Diagnosis: AIDS

[tone and countdown] [MUSIC] Diagnosis Aids is made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. [sound of bowling alley] Whoa! I think it's been a scare [unintelligible] for most of the community. In talking to people, they say that th-, you know, it has changed their lifestyle. They are a little more cautious. They're doing more things like rolling and swimming and softball and not doing so much bar cruising anymore. The best way to put an end to herpes and to AIDS is one man for one woman for one lifetime, mainly a traditional family. Very often we are blamed for the disease. I think that's a real serious mistake. You don't blame the children for the polio they've got. Why are these people getting this disease? Secondarily, how is it transmitted? What can we do to prevent it? What can we do to treat it once it develops? All of those are unanswered questions. Every time a new mark shows up on my body or every time I cough once too many times,

it's, you know, I read the list of symptoms again and wonder if this is a new development. I seem to be at a precipice and it's just a matter of taking a wrong step and going over the edge. Atlanta, Georgia. Doctors at the Center for Disease Control sift through volumes of research data as they close in on the causes of the mysterious and deadly epidemic known as AIDS. Memphis, Tennessee. A popular television evangelist preaches that the new epidemic is a natural, inevitable result of sin. Incurable and so far 100% fatal because of promiscuous homosexuality. San Antonio, Texas. Paramedics

worried about being infected by AIDS, take what they believe are reasonable precautions. They're fearful because so little is known about how the disease is transmitted. Washington, DC. 20,000 gay men marched through the streets to demand an increase in government spending to fight the epidemic. So far over 800 people have died from the disease and 70% of the victims have been homosexual or bisexual men. Have you heard of AIDS? Do you know what it is? Yes, some kind of disease. AIDS, acquired immuniz- Acquired immune deficiency. Isn't that it? Syndrome. Do you know what AIDS stands for? I kind of, yeah. It's a disease. That's what happens when a congressman fools around with his his assistants. He gets congressional AIDS. Legislative AIDS. Have you heard of AIDS?

Sure. What do you know about it? It kills. But all I know, they don't know what causes it and what the cure is. What exactly do Americans know about AIDS? To find out, we commissioned the Gallup organization to poll public opinion across the country. Nearly everyone surveyed had heard or read about AIDS and a sizable minority expressed concern that they or someone they know might get the disease. Worryed at all about eating in restaurants, going to public swimming pools, that kind of thing? Yeah, I think that's in the back of your mind. You know, people who are real scared? Um, yes, I have some friends that are gay and they're very, very paranoid. They say that it could be in blood and, you know, could be passed through germs. So it has been on my mind. I read recently in the paper that some children had it in hospitals. So it's not only homosexuals, it's others also. Gallup found nearly all Americans are aware that AIDS may be transmitted through sexual intercourse or in rare cases through blood transfusions. But many people inaccurately think

that they can catch AIDS by eating in a restaurant, swimming in a public pool, using a public restroom, or working with someone who has the disease. Doctors say these are misconceptions. Here are the facts about acquired immune deficiency syndrome. To date, more than 2,200 cases have been reported. The disease has almost exclusively effected gay men, Haitians, intravenous drug users, and hemophiliacs. AIDS is defined as an unexplained inability to fight off infection. People with AIDS are vulnerable to every passing germ, and they typically contract one or more fatal diseases, often including a rare form of cancer called Kaposi's Sarcoma. AIDS is probably caused by a virus, transmitted through blood or sexual intercourse. But efforts to identify the specific agent have so far failed. There is currently no treatment for AIDS. Most victims die within three years.

Seattle, Washington. For the first time in North America, the world's leading experts on sexually transmitted diseases meet to share the latest research data. The conference brings together hundreds of doctors and researchers from hospitals and laboratories across the country. Scientists leading the campaign against AIDS. From the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Dr. James Curran, head of the AIDS Task Force that tracks the spread of the disease nationwide. From the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who directs the research on how AIDS effects the body's immune system. Also from the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Richard Krause, director of research on all infectious diseases. And from Seattle, Dr. Hunter Handsfield, AIDS researcher and director of Seattle Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic. At the present time, once you get the disease, at least when you meet the formal case definition,

you have almost received a death sentence. From what we know now, once you get the underlying immune defect, you do not recover from it, which is a very, very important thing. There's not a suggestion that most of the people who have become ill with AIDS have previously been in a debilitated condition. And very many, very healthy people who have subsequently developed AIDS and died. And so one of the things that we must do in our search for the changes and the abnormalities that the immune system in AIDS is to find that magic bullet, like an insulin is for diabetes, that will allow these patients to go on and live a normal life and to ward off the infections that cause their death. My condition has not improved, but neither has it worsened. 90% of the people who had AIDS three years ago are dead today. I'm still alive two and a half years later, and I'm alive and kicking honey. Bobby Campbell calls himself the AIDS poster boy.

