HIV/AIDS: Plague of the 21st Century

in the early days of the 1980s an unknown stalker was doing the rounds in the u.s preying mainly on young homosexual men one after the other they fell victim to illnesses considered to be quite rare until that time patterns began to emerge leading to the discovery of a new infection leading to the syndrome that would be dubbed the plague of the 21st century a plague that would carry with it the stigma of behaviors considered by some to be morally reprehensible hiv in today's episode we will trace the origins of the disease from the first publicized cases in the u.s to the later research pointing to the first outbreaks across the atlantic along the way we will discover the truth behind the man still known as patient zero [Music] hiv and aids were not easily identified at the start it took time for medical researchers to piece together the clues that would lead to the identification of a new illness the first recorded event in that trail of clues was a morbidity and mortality report published by the centers for disease control and prevention on june 5th 1981. this report described five cases of a rare type of pneumonia pneumocyst is carinae or pcp this is a type of infection of the lungs caused by the fungus pneumocystis duravetsy which leads to difficulty in breathing a high fever and dry cough the patients were young previously healthy gay men in los angeles all of them showed signs of severe immune deficiencies within days doctors across the u.s submitted reports of similar cases to the cdc less than a month later on the third of july the new york times published an article about the outbreak of a rare cancer 41 gay men in new york and california had been affected by kaposi's sarcoma an abnormal growth of small blood vessels that manifest itself with firm pink or purple spots on the skin it can become life-threatening when it affects the internal organs more and more homosexual men fell ill with rare conditions very often they were associated with immune deficiencies in january of 1982 some of the patients and their friends and families founded gay men's health crisis this organization would become the first non-profit community-based hiv service provider but at the time they didn't know what they were fighting against very soon it became clear that whatever was infecting u.s citizens was not only targeting homosexuals on july the 16th 1982 a cdc report featured three cases of pcp in heterosexual hemophiliac men hemophilia is a genetic condition which prevents blood from clotting in the 1980s patients suffering from it required frequent blood and plasma transfusions around the same time the first cases of a new disease were being recorded in sub-saharan africa in uganda this disease was nicknamed slim jim as it caused massive weight loss among its victims later that year the term aids was first used to identify the new disease it was the 24th of september when the cdc released the first definition of aids a disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity occurring in a person with no known cause for diminished resistance to that disease gay men were in a group among which the disease was most prevalent but it quickly became apparent that they were by no means the only victims in january of 1983 the cdc recorded the first two female patients they were partners of men living with aids which suggested a sexual transmission of the disease firstly in may of 1983 two teams of researchers found the cause behind this new illness the first was a team headed by dr francois barcinussi and dr luke montagna at the pasteur institute in france they isolated a virus which they believed was responsible for causing aids which they called lav or lymphodenopathy-associated virus later that year dr robert gallo of the national cancer institute in the u.s cultivated lab specimens in his lab identifying it as a retrovirus this is a type of virus which can insert a dna copy of its genome into a host cell in order to replicate in june of 1984 dr gallo and dr montagna held a joint press conference announcing their discovery that a retrovirus was responsible for causing aids the french doctor called it lav gallo called it htlv-3 they later changed the name to human immunodeficiency virus hiv the acronym aids stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and is the advanced stage of the infection caused by hiv hiv is a rather aggressive virus which targets the cells of the immune system making a person more vulnerable to other infections and diseases which are called opportunistic infections a healthy individual can contract hiv by contact with certain bodily fluids from an infected patient with detectable viral load most commonly this happens during unprotected sex or through the sharing of injection drug equipment a person who is hiv positive is considered to have progressed to aids when the number of their white blood cells of the cd4 type falls below 200 cells per cubic millimeter or regardless of their cd4 count when they have developed one or more opportunistic infections opportunistic diseases most commonly associated with aids which can often lead to the death of a patient include bacterial infections like salmonella tuberculosis and pneumonia less well-known consequences are fungal infestations like thrush and pcp however the weakening of immune deficiencies brought about by hiv