01x01 - Ignorance

[bunniefuu]

Did you become a threat to everybody
infected with this disease?

Was going to get aid and die?

How safe are the British public
at the moment from an epidemic?

Churches that denounce the sin of Sodom
have a right to denounce it.

No, I personally wouldn't
want to work with somebody who has A*DS.

Heading for an A*DS expl*si*n.

An inalienable right to be g*y.

We're not a community in the country.

Untouched by the A*DS epidemic.

We're not remotely near having it
k*ll them.

The Princess of Wales has opened
Britain's first hospital ward for A*DS.

It frightened people.

And when people are scared, they attack
you are literally fighting for your life.

By 1991,
we're told that'll be a million cases.

The occasion?

When?

When were you diagnosed? I'm.

g*y. At the start of

the 80s, g*y men were still considered
second class citizens.

You couldn't
legally have sex until you were 21.

You could be fired from most jobs
if you were out and h*m* was rife.

I think it's disgusting,
to be quite frank with you.

I don't believe in this sort of thing.
I think it's wrong.

It's an abomination. Of man himself.

And I'm the devil.

The few g*y bars that existed
were hidden behind blacked out windows.

So when the largest g*y club in Europe
opened on the Charing Cross

station,
the dancefloor at heaven was packed.

I slowly

step by step.

Come on.

Heaven.

For somebody like me, a kid coming out.

And I'm getting into the scenes.

It was just amazing.

I was in awe.

And I was terrified to.

It was entrancing,

enticing and unapologetic.

Dance until the heat.

Rock your back to the native beat.

Step by step.

Heaven was the first time
we had a place to call our own.

It was exciting
and I loved every minute of it.

I got to be under a rock.

I had never seen so many g*y men
in one place at one time.

It didn't matter
how butch you wanted to be

or as mad
and dragged up and Campus Christmas,

you could be yourself.

But the reality was the moment

you left heaven, you could be arrested
for holding hands or kissing.

Convictions for gross indecency
had more than tripled in the 15 years

since h*m*
had been decriminalized,

which meant for most g*y men,
their formative years

were ones of subterfuge
and avoiding arrest.

Session two.

On Monday, the 30th of September.

I led a double life quite easily.

I had to lead a double life.

I was very aware
that I could end up in prison.

That's what I used to think of.

That could be one of the reasons
why I even went with women.

We were under a lot of pressure
to get married.

Yeah, it was that if you were married,
you were officially q*eer.

I tried to suppress,

the g*y part of my, I was quite together

enough to know that I couldn't suppress it
completely.

But that changed once your son was born.

Changed dramatically.

Much less frequent then.

Yeah, than I had been. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. A hell of a lot.

Did you have any any more children?

Oh, yeah.

Another three.

This country's incredibly anti-g*y.

Anyway.

Was incredibly conservative.

And it's how I choose the sex.

I think most people are inherently
anti-g*y.

Anyway.

It's just a fact of life.

That's,

most people don't know.

I push.

I've been sneaking out to go to g*y
clubs in g*y pubs without my pants.

When lives here.

As I was going in the front door,

my mum was actually just
coming out the front door

and just just handing me
this telly message and said,

this came for you this morning.

And it was from Stephen
saying that he was arriving in Edinburgh

Friday night, and if I could make it,
he'd see me for Ireland and Fire Island.

It's just everybody knows
what the round is.

It's a g*y club.

I just didn't know what to say, what to do

and just say what your dad's
got to say about this when it gets up.

I just kind of went for it.

It is probably going to k*ll me.

It was just like,
how the hell can I get out of here?

The b*mb hit.

Halfway down the hidden donut floor.

Just by the giant mirrors.

Terry Higgins
would be there at 10:00 at night.

First. Stephen,

I think I picked up on the Welsh
accent chatting coach.

You know, like
we were brothers from day one.

I just I look for love.

The way you danced was bizarre, dreadful.

He was like a human slinky.

I didn't think legs could do that.

He was mesmerizing.

And I just sort of stared and,
he came over.

I had just turned 18 when I met Terry,
and he was 36.

I love you, baby.

You love me, baby.

There was a magic
at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning on.

The flirtation,

the sex could be had.

Heaven was really sexually charged.

It was the playground.

And it was the Garden of Eden.

To have fun in the you.

For some, having sex
with as many men as possible

was seen as an act of liberation
and an act of defiance.

To be able to own your own sexuality
and to make the most of

it was one driving force.

Another is it was a huge amount of fun.

I had the most fabulous lifestyle.

I was a bully, swinging coke addict.

I used to go to all the trendy clubs
that were around at the time I became.

I haven't made everybody want to know me.

