman.

Bang, you’re dead!, New York City Department of Health, 1980s

This campaign from the New York Department of Health stressed a direct connection between sex, AIDS, and death, providing little advice on how to have safer sex, beyond noting condoms as a somewhat successful backup choice to abstinence. With its message of instant death, the language used here also undermined the ongoing efforts of medical researchers to extend the life expectancy of those with HIV/AIDS.
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