He has become a spokesman for others who have the disease, speaking out against the social ostracism that adds to their suffering. I've been very fortunate. My roommate's supportive of me, my family, who lives in Tacoma, have been very supportive of me. The job pays the disability insurance and so forth, but I do know other people who have been fired from their jobs or have been forced out by harassment. People who have been evicted from their homes, people whose lovers have left them abruptly, people whose doctors have treated them like dirt, people whose families have disowned them. A story that I often tell is that one man that I know whose name is Steve, came home one day and his roommates told him that he had to move out right then. And he said, well, I need time to pack my stuff. And they said, well, we've burned everything. They burned everything that this man owned because they were afraid that just by touching it, that they could come down with AIDS. There's a lot of fear. It makes it real difficult. I don't enjoy close personal relationships the way I used to.

There are some, that are more strained than others, but many times I find myself not included in events. This man has an immune deficiency, but he has not been diagnosed with AIDS. Even so, he suffers from the stigma attached to this epidemic. I don't think there's anything that would prevent me from working, and working effectively, at the kind of work I do. My work is not physically demanding. But I think that people just knowing or perhaps suspecting that there is a physical problem. And especially one around which there are so many issues of uncertainty, had something to do with my lack of employment. I've heard stories that would stand your hair on end about people who have been evicted and people who are really critically ill who've been forced to leave their homes. Where are people supposed to go? They can't work. They don't have financial resources. What are those people supposed to do? There's absolutely no evidence

whatever, that you can get AIDS from a risk group patient, such as a male homosexual or an IV drug user by the usual everyday contact that you have with an individual. So that's an unfounded fear, we believe. I think that's right. I mean, we have to realize that there've been literally tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people who have been exposed in a normal routine daily basis to persons from high risk groups, to persons who have AIDS, before they got AIDS. And there have not been cases in these groups of people. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but if this person is very capable of coughing and covering at the same time, then this sputum gets all over his or her hands, and then it can be wiped just about anywhere. What do you do with that? I mean, this person is- Some nurses and hospital staff have been concerned about contact with AIDS patients. But despite media reports to the contrary, no one who's cared for AIDS patients has come down with the disease. It's spread in a way that doesn't impact

on the general population. It isn't like a respiratory virus where you can sneeze on somebody and give it to an otherwise normal host. There's a natural theoretical concern about the risk to health care workers. The fact that there have been thousands of health care workers and laboratory workers working with AIDS patients without a clear cut case would suggest that that risk is still theoretical and is likely to remain quite small. A handful of highly publicized AIDS cases may have resulted from contaminated blood. The public has begun to fear blood transfusions and is even shying away from giving blood. Our donor recruitment people were talking to potential donors or volunteers who were recruiting blood donors within industries and other blood collecting sites and finding that people didn't want to donate because of fear of AIDS. But of course, that's not relevant to the blood collection process. The needles are sterile. They're used only once. Absolutely no chance of getting AIDS during the blood donation. But what about blood transfusions?

Could someone with AIDS donate blood and give the disease to someone else? To guard against AIDS transmission, blood banks ask sexually active gay men and others in the high-risk groups not to give blood. We explain through a pamphlet, the fact that there are certain groups which seem to be at high risk for getting AIDS and that anyone who is a member of one of these high-risk groups should refrain from being a blood donor. Someone who reads this information can simply tell the nurse that because of the information in the pamphlet, he or she would rather not donate and simply walk out at that point. But voluntary cooperation by blood donors is inadequate according to conservatives like the Reverend Jerry Falwell, leader of the moral majority. We're asking why are not potential blood donors required without exception to fill out extensive questionnaires on penalty of perjury, detailing their health and sexual proclivities. Conservative columnist Patrick Buchanan.