I had quite a lot of casual sex

and I did nickname sushi for my fist
f*cking antics.

Oh, I'd been taken out of heaven
with a champagne bottle

stuck up my a*s one night.

And that was quite embarrassing, actually,

because I had to take me out
with the on the stretcher.

Let's face down.

They did put the blanket over.

Thankfully.

So I think the attitude

generally amongst g*y men was,
you can do it. I,

I have these things I had to be enjoyed.

Why shouldn't we know?

I think that was a general attitude
that we were.

I read something,

I don't think that it was necessarily

a sort of huge desire
for sort of just sex.

Sex, sex.

But I do think that because of of the fact
that one was

marginalized, one was put down,
you were sort of criminalized.

Everything was negative
around one sexuality, in a way, sort of

the sort of g*y liberation that I sort of
latched on to what there was, you know,

that my sexual ity is positive,
it is good.

And I am going out to prove that.

And I will sort of, you know, have it
with whoever I want to have it

with, you know, so any person out there
who was excessive sexually

so you could say with 10
or 20 different blokes away

for that whole night,
clubbing all night and sex all night.

I think if be out in the wild at the time,

which at the time I was.

A scientist at the National Centers
for Disease Control and Atlanta

today released the results of a study
which shows that the lifestyle

of some male h*m* has triggered
an epidemic of a rare form of cancer.

The condition severely weakens
the body's ability to fight disease.

Researchers know a 413 people
who have contracted the condition

in the past year, one third have died
and none have been cured.

First, I got to hear about these reports

from a colleague
who'd been working in the States.

We are sitting in the coffee room
in the immunology lab.

I remember exactly where I was sitting
and he said, there is this new disease.

He then gave me a sort of potted account.

Many victims get a rare
form of cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma.

Others get an infection
known as pneumocystis pneumonia.

Reports from New York
were about this unusual pneumonia

called pneumocystis pneumonia,
which was known to be what was called

an opportunistic infection,
probably quite common in the environment,

but was completely harmless to humans
unless your immune system was damaged.

The only information we had

that seemed to characterize
the group of people affected

was that they were young g*y men,
young sexually active g*y men.

It was called g*y
related immune deficiency.

Around then, it was some sort of immune
deficiency about which we knew nothing.

When you have relatively few points

of data, theories will flourish.

One dominant hypothesis
was that it was recreational drugs

that were causing the immune defect.

People were thinking cocaine,
and there was certainly an interest

name on nitrate,
the poppers known to be commonly

used by g*y men and sex.

Other people felt that it was exposure
to semen from lots of different people.

Today, researchers here at the
National Centers for Disease Control,

so they had found several cases

where people who had been sex partners
both had the condition.

The scientists say this probably means
they are dealing

with some new,
deadly sexually transmitted disease.

This is

seen very much as something
that's happening in the United States.

But inevitably, one of the questions

was, will this happen here?

Oh, no one,

no one gets the price tag.

Refused to fly to New York,
hit the record shops.

Have a fabulous time. Well, who was there?

And then come back to London
and sell them to deejays.

And that would pay for his trip.

So he was adored by London deejays.

We were best friends

on the day

he came back to town and chased me

nuts.

About before I met Terry,
he was known as factory.

Then when I knew him,
he was kind of average weight,

but then he really was losing weight.

Didn't really know to flag that up to say,
hey, hang on, is that a problem?

Oh no.

Oh, God.

Yes, he was in heaven.

And he collapsed.

And so he was taken into hospital.

He had weight loss.

He had a fever.

He had, some what looked like
fungal infections in his mouth.

And he had, type of pneumonia.

Very rare.

So I went into a hospital,
but I wasn't allowed to see him.

Nobody was allowed him.

They had no idea what he had.

Nurses would go in

in full protective kits,
tell him that I was outside,

but that was it.

Not allowed to see him the first time.

I was reading the g*y

newspapers, and I came across this piece
about g*y men developing

these strange cancers in San Francisco,
New York.

I suggested Terry's physician.

Do you think it might be
this American disease?

And I was completely
dismissed. Of course.

Well, I remember the first

time I ever heard of it
was, must from me flat.

By the time
we were sitting around the table one day.

So having a meal or something.

Don't mention
something about this weird illness

that affected some g*y men in New York.

And it saw a cancer
that only affected g*y men.

And at the time, I said,
are you talking rubbish?

I can anything just to fight g*y men,
you know, it's ridiculous.

Concepts come

can't possibly be true.

You know.

I, I actually became very aware of A*DS
because I had all the,

the g*y papers.

I first remember there was a little piece
mentioning the, so-called g*y plague.

I first thought was that it
was, a manufactured disease,

that it was,
something that accidentally got out

or something
that was deliberately put about.

