In 1986, Reagan asked C. Everett Koop to draw up a report on the AIDS issue. Koop angered many evangelical conservatives, both in and out of the Reagan administration, by stressing the importance of sex education including condom usage in schools.[299] A year later, Reagan, who reportedly had not read the report,[300] gave his first speech on the epidemic when 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, and 20,849 had died of it.[301]
Scholars and AIDS activists have argued that the Reagan administration largely ignored the AIDS crisis.[302][303][304] Randy Shilts and Michael Bronski said that AIDS research was chronically underfunded during Reagan's administration, and Bronski added that requests for more funding by doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were routinely denied.[305][306] In a September 1985 press conference, after Hudson announced his AIDS diagnosis, Reagan called a government AIDS research program a "top priority", but also cited budgetary constraints.[307] Between the fiscal years of 1984 and 1989, federal spending on AIDS totaled $5.6 billion. The Reagan administration proposed $2.8 billion during this time period, but pressure from congressional Democrats resulted in the larger amount.