In this case, if you're talking about a conflict between the right of privacy of a homosexual and the right to life of some poor guy on a hospital table to get noncontaminated blood, his right takes precedence. And if that means embarrassing the guy who's coming in to give blood by asking him some tough questions, then I'm in favor of doing that. Volunteer donors are doing something because they think it's gonna help somebody and they're not going to donate if they think it's gonna harm someone. So that adding a signature on pain of perjury to that process, I think, would be counterproductive. There were only about 10 patients who've had AIDS, who had had blood transfusions within the preceding couple of years. Now, there's no proof that blood transmission -- transfusion was the cause of the AIDS, but I guess it could be. But that compares with three to four million people who receive blood or blood products each year in the United States. So that if there's a risk of blood bank contamination it appears to be very, very low.

MUSIC Another source of growing public concern is the gay bathhouse scene. Most major cities have several of these private clubs where some homosexual men go to engage in casual, often anonymous sex, often with several partners. The fact that AIDS may be spread by sexual contact has led to calls for government action against the baths. And a shutdown of the bathhouses where the most vulgar, dirty, and bloody and filthy things happen is not an anti-gay proposal, but we think rather a pro-gay proposal to protect them from themselves until there is medical evidence that there is no danger in what they're doing.

When you get into closing private business then you're getting into 1984. And if the baths are closed, then the bars and then next thing you know, we're all going to be thrown into concentration camps because of our sexual preference. It seems to me there's real cowardice in the political community and irresponsibility in the gay rights community that it does nothing at all to deal with these places' bathhouses where this disease quite obviously is spread. The logic is, is that bathhouses are where people have sex, therefore that's where AIDS is transmitted. People are going to continue to have sex no matter what. Back 40 years ago when I was a boy the public swimming pools were closed before Salk vaccine. No one thought that was anti-children to save children from polio. They thought it was rather pro-children and instituted out of love for children. I think it's pro-gay to help gay people not to continue to destroy themselves. My own feeling is that anonymous sexual context and particular behavioral lifestyles

result from individuals not from places. And that the kind of behavioral change that I'm starting to hear about and starting to see is that that springs from the community. So I think that what people need to do is to make recommendations that to avoid high risk sexual behaviors, unprotected intercourse, for instance. Having sex without using a condom. People need to be encouraged rather to look at what positive sexual behaviors are possible. Masturbation, sex with the condom, just touching, hugging, kissing. Many gay men, by no means all, but many have or go through a period when they have very, very large numbers of sexual partners. And a large number of those partners are often anonymous, people whose disease and health state are not known and who in the event that a disease develops can't be traced because names are not exchanged. If there's one controllable feature at AIDS, about AIDS, that at least a priori,

we think makes sense and that can be applied now, it is that gay men should not partake in that sort of activity. You know I used to be in the position of avoiding moralizing and saying, what you do is up to you, you should know there are certain risks. But now we're dealing with a disease that more than an inconvenience, may in fact be highly fatal and highly dangerous. And I think it's beyond morality to say, listen, multiple sexual contacts with anonymous partners has never been helpful, it now may be deadly. [music] For ladies promenade, go round the center. Swing your big ol' handsome man. Join all your hands and start to circle. The fella man, and weave around that man. Now let's get on with the square dance. Twist your girl up, promenade your man. You promenade that man, but walking hand in hand [Unintelligible] the square dance of man. [music]

Are you concerned about AIDS Art? Yeah, it has changed my lifestyle in terms that I'm far more selective with the people that I'm intimate with, and far fewer. Most people have an attitude, well, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. The same time, if I stop my own lifestyle, I'd may it hit by a truck or something. Has it effected your own lifestyle in anyway? It's just made things quieter. And don't go out as much. You stay at home, find more projects to do. All right, all right. I don't want to sound prudish or anything, but I'm not that very promiscuous person. And I don't spend all my time at the tubs or anything. I don't do that. It's not part of my lifestyle. My sex life is still rather active. But I can be careful. Yeah, it's a scary proposition. I have three children from a marriage,

and I sure would like to see my kids. They're 10, 7, and 6. And I'd like to see them when they were 20, so on down. If this AIDS, if it happens to me, I'm not going to see them. I'm not going to see them. San Francisco. Fear of AIDS is changing the lives of gay men. It has sparked a renewal of gay rights activism, now aimed at pressuring the government to help solve this medical mystery. How far will AIDS spread? How many more will lose their lives? The country has begun to respond to AIDS. The federal government has set aside $25 million dollars for AIDS research, and for educational projects like the National AIDS Hotline, which has been receiving tens of thousands of calls every day. There's no names here at all.