I had

gone into the ward and I'd looked around
that I couldn't see it.

Couldn't see him.

There was one bed to the right
where there was some,

the curtains around it and some other
sort of real activity behind it.

And you know what that was about?

And I had some, ice lollies
and some Lucozade.

The turret asked me to bring along,
so I went up to a nurse.

She sort of looked at me like that.

Why don't you sort of wait outside in this

this room just off the ward.

A little later, they came in and,

told me he died.

Excuse me.

And, they'd been trying
to resuscitate him,

when I'd walked into the ward.

Paid for the funeral out of my student
grant.

And, got the ashes.

And I went down to Cornwall, where we,

spent some time
not that long before, and, scattered them

in, the village
where my family's got some roots.

I was 19.

So I asked

Terry's doctors
what he had actually died from,

and they wouldn't tell me
because I wasn't family.

So they said, well,
we're writing it up in a medical journal,

and you'll be able to work out
what he died from by reading that

this dismissiveness.

And it wasn't simply
because I wasn't family

is because that Terry was g*y
and I was g*y.

I had to look up the journal
in the library

and find out when my father died of.

Terry was one of the first deaths
in this country

from this mysterious American disease.

The funeral of Terry Higgins
took place here

at Golders
Green Crematorium in north London.

The cause of death was toxoplasmosis,
a brain infection

which most people contain,
which in his case proved fatal.

Six weeks ago, doctors writing
in the British Medical Journal, revealed

that the reason Higgins had been unable
to fight off that infection was that he

contracted A*DS.

The Acquired

Immune Deficiency
Syndrome A*DS for short, is a mystery.

The only certainty is that
it kills not directly, but by so weakening

the body's defenses that any outside
infection can prove fatal.

The centers for Disease Control

coined the term acquired immune deficiency
syndrome.

We knew about immune deficiencies.

You could be born
with immune deficiencies,

but these people were immune deficient
for no reason.

This was quite unknown to us.

It's this underlying immune

deficiency
that others have called the g*y plague.

Why here and why
now is the underlying syndrome infectious?

How far will it spread?

Can anything be done to stop it?

Can A*DS be cured?

With small numbers

of this mystery disease starting to appear
in the UK, a group of young doctors

embarked on a study of g*y men
coming into their sexual health clinic.

Well, the study

we designed was basically to take,

a group of g*y men,

look at a wide range of behavioral
and immunological

microbiological factors and sexual
behavior, use of poppers and so on.

And we're going to follow this
group of people over time.

People wanted to volunteer.

I think they felt part of a community
at risk.

They felt they wanted to do something
as a community about this.

I started off with very healthy
young g*y men, just over 400 of them.

I found enlarged lymph nodes,

so glands in their neck and armpits
and groin.

This was completely unexpected.

Not normal.

You shouldn't have big and large glands
all over your body.

It was completely shocking.

Here were hundreds of young g*y men

with persistently swollen
lymph glands and no reason for it.

We wondered, for
example, whether having the lymph nodes

might be some sort of protective
immune response,

the lymph nodes,
or where the immune system lives.

And so were these people
who were going to have a better outcome.

So those are the sorts of questions
we were asking.

And then we followed these people
over time.

And at the present
rate of progress in America,

there are ten times
as many men with A*DS every two years,

unless there's some dramatic change,
that exponential growth

will continue.

I was wondering,
how what was your reaction

to the early reports as they came over
from the states of people getting sick?

How did you respond to that?

I think I had a response
that was typical of a lot of g*y men.

As soon
as I got a cold, I thought of guys.

I was shattered, you know, by

sort of this disease that g*y men got.

I just thought every time
I was really tired, and it was partly

because I was just, like, working so hard
and that that was just tired.

And I just hope, you know, I make amends.

I think it's it took a while
to sort of rationalize things.

And I think that's

I think a lot of people went through
that sort

of situation.

In the months

following Terry's death,
the whispers of this new disease

were getting louder
within the g*y community.

I was looking around for somebody else
to follow, and if you the only person

stood up looking around and it must be,
you know, I just go heavy situation,

we realized
that something needs to be done.

We need to set up services first because
the government wasn't going to do it.

We pushed without.

The British g*y community is no longer
just watching on the sidelines.

Martin Butler and his friends had seen
the death of Terrence Higgins.

Now they're raising money
to promote research and health education

for those most at risk.

At that time, the only option
was to set up a charity, basically.

So that's what we decided to do.

And that was that was the I became
founded, it began just purely by accident.

It just seemed the right thing to do.

I'm getting calls
almost daily from people who have, run up

against the syndrome and don't really know
which way to turn to make sense.