can also lead to the onset of certain types of cancer for instance lymphoma and kaposi's sarcoma as of today there is no cure for hiv however certain treatment regimens known as heart or highly active antiretroviral therapy can help patients live with hiv without it degenerating into aids and we'll get into those a little bit later without this therapy people with aids typically survive about three years sadly if they contract a dangerous opportunistic illness their life expectancy falls to about one year patients who are hiv positive can live for 10 to 15 years without any noticeable symptoms and even if they manifest they can be easily mistaken for those of a less serious illness like flu when hiv degenerates into aids common symptoms include rapid weight loss diarrhea fatigue memory loss and depression again these symptoms are not exclusive to aids and can be related to other illnesses that is why the only certain way to diagnose hiv and aids is to get the appropriate test to avoid an uncontrolled spread of the infection the most common ways through which aids is transmitted are unprotected sex and the sharing of needles by drug users but there are other less common avenues for example a mother can pass hiv to a child during pregnancy birth or breastfeeding there have been cases of health workers being infected when handling hiv contaminated needles or other sharp objects particularly if they are not utilizing the recommended personal protective equipment a patient may also receive a transfusion of blood or plasma from a donor who is hiv positive nowadays this risk is extremely low because of the scrutiny that blood donations receive but there had been many cases recorded in the early 1980s before rigorous testing was put in place finally there is an extremely low risk of contracting hiv via oral contact for example if an individual is bitten by an infected patient or if two partners both with bleeding gums or mouth ulcers share a deep kiss hiv absolutely can't be spread by insect bites physical contact air water saliva tears or sweat hiv can affect anyone regardless of sexual orientation race ethnicity gender or age however certain groups are at a higher risk of contracting hiv the records of the centers for disease control and prevention show that in the u.s certain demographics are more likely to get this virus according to 2018 cdc statistics gay bisexual and other men who have sex with men accounted for 69 of all new hiv diagnoses the next largest category was heterosexuals accounting for 24 percent of new cases followed by injection drug users at 7 records show that the incidence of new cases disproportionately affects ethnic minorities for example african americans are about 13 percent of the overall population in the u.s and yet they account for 42 percent of the newly infected hispanics are 18 of the population but account for 27 percent of the hiv positive people who identify as white are 70 of us citizens but they are just a quarter of the overall instant patience all things considered gay african-american men are the category at highest risk for contracting hiv representing 25 percent of all cases so let's go back to the 1980s it was becoming clear to medical professionals and even part of the general public that this new disease favored certain groups defined as the four h's homosexuals heroin addicts hemophiliacs and haitian immigrants the first advocacy group started to take shape in 1983. on may the 2nd people with aids staged their first public demonstration in san francisco in the following months patient groups issued the denver principles a charter stating their right to be involved in policy decisions and to be called people with aids not aids victims on the 22nd of november the world health organization held its first meeting to assess the global impact of aids by this date at least one case of the disease had been reported in each region of the world it took another couple of years though before aids fully entered the public consciousness first it was thanks to an indiana teenager on june 30th ryan white a boy living with hemophilia was denied admission to a local school he had been infected with hiv from a blood transfusion ryan went on to speak publicly against the stigma and discrimination that many aids patients experienced the other event was the death of rock hudson on the 2nd of october the legendary hollywood actor died of aids leaving 250 000 to help set up the american foundation for aids research or amphar fellow actress elizabeth taylor acted as national chairperson for amfar which gave a further boost to the disease awareness efforts the first few years of the epidemic and their impact especially on the gay community were recorded in the 1987 book and the band played on by randy schultz a journalist at the san francisco chronicle the book introduced a real-life character a gay canadian flight attendant who had succumbed to aids on march 30th 1984. thanks to his good looks charisma and field of work the flight attendant traveled across the country having a string of sexual encounters along the way apparently in a typical year he could have up to 250 one-night stands while researching his book schultz came across the cluster study published in the american journal of medicine with this study cdc investigators sought to drop a map of sexual encounters among several people with aids