- President Donald Trump has announced an ambitious goal to end the HIV epidemic in this country by 2030.
- Today we have many of the tools necessary to end the epidemic, but not everyone has equal access to them.
So where do we go from here?
There maybe lessons to be found in a young boys story from more then three decades ago, early in the AIDS crisis.
(piano music) - [Narrator] Jupiter Adams is part of a silent epidemic.
- My very first HIV test came back positive.
It was hell, like the first two months, I could talk to nobody.
I, I couldn't do anything.
I didn't hear about HIV.
First time I heard about was in a history class where they were talking about the ACT UP movement.
So I tell everybody I thought it was like the bubonic plague, I thought it came, it left, I didn't have to worry about it.
- [Narrator] Public awareness about HIV has faded, and that's contributing to a health crisis today, says Dr. Larry Mass, an AIDS activist for nearly four decades.
- I wish they could go on indefinitely thinking, oh, those old--those old guys and that all that old stuff, we don't, we don't have to deal with that.
This history is not just history, it's them, and it's situations that they're facing today.
- [Narrator] That history goes back to the early days of the epidemic in the 1980's, when the public often reacted with prejudice, if they acknowledged the disease at all.
- The set up was that this disease was something striking, almost totally undesirables.
- [Reporter] It appeared a year ago, in New York's gay community.
- [Reporter] Investigators have examined the habits of homosexuals for clues.
- [Reporter] To some traditionalists, AIDS is a gay plague.
- [Reporter] Gays, drugs addicts, injection- heroin addicts.
- At the very least, there should be a quarantine of all homosexuals, drug abusers and prostitutes.
- This is their disease.
Ordinary, everyday heterosexuals, normal people have nothing to worry about.
- [Reporter] Scientists believe AIDS is not likely to spread beyond these groups, but it is still a deadly epidemic.
- [Interviewee] It was the dark years it was terrible.
People were dying at a very high rate.
The hospice facilities were filled with people.
We had no therapy at all.
So, it was like unfortunately putting Bandaids on hemmorhages.
- [Reporter] More than 1500 cases have been discovered so far, and most experts believe there will be more than 3000 by the end of the year.
- People were very secretive, because it was extremely stigmatizing.
- I've had friends tell me to go and die.
Just get away and go and die.
- [Narrator] Although federal health authorities found no evidence of transmission through casual contact, public concern remained high.
And as the epidemic spread, so did the fear.
- 40,000 Americans will get AIDS this year and next.
- [Reporter] One out of seven people polled said they would favor tattooing all AIDS victims.
Better than half said they should be quarantined.
And nearly as many would require anyone who tests positive for AIDS antibodies to carry an ID card.
- [Narrator] Then in 1985, AIDS came to a small Indiana town.
- [Reporter] It was last Christmas that Ryan White, a hemophiliac, learned that because of a blood transfusion, he had contracted AIDS.
- Ryan was just playful, silly, loved skateboarding, and pretty carefree.
And he was well aware that his life was going to be cut short.
He just wanted to attend school, be with his friends, like everybody else does.
- [Narrator] But local school officials barred the 13 year old from returning to middle school.
And some concerned parents fought to keep him out.
Lawyer David Rosselot represented them.
- People were very, uh, panicked.
We don't know anything about this disease.
The only thing we know that if you have it, you're going to die.
- I think that we have to prove that there's beyond a shadow of a doubt that my child is not going to be infected with this.
- Ryan had no control over getting AIDS, and we've just had to fight for it seems like everything.
And now we'll just have to keep on fighting.
- [Narrator] When a court eventually ruled in Ryan's favor, some protests turned ugly.
- There were like a picket line at school's the only way I can describe it of people in scrubs and Halloween masks, and signs like telling him to die.
Um,just hurling insults, uh, screaming at him and his family.
- [Narrator] But the coverage of of his story turned Ryan White into a symbol of resilience.
- And finally this evening, our person of the week, the young boy who learned when he was 13 that he had a terminal illness.
Ryan was singled out by the governor of the state as a model of courage and inner strength.
- Every time you turn on the tv, you turn the news on there's a picture of Ryan.
It just seemed like everywhere you looked, there were celebrities that were speaking out.
- I don't think he wanted the role that he was put in, but at the same time, he saw how much people needed to be educated.
- [Narrator] Ryan's success at reaching the public highlighted how much other voices had been ignored.