Move out.

Hello London go switchboard,
as well as the Terrence Higgins

Trust, the terrified community
turned to a volunteer run LGBT helpline

based above a shop in north London.

When you don't,

we were the only 24 hour
l*sbian and g*y switchboard on the planet.

If you needed information about dating,
what clubs were open and things about sex,

it was a lifeline
to every g*y person in London and beyond.

The g*y switch on when A*DS happened,

the fact that we had effectively created
g*y social services

in Britain, like g*y switchboard,
like Terrence Higgins Trust,

we were able to react
faster than other people.

We didn't know what we were grappling with
and there was no real source

of information.
It was a really difficult place to be.

We didn't even know it was g*y men.

We thought it might be all g*y people
at that stage.

Hello, London g*y switchboard.
Can I help you?

You think you've got A*DS? Why is that?

Nobody knew what was causing it to.

Was it a cancer?

Was it sexually spread?

We were hearing all these tales
from the States.

We thought you might be able
to catch it off.

Surfaces from kissing, from teacups.

If you used poppers,
you were probably susceptible.

And having a or lots of strange advice.

Don't sleep with anybody from America.

And so gradually
this sense of dread, began to grow.

So the sort of first

big scare stories in the press over here
have,

the sort of terrible notices
that no one knew anything about,

and you could catch it from a teacup
and sitting on the toilet

behind the scenes, bit
more and more substance to,

the stories, I realized
we were in for a pretty hard time.

Also, this is dangerous.

That's, there was something
that was going to change everyone's lives.

Fine.

Anyone who was Sky
was going to change their lives.

In my cohort,

there was just a general concern
that there was something going on

amongst g*y men.

There was harmful.

And then throughout 83,

that group started slowly to get sick.

The 400 men in the doctor's research
cohort were presenting with conditions

not normally found in healthy young men,
uncommon pneumonias brain abscesses

and the very visible Kaposi's sarcoma,
a rare type of skin cancer.

And then we just got increasing
numbers of deaths throughout that year.

And that was terrifying.

We realized

we were
just touching the tip of the iceberg.

But these were young men who were dying

horrible deaths,
and this wasn't going to go away.

We still learning enough about it.

We have reached a milestone.

Nothing's gonna save us from the big drop.

That dreaded new disease
A*DS has now reached Britain.

This has been confirmed
by the official watchdog,

the National Communicable Disease
Surveillance Center in London.

Within a year of the first reports,
we saw that this was affecting injecting

drug users, heroin addicts,
Asians, hemophiliacs and also

in some women and children who don't fall
into any of these categories.

Some of this pattern

was very familiar
as the pattern of a bloodborne

or sexually transmitted infection,
like the hepatitis

viruses, for example,
a new anxiety has now appeared.

American doctors
researching into the disease suspect

that it may be transmittable
by blood used in transfusions,

and also by medical supplies
made from blood.

With the virus seemingly
now spreading beyond the g*y community,

the British media started to take interest
in this new disease.

What about h*m*?
Excuse me? Raising it with you.

There does seem to be a strong
statistical connection

between the h*m* community
and A*DS in America.

Despite provocative headlines
alerting the nation to the danger of A*DS,

doctors and activists
were still waiting for action to be taken

by the Department of Health.

At that time, what I was hearing
was mounting anxiety, a sense

that government level this wasn't taking
particularly seriously at the moment.

We've seen very few cases
indeed of A*DS 14 to date.

And that obviously is a small number.

But from the way in which

this disease has behaved in America,
we have to be concerned that we may see

a much larger number

in America.

A*DS has reached epidemic proportions.

So far, more than 1400 cases of A*DS
have been diagnosed.

Right.

I know a lot of.

The gravity of the situation was beginning
to dawn on the g*y community,

realizing they needed to move quickly
to stop this disease taking hold.

g*y switchboard organized
the first A*DS conference

in the UK called socks on the.

The switchboard helped bring over
somebody from g*y

Men's Health Crisis in New York
to come and talk

about what they were experiencing there
and what we might need to do next.

Somebody got up and said,
I might be a crazy communist q*eer, but

are you sure that this is not

part of a US government pull off

to get rid of h*m*?

And I remember Mel Rosen of the g*y
Men's Health

Crisis, Muriel Terman, said, it's
not that crazy.

We don't know.

We will all truly, this was the first time
doctors and activists had come together

in the same room,

and despite the weight of evidence
in front of them, both communities

refused to accept they were powerless
against this terrifying disease.

There hadn't been a history of patients
being active in the decisions

that were made about a shared disease,
and, of course, the g*y community,

you know, we're the stuffy ones.

There was no way we were going
to be passive about our health.

