By: Robert Jones
Though discussion about AIDS has remained relatively dormant in mainstream culture, two monumental cultural events have triggered a flurry of new discussion: the release of an incredible and eye opening documentary, and the recent report that a baby born with HIV was successfully cured. The documentary, directed by David France and titled How to Survive a Plague, was released in September and received universal critical praise. The movie uses archival footage of activists meetings and protests through the late 1980s and early 90s, along with candid interviews to examine how a small group of people managed to organize massive protests to obtain a cure for their debilitating disease. The second event is more closely related to today: on March 3 of this year, news broke that a child was miraculously cured of HIV. These two happenings have brought AIDS back into cultural discussion, creating an opportunity for more discussion about this disease infecting 34 million people. The history of AIDS in this country is interesting, as it touches upon gay rights, flaws in the American bureaucracy, and the power of continued protest and disobedience. By examining How to Survive a Plague and placing its events in the context of the newly cured child, the narrative of the AIDS crisis continues to grow and provoke discussion.
When the AIDS outbreak first began, it was not called HIV or AIDS. Doctors diagnosed their patients with GRID—“gay related immune deficiency.” This definition led to a systematic discrimination that AIDS victims vocally fought throughout the 80s. At one point in Plague a doctor describes his patients as, “homosexual, or just a little bit different.” One of these patients is seated close by, and the look on his face is one of deep hurt and sadness. This was one of the gentler reactions that the gay community faced upon the disease’s outbreak, much different than the angry protests by the Catholic Church and public hysteria over this new “gay cancer.” The government’s slow reaction to the epidemic also infuriated the gay community. The drugs that many victims received did not work well, often only prolonging the disease’s progress without improving a patient’s well being. A group called ACT UP (or AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) formed in New York City to protest “government mismanagement” of the epidemic. The group criticized the long process of drug trials, exposed discrimination present in many institutions such as hospitals and the Center for Disease Control, and loudly voiced their belief that they were dying at the hands of apathy and ineptitude. It was their beginning protests that sparked the years-long struggle to come.
Though protests continued through ACT UP’s foundation in 1987 to the 1992 election, the group gained national attention in late March during a Bill Clinton fundraiser in New York. Robert Rafsky, one of ACT UP’s leaders, angrily confronted the presidential candidate in the middle of his speech. The exchange lasted a few minutes, was broadcasted on CNN, and featured poignant lines like, “Bill, we’re not dying of AIDS as much as we are from 11 years of government neglect.” This was far from the first public demonstration for the group; it had already picketed outside the FDA, the White House, the CDC, and several other organizations. But ACT UP did not just shout their grudges at authority. They had plans for how to better handle the crisis, complete with detailed memos written up by accredited scientists. They commanded attention, knowing that it was only this way that they would find success. Their calls for change eventually paid off—in 1996 scientists discovered a potent mix of medication that rendered AIDS undetectable in just 30 days. AIDS had, effectively, been cured.
So with AIDS taken care of 18 years ago, why was there so much hubbub around the baby that was cured of HIV last month? Unfortunately, the efforts of ACT UP did not yield a pill that could eradicate HIV entirely. Though the current combination of drugs brings the disease down to a manageable level, it is prescriptive and not preventative. The March 3 report disclosed that the virus had in fact been eliminated from the child’s body. Though the child was born with the virus and was given medication to treat it, it became undetectable after only a month with none of the virus’s characteristic hidden reservoirs within the victim’s body to regenerate after a patient seems well again. This is the second confirmed case of an infected patient who was later cured; the first came from Berlin, a man named Timothy Brown whose HIV infection disappeared after receiving a bone marrow transplant from a doctor resistant to the disease. These cases finally provide a concrete hope to the disease’s victims that someday, they could live AIDS-free.
AIDS may be cured soon, but there is no doubt that it remains relevant to America today. How to Survive a Plague puts forward a terrifying picture—sheer mismanagement and bigotry that caused human death. And even though drugs exist to treat the disease, many in the developing world cannot afford them. In the credits, France offers up a chilling statistic—four people die of AIDS every minute because they lack the medication for treatment. AIDS was once seen as a “gay cancer,” a literal death sentence for the gay community. Now it is in the same category as diseases like diabetes, a “lifestyle illness” that can be treated through constant medication. Though a full cure may or may not be coming soon, the March case is undoubtedly a glimpse of hope for future. Perhaps soon How to Survive a Plague will be viewed as a historical artifact instead of a memorial for all those who have died from the disease—simply a distant memory of a time when AIDS was once incurable.