AIDS is the number one priority on my agenda. Some of the best minds at our National Institutes of Health are devoted to the pandemic. Some of the best minds at our national institutes of health are devoting all of their energies to this, not only are they, but they have also engaged some of the best cancer researchers. So all of this is a result of our emphasis on what is a terribly, terribly disturbing and serious problem in health today. Many people who are getting autoimmune deficiency syndrome are either gay people, Haitians, or drug abusers. These are people who are not necessarily seen as strong political forces. If it were Legionnaires' Disease, if it were Toxic Shock Syndrome, we'd see an immediate response. But look how long it's taken them when it's Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. I do think it is gross irresponsibility for homosexuals active who have go to these bathhouses in the rest of it to cry out that the government's got to do research

to save us when they continue indulging in the kind of activity that spreads a disease. It's the height of irresponsibility. When you violate the laws of nature, you violate the laws of nature's god. And like driving faster than 55 miles an hour, you pay the fare. And I think that AIDS, herpes, venereal diseases are all a result of violating the laws of decency and of nature. And I feel that whenever you do that, be not deceived, Paul said. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. I think that the fact that there is this disease called AIDS, which is scary, which is attributed to gay people for which we are being blamed, even though we're the ones who are coming down with it, only further fuels the fires of people's homophobia. They're afraid of us. They don't understand us. We're people, just like anybody else. [music] I have the subjective feeling that if this were occurring in heterosexuals as a sexually transmitted disease,

the emotional reaction would not be nearly what it's been. The single most adverse effect from a sociological standpoint of AIDS is that large segments of the population, that I fear have been and are biased for their own good or bad reasons, are finding a more acceptable format in which to express those biases. It's too easy for society to grow impatient with AIDS and to reject its victims. And I'm concerned that our country will tire of the story, so to speak, and simply say the do has arrived. Does this disease change yoor attitude toward homosexual men at all? Well, I guess I'd have to say it does. How so?

Well, it just seems to me if there are disease-creating activities in their conduct, they should proscribe them. Well, if doesn't a make a difference to me, they're all human beings. I'll be fighting here. Yes, certainly. It's a human problem. They have a right to live as I do, and it doesn't change my attitude towards them at all. How do you feel about homosexuals? I feel like it's a learning process and they can be retrained. I think they should try and find a cure for any disease that's taking lives. Any health concern should be everybody's concern. Does this disease change your attitude toward homosexuals at all? No. Why not? I don't see any reason why it should. [singing] We are, we are a family. [singing] As a gay man

it's affected my life in that I no longer enjoy the degree of sexual freedom, probably, that I once enjoyed. There's a lot more dating and a lot more talking than there was prior to this. There seems to be a sort of national reputation that gay, especially gay men, are promiscuous, and run around having sex constantly. And I don't think that's a fair image. Actually, it's made me more aware of my health in general and taking care of myself. I've made a conscious decision to alter some elements of my lifestyle that I hadn't thought of ever having to alter before. How so? Staying home more. I'm not optimistic, quite frankly, that we're going to come up with any therapy that's going to reverse the disease once it's been acquired. Now, that's perhaps a little too pessimistic. It might well be that something will be done. It will be learned. And research should go on.

But the real effort and the real money basically lies in prevention, and learning the cause, and developing a vaccine or advising appropriate lifestyle changes or whatever it takes to prevent the disease rather than trying to cure it. [Music] Gay activists have taken a lead in fighting the spread of AIDS. informational pamphlets have been posted in bars and bathhouses. Educational forums and workshops help to dispel rumors and misinformation. Volunteers visit and prepare meals for the sick. Is it tender when I press? Gay clinics provide checkups for those worried about their health. Don't feel guilty. Sex is our right as human beings. If some of your sexual choices have been unhealthy or in some other way unsatisfactory, don't beat your breast.

You just make a new choice. Be close to your friends with AIDS. Call, visit, go shopping, wash their windows, whatever. Write your politicians. Write to Mayor Roy or write to everyone. Ask them what they personally have done about AIDS and invite them to write you back and answer. Tell your mothers where you were tonight. Tell your bosses where you were tonight and tell them why. It is only by our strong and visible presence, showing that we are everywhere, that we can force the government and the rest of America to struggle against AIDS. AIDS strikes all of us. We are all fighting for our lives. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC] For a transcript of this program, send $3 to PTV publications,

post office box 701, Kent, Ohio, 44240. Diagnosis AIDS was made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.