So it was almost like a summons.

If we didn't mount a response,
very few other people were going to do so.

You. That's when it hit me.

Things became a lot clearer that we were
dealing with an infectious agent

that was k*lling g*y people
in ever increasing numbers,

and there was no reason
why I wasn't going to come here,

even though people said in such few cases
it's an American disease.

And I'm sitting there feeling.

And so I've been hitting the gut.

I'm deeply shocked.

What a terrible thing
is about to descend on the g*y community,

on g*y men in particular, become it's
not only physically

tabloids, politically,
socially, culturally.

I mean men's implications.

Deeply shocked feeling about it.

Tony was a bit of a firebrand.

He was a fighter,

and he was exactly what he needed.

Following the meeting at Conway
Hall, Tony Whitehead

became the first chair of the newly
formed Terrence Higgins Trust.

I'm convinced that certainly
because it's a disease

which is sexually spread and sexual
spread, mainly among h*m*

at the moment, that there has been
a complete lack of concern.

In the

absence of a government
led public health campaign, the trust

took it on themselves to educate g*y men
about a radical new concept

safe sex.

Reaching

the g*y community above
was seen as our first volunteer

and a challenging enough one in itself.

It's fair to say that it was blood borne
or sexually transmitted.

The major issue was to change
sexual behavior away

from penetrative intercourse.

You can't change behavior by saying,
don't do this, don't do that doesn't last.

We need a we need a sustained behavior
change to avoid A*DS.

That was very clear. There.

And therefore you had to be able
to promote positive alternatives.

And that's where safer sex really
the adult there

all the concepts came together
for safer sex was about

the newly
responsible g*y community is promoting

something called safe sex, notably
the use of condoms.

The Safer Sex campaign,
promoted by the Terrence Higgins

Trust, acknowledges
that all people aren't always monogamous.

And to what extent

did you change your own sexual practice
during that time?

I carried on having sex on it
because I felt perfectly all right,

you know, just saying.

Well, that hadn't affected me at.

I say everyone fell that.

It was an uphill struggle
getting people to use condoms.

And one of the joys of being g*y was you
didn't have to worry about contraception.

I mean, there was no need for g*y men
ever to use condoms.

They were for pregnancy prevention.

So there was a lot of sexual education
that needed to be done.

How do I use this properly? Right.

I put it on,
I don't have an erection anymore. Right.

What do I do?

Relax. Don't do it.

That's when you want to go. To where?

Relax, doctor. When?

When you want to come with very few ways
of getting their message out.

The Terrence Higgins
Trust had to flier the g*y bars and clubs.

And this one is new.

That's pretty plain speaking.

It's very much kind of.

We started with leaflets,
which now when I look at them,

were far too wordy,
but were pioneering in,

the language being used.

It's quite eye catching.

So eye catching people have nicked
a lot of

you want to relax,
you know, it's no good talking anatomy.

We use the word c*ck
because that's what happens.

That's who you talking to?

Not anti-sex, but pro safe sex.

How can I do this safely?

How can I protect myself and my partners?

The Terrence Higgins Trust,
named after the first Briton to die from

A*DS, is a small charity.

What I knew about A*DS could be written
on the back of a stand, a very small stab.

So it was a very sharp learning
curve for me.

Nick was very helpful.

Things like cottages and glory Hole
was I mean, lot of my l*sbian friends

they were ribbing was one
do not come inside your partner.

Two if you really want to f*ck,
use a condom and a water based fluke.

I went to one particular,
famous g*y bar in north London,

and I was physically thrown out with
the leaflets

were thrown out after me, and,
I knew you were bad for business.

Don't come here again
because you're k*lling our trade.

Avoid activities which expose
you and your partner to blood.

Safer sex is a positive commitment
to health and a positive commitment to us.

I remember
standing outside clubs dressed as a numb,

giving out

indulgences with condoms and lube.

Leaflets and information go forth

and sin safely,

As a consequence of increased

condom use and also seismic changes
in sexual behavior

amongst g*y men,
the numbers of g*y men with gonorrhea

dropped like a stone, syphilis
dropped like a stone.

That is a direct result of g*y switchboard

and of Terrence Higgins Trust
and the g*y press.

That change of behavior saved

hundreds of thousands.

Do you think that,

there is too much emphasis
on f*cking in terms of g*y sex?

Oh, yeah, I do, yeah, I, well, I wouldn't
say too much because I was very into that

and loved it, but I think eventually
we're all, we've all got to change.

I mean, they do tell you to dry
kiss body wrapping.

Well, I think that's caressing.
And we all do that.

Anyway, I've had situations

where w*nk*ng with
someone can be very erotic.