- Ryan White was a figure, who in fairly short order, began to illicit public sympathy.
It was difficult to just say those nasty faggots.
Ryan White was the innocent victim.
Well does that imply that the others were the guilty, deserving, uh, you know recipients.
- [Crowd] Hey, hey.
Ho, ho.
Ronald Reagan's got to go.
Hey, hey - [Narrator] Activists from the gay community, including members of the ACT UP movement, had been pressing the Reagan administration to help those with the disease.
- The fact that it has taken the president five years to begin to even address this problem publicly, demonstrates that this administration hasn't given it the level of commitment that it deserves.
- [Narrator] As more people went public with their stories of contracting AIDS, Americans understanding of the crisis was broadening.
A door Ryan White had help open.
- Well, people just aren't listening, and we have to make them listen.
- You had a young boy who would turn the nob a bit to get people to say the enemy here is the virus.
The enemy is not the person who's been infected.
(piano music) - [Narrator] When Ryan died in 1990, more than 1500 mourners attended his funeral, including David Rosselot, the lawyer who had fought to keep him out of school.
- I knew I had to say goodbye.
Um, if for no other reason, than to be able to say, you know, this wasn't about you, you know, I hope you forgive me.
- [Narrator] The story of AIDS began to change.
Congress pushed through the Ryan White Care Act.
Bipartisan legislation aimed at providing care for people with HIV and AIDS.
And soon new drug regimens offered a sense of hope.
- It was when we got the effective drugs that it was really a transformation.
I mean completely a transformation in how we looked at HIV.
- People are gonna live longer, healthier, more productive lives, and be able to live with HIV.
- As the years went by, we had better and better drugs.
We have now drugs which will bring the virus down to below detectable level, which not only saves the life of the person, but makes it essentially impossible for that person to transmit the virus to a sexual partner.
- [Narrator] And for those at risk of getting HIV, there's a daily medication called Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP.
- PrEP has been clearly shown if you take a single pill once a day, you decrease the likelihood that you would acquire HIV infections.
So, if you put those two things together, you could theoretically, essentially end the epidemic quickly.
- [Narrator] But despite these medical advances, HIV infections have continues to spread.
- The fact is that HIV is not an equal opportunity virus.
Everyone can get infected, but everyone is not getting infected.
- [Narrator] Just like in the early days of the epidemic, it's striking populations who are often overlooked.
This time, communities of color, particularly across the deep south.
And once again, Dr. Mass says the public isn't paying attention.
- There's a tendency to look at these black and Hispanic rural communities in the south as marginal.
It's the same kind of thinking that we had earlier on.
The things is, when you--when you don't deal with marginalized communities or issues, they have a way of becoming forefront.
- The places where the epidemic is growing are in those communities where people of color typically have not had access to resources, um, where poverty sits.
- [Narrator] Cindy Watson works with LGBTQ youth in Jacksonville, Florida, which has one of the highest rates of new HIV diagnoses in the country.
- We have these pills, but if people can't get access to them, if their lives are not stable and in a place where they can continue to take them overtime, they don't have the benefit of, uh, of the medication, of, of living a chronic illness, and they're also infectious.
- [Narrator] Watson and colleagues help young people navigate the medical system, and get access to costly drugs for HIV treatment and prevention.
- Given my own identity as a queer person of color, um, I know the turbulance that comes with people trying to navigate systems, so many systems.
- [Narrator] While access to testing and medication is vital, Jackson says continued education is also needed to counteract deep seeded stigma and misinformation.
- I just think what's passed down from generations, what's passed down from, like, stereotypes and myths, that has a more lasting affect unfortunately.
But the more education that, that we push, the more that we're able to flip the script and change narrative.
- We have the tools to do things that we never imagined we could do before.
Are we implementing these tool to the maximum?
We've gone from being in the dark, in a terrible, terrible disease, to now being able to not only save lives but to actually end this terrible scourge.
- I don't think there's ever really a wrong time to have the conversation- - [Narrator] Ending the epidemic, Dr. Fauci says will also require a new generation of activists.
People like Jupiter Adams.
- I was once inside of that position, where I didn't know, where I didn't know it was an epidemic.
The only thing I can do is do what I would have wanted someone to do with me.
I want to save as many people as I can.
Me and my statis, we have an understanding that we are going to go very far together.
(solemn music)
Passport
Follow Us