Lee Daniels Made A Fortune Off AIDS
How did I not know this? The director Lee Daniels, whose movie “The Butler” was a hit but who is not headed for an Oscar nom this time round, gave an interview in which he discusses his tough childhood and being bullied for being gay and for being black at an all-white school. I was feeling compassion for him, even though that feeling was challenged when I got to the part of the interview in which he mentions that he made a fortune off of AIDS — as an entrepreneur selling nurses for home care to AIDS patients. There was a need and he filled it. Wish I could say that fact doesn’t stick in my craw, but it does. Misfortune often brings fortune: how many billions have been made during time of war? And AIDS in the early days in this country was most definitely a time of war.