I mean, if

if the figures are going to double
each year, as they say they're going to,

I think we've all got to get used to safe
or healthy sex.

We really have.

We got to educate ourselves.

I used to go to heaven all the time.

When I see the t*ts team formation
service, they're about using condoms.

And even though I knew people were dying,

I really didn't know.

While safer sex campaigns
may have prevented

new transmissions of the virus in the g*y
community,

the true scale of those already
affected was beginning to show.

I knew every day, every club operator,
every promoter in London

and it was that community
that went down first.

It was a whole series of whispered
conversations in social circles.

It was,

you see, seen so-and-so

in no time at all.

Everywhere I look, there were cop hockey

sarcoma scars appearing,

people hiding in the caps not to be seen.

The first wave of HIV was incredibly
virulent.

People might have had it for several years
beforehand.

The speed with which people became sick

and their whole lives changed.

I meant, of course it was

this going to happen to me.

Oh well, first got a bad deal

and I see for this
I was serving quite a lot of sex,

but I went down with, which I thought was
so bad, viral illness.

My client had a fever or something.

So hot. And,

Came out in a body rash.

I lost a lot of. I just,

lost power steering in a way.

I had a suspicion from the symptoms
that had some odd trend.

I probably had the virus.

A lot of things tied in
with what I'd write about it.

I began to feel very peculiar.

It's something that I can't explain.

But other people with A*DS recognize it's,

Feeling where you give up

without being physically ill.

It's a mental thing.

You feel extreme tiredness.

I didn't relate it to any sort of disease
or even an illness.

I just thought maybe
I was having too many late nights.

I began to feel a lot worse.

So off I went to the clinic

at Hammersmith and I saw a lovely doctor.

And then he held my hand

and he said,

you're quite seriously ill.

And I said, I feel seriously ill.

He said, no, I really mean seriously ill.

He said, well, I'll be perfectly blunt.

You've probably got a rare

type of pneumonia called pneumocystis,
and this is the pneumonia

that's connected with the A*DS problem.

And, I don't even remember coming home

here, to be honest,
I must have been in a state of shock.

Well, we could just be on

the brink of a medical breakthrough
in the fight against A*DS.

A team at the American National Cancer
Institute made the breakthrough.

LED by Robert Gallo.

They isolated a virus called human
leukemia T-cell virus

type three at the Pasteur Institute
in Paris.

Researchers have isolated another virus
that could be the cause of A*DS,

but many researchers think the two viruses
will turn out to be the same.

The discovery
of the virus meant scientists

and pharmaceutical companies
were able to develop a test,

which would show
if you had antibodies to the virus,

whether you were displaying
symptoms of A*DS or not.

We could look at our cohort

of people we'd collected
before we knew about HIV,

and then find out who was positive
and who was negative.

We went through, into a cohort

of 400 people.

All of them were antibody positive
for HIV.

Once we had a test, everyone could see
you were dealing with thousands

and thousands of people already
infected with this disease.

We still didn't know

how many of them were going to go
and develop A*DS.

That really took some time
to realize that everybody

infected with this disease
was going to get A*DS and die,

unless we could find
some way of of altering that.

When, when were you

diagnosed then you said that you were
you discovered

that you were HIV positive in the sense
the since the HIV test became available.

Really?

I went to one of the talks
and was very friendly

with and said, well,
I think I've got to try this test.

So I was very healthy. So I shot

and just wondering what they said to you
and when you were diagnosed.

I don't remember a bit of that,
but to be honest, I don't remember.

They didn't know.

So we were all in the dark.

I mean, there wasn't
any of that counseling

because they didn't know
what they were counseling.

They didn't know in some ways, sort of,
you know,

as a g*y man, one knew more than they did

because sort of, you know,
you were reading the g*y press.

It had a very profound effect on my self
image.

I mean, actually, you'd think
that I was some terribly infected

being that I actually began,
I felt guilty for getting this illness

the only I hadn't gone to New York
and had a wonderful time,

or I hadn't, spoke to so many people
or something, I wouldn't have got it.

And I suddenly realized
that I really regret that at all.

I mean, I had a good time.

You still have. I'm having a good time.

So what was your reaction
when they told you

that you did have the virus?

Well, initially us

saying the first reaction was, oh, well,
that's that you're going to die in a year.

You know,
you're not going to be around much longer.

I felt quite close to death

when I first read about illness.

Quite upsetting in response.

And so not knowing what the hell was going
on, because you'd read one scene,

one died, and you read something
completely contradictory

the next time.

The problem was that the test was treated

like a death sentence by a lot of people.

There were a lot of people
who became very anti testing.

I actually buried my head in the sand
thinking,

I don't want to know,
because there is no treatment.

