I was bruised and battered
I couldn’t tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
And didn’t know my own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin’ away
On the streets of Philadephia? … Philadelphia 1993 starring Denzel Washington & Tom Hanks & Jason Robards & Antonio Banderas & Joanne Woodward & Robert W Castle & Mary Steenburgen & Ann Dowd & Lisa Summerour & Charles Napier & Roberta Maxwell et al, director Jonathan Demme, Bruce Springstein’s song
Washington: What happened to your face?
Hanks: I have AIDS. ibid.
I’ve been fired ... I plan on bringing a wrongful termination suit. ibid. Hanks
So you were concealing your illness? ibid. Washington
This is the essence of discrimination ... ibid. Washington
What do you call a thousand lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. ibid. Hanks
AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals. Jerry Falwell
Marijuana leads to homosexuality ... and therefore to AIDS. Carlton Turner, White House Drug Czar 1986
Homosexuals ... want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers. Pat Robertson
In twenty years AIDS has become the worst medical catastrophe ever experienced by human kind. No-one knows how AIDS first appeared. The Origins of AIDS, 2003
First isolated in 1983. ibid.
In 1989 researchers identified it in one animal – the Chimpanzee. They named it SIV … But how did SIV become HIV and infect man? ibid.
The first evidence of AIDS emerged from central Africa more than 20 years before the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America. ibid.
Tom Curtis speculated that if during the 50s Polio vaccines were contaminated with the monkey virus SV40, something similar could have happened with AIDS … A mass Polio vaccination campaign in the Congo. ibid.
Timothy is the only person who can claim to have been cured ... from HIV … First HIV then blood cancer … A stem cell transplant from someone who is immune from HIV. Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston’s Casebook II, BBC 2017
It took Rock Hudson’s death to capture America’s attention. By that time AIDS had already killed 15,000 other Americans. Rock Hudson is the most famous name in a giant quilt – a memorial to tens of thousands of men, women and children who came along very different roads to the same fate. Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, 1989
Bobby Campbell was the sixteenth person in San Francisco to be diagnosed with this mysterious disease. A nurse himself, he understood the importance of getting out the warning about this new health danger. ibid.
1982: 1,285 Americans have died.
‘I came here today in the hope that my epitaph would not read that I died of red tape.’ ibid. Roger Lyon
More and more heterosexual men and woman and children were turning up with the symptoms. AIDS would soon become the leading cause of death for haemophiliacs. ibid.
The years of denial and neglect continued to take their toll. ibid.
It was just thirty years ago that the biggest public health campaign in British history shocked us all into accepting a new health epidemic. The Truth About HIV, BBC 2017
A virus that has infected 76 million people and killed 35 million of them. ibid.
Over 6,000 new [UK] infections ever year. ibid.
Britain in the early 80s: we didn’t talk about sex on television. And definitely not gay sex. But something’s about to transform this world. A frightening new disease with no cure that threatened us all. This is the untold story of how a small group of unlikely allies came together to fight fear, ignorance and prejudice. Together they launched a campaign that saved countless lives. And their struggled helped to transform Britain for good. Epidemic: When Britain Fought Aids, Channel 4 2017
More and more young men were falling ill. Their immune systems destroyed, gay men were turning to hospitals in growing numbers. ibid.
Gas Gays, Says Tory. ibid. newspaper headline
Over 10,000 people were now believed to be infected. ibid.
In February 1987 the biggest health campaign in British history hit our television screens. ibid.
The many people that I have lost in my family, the many people that I have nursed who have died of AIDS, could have been spared. Fire in the Blood, black woman, 2013
This is a story about statistics. The millions of people in poor countries who died needlessly of AIDS while giant pharmaceutical companies blocked access to the low-cost medicine which could have saved their lives. ibid.
Over $15,000 per patient per year. ibid.
The drugs they needed were made under patent by multinational pharmaceutical companies. ibid.
In 2000 Pfizer’s sales of Fluconazole were $1 billion a year with prices of up to $40 per tablet. ibid.
Few people in Washington willing to discuss the issue. ibid.
No industry has made more profit over the past several decades than brand-name pharmaceuticals. ibid.
Indian Company Offers Low-Cost AIDS Drugs. (AIDS & Pharmaceuticals) ibid. The New York Times
Philippe [Padieu] is lying: the doctor has just told him he is HIV positive … He is now carrying a potentially lethal weapon … He is out on the prowl having unprotected sex on purpose. Very Bad Men s4e4: Lethal Lover
The charge: Assault with a deadly weapon … He is sentenced to 45 years in prison. ibid.
‘He deliberately infected his gay lovers with HIV.’ The Man Who Used HIV as a Weapon, news, BBC 2019
In 2018 Daryll Rowe hit the headlines as the first person in the UK to be jailed for deliberately infecting men with HIV … These five men agreed to speed publicly for the first time on camera … They all had the same question: Why? ibid.
Daryll Rowe was using the texts to psychologically torment the men. ibid.
Before the police had the chance to question him, Daryll Rowe had already gone on the run to Brighton. The Scottish police struggled to trace him. ibid.
Sussex police arrested Daryll Rowe and questioned him under caution … He had been targeting hundreds of men nationwide using dating apps. ibid.
22 men had reported him to the police. ibid.
The charges were GBH, attempted GBH, and in Scotland culpable and reckless conduct. 24 men appeared in court to accuse him of abuse but the exact number he targeted is still unknown. ibid.
AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals. Jerry Falwell
This series features audio interviews with gay men recorded throughout the 1980s and ’90s and archived at the British Library. Aids: The Unheard Tapes I: Ignorance, BBC 2022
This is the story of how AIDS devastated the gay community. ibid.
At the start of ’80s gay men were still considered second-class citizens. You couldn’t legally have sex till you were 21, you could be fired from most jobs if you were out, and homophobia was rife. ibid.
Terry [Terrence Higgins] was one of the first deaths in this country from this mysterious American disease. ibid.
With the virus now seemingly spreading beyond the gay community, the British media started to take interest in this new disease. ibid.
The vitriol and bile that was expressed was breathtaking. ibid. gay man
40 years ago a mysterious disease appeared in Britain. As fear and stigma swept the nation pioneering researchers recorded the unfolding stories of those at the heart of the epidemic. Aids: The Unheard Tapes II: The Aids Generation
In Britain the average survival time for patients is just over twelve months. ibid. news
Aids: Don’t Die of Ignorance. ibid. government leaflet
By the 1990s we still knew that pretty much everybody who was being diagnosed with aids was going to die. Aids: The Unheard Tapes III: Lazarus, Professor Jane Anderson
With UK Aids cases on the rise, the government’s committee on the safety of medicines fast-tracked the use of Retrovir, AZT, in Britain. ibid. news
Then it became a question, How many drugs did you need as a combination to get people back to health again. ibid. Professor J Weber