What is the point?

The risks of having a test

for many of us outweighed

the importance of knowing or not,

whether we had HIV.

And the doctor

came on his rounds
and he came in and said, oh, Mr.

Campbell, if, you had an HIV test
the last time you were here,

and I said,
yeah, so, the results were positive.

And it's kind of

you said you realize what that means,
and I, no, not really.

And he said it means them that you could.

That you could possibly know
that you're going to die.

You could possibly k*ll anybody
if you have sex with them

and you can't get a life insurance
or mortgage.

And I just kind of sat there

completely stunned.

When they were newly diagnosed,

they were so, so frightened.

And a lot of them were very lonely

and isolated
because they didn't dare come out

as having HIV,
never mind coming out as a g*y man.

Can I help you slow down? Yes.

I think they were almost all very young,


You know, kids, children

because they were kids.

I mean, like,

you know, some of these people
really were making a mark in the world.

And. Yeah.

And they snatched away to

me, laughing to you,

you would see people

in a pub and you said two weeks later,

oh, did you hear about Joe?

Oh, he's dead.

And that happened again.

Let me tell you.

And again,

he was he was.

Nothing could prepare me for people
being emaciated with it.

Their flesh had gone.

They were pretty much, you know, the bone.

And it was such a shock.

Did I dream

you dreamed about me and,

when it's a 22 year old

dying in bed and pretty much organ failure

to have to throw a party, it's the heart

the keeps pumping.

It's a 22 year old heart.

Was expecting to live for a hundred more.

It went on for days and days.

Me all the time was absolutely suffused

with a sense of hopelessness

and trying to push back a relentless tide.

But there was no other option.

That was all you could do.

So, what happened in the hospital?

I was kept waiting
in, in the casualty department.

No one would come near me.

I was very conscious of that
because I asked for a glass of water,

and they shouted to me over the curtain.

She came out and said, yes,
what do you want?

I'm extremely thirsty.

Is it possible
if I could have a glass of water?

She said,
I'll have to check with your doctor.

And I said,

oh sh*t, I'm gonna check with a doctor,
see if I can have a glass of water.

So she came back and she said yes.

She said, that's okay.

And, she came into the curtain
with a mask on and a rubber glove.

And they took me up to the

ward and,
and there was big signs on the door

barrier nursing,
all staff and visitors are to put gowns,

masks
and gloves on before entering this ward.

Were you the only person in the world?

And there was all these slogans
that said biohazard?

They were everywhere.

I stayed there for two weeks and never saw

anybody without.

They had a mask and a gown and rubber
gloves on and.

This morning, some of the popular press
have been indulging in their latest

pastime headlines like this Danger Man,
an A*DS alert and talk about g*y plague.

Tell me there may be several
other A*DS sufferers.

Babies of A*DS,
the latest victims of 1985.

With the numbers of cases rising,
the mass media latched on to A*DS

and barely a week went by
without a headline about the threat

of this mysterious virus A*DS panic
about A*DS, and of course, the media.

The red tops flooded the scene as a plague

afflicted on mankind by an outrage
called its Old Testament, isn't it?

Nearly all the original victims
are h*m* and had multiple partners.

They had nothing in their lives
to be proud of.

They were an absolute walking culture
medium for all sorts of venereal diseases.

Vitriol and bile that was expressed
was just breathtaking to me.

Up and down.

You said if my boy got A*DS,
I would sh**t, you know?

Do you really mean that?

Well, by 1991, we're told
there will be a million cases of A*DS.

We could lose the whole of our society
by about 2025.

Rock Hudson does have A*DS.

I personally suffered six attacks where
A*DS was specifically cited by my silence.

In one particular case, the assailant

lunging at me with a knife,
screaming out things like,

all you q*eers should be k*lled
before you k*ll us with A*DS.

It's the ideal opportunity for anyone.

So h*m*

to smash around the head with it,

so it's absolutely
no surprise to them to gloat over

sort of people dying.

I feel angry

that g*y people are stigmatized.

The media is committing crimes every day.

You know, the editors every day
are telling lies.

Just makes me so angry.

I'm in

the middle of a w*r zone,
and quite frankly,

I'm certain
the newspapers have been horrendous.

They've not only used the tragedy
as a sort of like rod

to beat g*y men West,
but they've also put out misinformation.

Lies created a climate of bigotry

and h*m*.

London g*y switchboard.

Here they've noticed an alarming increase
in concern about A*DS,

for which they blame the Fleet Street
tabloids.

They scared me very well.

That the point where I won't even drink
coffee out of a cup with anybody.

But I watch toilet for cops
and things like that.

Haven't you really?

Somebody had the other night to work with

fighting for all of you.

You need to cut off

the outbursts of real phobia.

Fear was shocking.

People with A*DS
having sh*t thrown at their front doors

at school, a boy with hemophilia
assumed to have HIV.

Parents demanded school be shot
and these really damaged lives.

And of course, not just those individuals,
but the messages

then sent out to everyone else.

This media frenzy positioned g*y

men as the single source
of this k*ller disease.

Amidst rising rates of infection in the
heterosexual and hemophiliac population,

it heaped further blame on an already
stigmatized community, blaming the victim

kind of linked up with growing up
knowing you're different,

not having any reference points to people

who look like you feel inside, and

dealing with

the shame that other people put on us.

We are othered.

We are made to feel different

and that triggers shame.

The damage that that did to people's minds

and the little life they had left

is criminal.

Are you saying
the government is not doing enough for it?

I don't think it's done
enough in the past. Nearly enough.

I mean, we had two years advance
warning of this disease.

It began in America in 1979.

What we need is an investment of money
at basic level

in those centers, which are seeing
the majority of these A*DS patients,

and it's not happening.

I think I realized in the beginning
that honesty

would give a lot of people around me
the strength that they might require.

My daughters in particular.

The Higgins trust

impress on you
the seriousness of making a will out.

That's
the first thing they talk with you about.

So I sat down and wrote all my close

friends little letters, you know,

and I did find that very distressing,

extremely distressing.

It was a bit like writing a suicide note.

I phoned everybody up
and we laughed about it,

and I said,
look, I'm not going to be morbid, but,

if you don't tell me
what you would really like in my will,

then I'm going to leave you

something really horrible
and you're going to really hate me for it.

And we laughed about it.

And maybe I shouldn't
have asked them what they wanted, but

I wanted to
because I wanted them to talk about it.

So what do you want

from life now is to carry on living
as long as possible.

Yeah, it's gave me hell.

I just mean as fun as possible.

I can,

I feel it doesn't bother me at home.

I know I'm quiet.

Resigned to death.

Doesn't bother me at all.

The thought of dying,

So my attitude to life is to make it die.

To die and, that's all you can do,
I think.

Anyway, life is so crazy.

It's a life

full of quality
that no one sure diagnosed.

You,

Majority of people lead a life.

Which,

I just wish I'd let years ago.

I didn't realize

I spent so much time having sex.

It's very time consuming.

Probably at the moment,

statistically, there is no hope.

Medically, of course, there is no longer.

You keep yourself the lives of better
chance of getting a cure.

Found to

you kind of despair when you keep reading.

There will not be a cure for five years.
You think, what?

Can I hang on in there for five years?

Yeah, I think I can.

Mark.

Fitzgerald.

Hold on

to you. So, Robert.

So many of us wanted to demonstrate

our pain and our loss.

Because to memorialize
those who had already died,

Tommy.

And no, those in the future
who would not be forgotten

either.

Believe in mourning with us.

Well,

the first candlelight vigils for Trafalgar
Square didn't take a lot of organizing.

You know, bring a candle,
show up at 7:00 in.

Of course, as night fell,
it was very moving to see

all these candles
being held up and flickering in the wind.

And you could feel it.

You could feel the
the love in the world from that crowd.

My brother
never understand why you have to leave.

But the answers you see when

being in the heart of political

and religious life of the country,

you claiming it for ourselves
that we have a right to be,

that this was not going to be forgotten.

This was not going to be ignored
right away.

I think we understood that

what we were saying at
that time was going to get bigger.

We were panicked, frightened
we would lose our community

at vast numbers of g*y
men would die outside

to us.

So I knew what needed to change
was that it needed

to become bigger than just us
responding to it.

The government needed to actually wake up
and do something

for my brother, brother Chris.

I remember there was a procession
that went down to heaven

afterwards
and everyone carried that the candle.

And when they got the Hatton, the that's,
you know, took it all on the dance floor.

And I was happy that

crying and crying about me,

I hadn't became like that sacred place

somehow, you know, almost church
like some strange for a nightclub.

But it was like
it became very solemn in heaven, actually.

You shot.

I kept getting chest infections,
and I went to my daughter

and he was saying, like,
I stop sucking men's penises.

I would get a sore throat.

That is now a danger
which has become a threat to us all.



And I remember an older came home
said, are you g*y?

And I went, yeah, why?

He went, get in the closet.

They're coming for us.

Discover
more about the reality of living with HIV

A*DS through untold personal stories
captured via research and video.

Go to the link below and follow the
link to the Open University.

I watch you're going to want to

come look for you

as I zoom, you know, on time for us

to end the night.

A reminder to

try to cover the racial.