the study featured a diagram illustrating this network of relationships at the center of the largest cluster responsible for directly infecting eight patients this paper had identified one person as patient zero according to schultz this patient was ultimately responsible for introducing hiv and aids to the united states for years after schultz's work had been published a medical dictionary still refers to patient zero as an individual identified as the person who introduced hiv in the united states according to cdc records patient zero an airline steward infected nearly 50 other persons before he died of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in 1984. that airline steward was the canadian flight attendant we discussed earlier and his name was gayten duggar was born in quebec city canada on february 20th 1953. he worked for a period as a hairdresser in toronto before moving to vancouver there he realized his dream of becoming a flight attendant working for air canada while on duty he frequently traveled across europe the caribbean and the us with his favorite destination being san francisco gaiten loved to attend the annual pride parade but he flew to san francisco as often as he could enjoying many of his sexual encounters there gayton was 26 when he first displayed symptoms of ill health in this case swollen lymph nodes a year later in 1980 brown spots appeared under his skin gayton had them checked with a biopsy which revealed that he had kaposi's sarcoma gaiton had to undergo several cycles of chemotherapy with all the side effects that go along with that from inconvenience to agonizing pain despite losing much weight and all of his hair gaiten continued to sport a cutting-edge look wearing fashionable headbands and designer clothing by this point the clinical community had linked caposis to the new disease targeting homosexuals it was referred to as gay cancer in a letter to ray redford a former lover and friend dugard described his mental state as he tried to learn more about the disease and to keep its symptoms at bay he wrote my mind is finding peace again you're right i must upgrade my attitude towards a full recovery but you know there is always this storm that strikes you when less expected the cdc started interviewing gay men with kaposi sarcoma and soon realized that at least four of them had slept with gayten duger took part in this cluster study too cooperating eagerly and volunteering plenty of detailed information on the names and addresses of his previous partners the cdc made it clear to gate and that the new deadly illness may have been spread sexually according to schultz in november of 1982 gaydon duker was even confronted by a san francisco public health official about his sexual habits duga was asked to avoid having sex prevent further spreading of the disease but he flatly refused it was his right he said to do what he wanted with his body by that time duga had moved to san francisco permanently and he frequented the local bath houses looking for new partners his success streak was such to rouse the jealousy of other gay men in the area some even conspired to have him evicted from the town it was because of behaviors such as this that schiltz harshly branded duga as the quebecois version of typhoid mary eventually duga left san francisco and resettled in vancouver his body was now consumed with opportunistic infections the most serious one being pcp the fungal pneumonia the infection progressed inexorably gayton moved back to his native quebec city where he passed away on march 30 1984 aged just 31. the cluster study was published some weeks after his death all that remained of gayton's lust for life was a circle at the center of a diagram it was connected to eight other circles la 3 6 8 and 9 and ny 3 4 9 and 15. gaten's circle was marked by a zero the only thing is it was not a zero it was the letter o the cluster study marked its participant by location gate and dugar had been recorded as out of california or simply o for short randy schiltz's work had many critics with cambridge historian richard mckay among them mckay points out that schultz had misunderstood the letter o for a number zero the diagram of the cluster study was not supposed to illustrate what may have been the epicenter of the pandemic in the u.s it was intended to find a link between two outbreaks of kaposi sarcoma and other opportunistic illnesses one on the west coast and the other on the east gaten o and a certain sf1 were the links between east and west the gaten just happened to be placed at the center some of the other interviewees in the study were as promiscuous if not more so than duga but they could not or would not provide as many details as the canadian steward hence his circle marked with the o appeared as more interconnected to other men that's why it was easier to represent him graphically at the center of the diagram schultz's editor michael denneny admitted that the two had overplayed the responsibilities of duga in the epidemic in order to make and the band played on more appealing they painted gayten as the villain of the piece patient zero the typhoid gary if you like who had introduced hiv and aids to the u.s the intention was ultimately noble increased circulation of the book to raise awareness about hiv as well as the stigma and indifference suffered by gay people with aids at the hands of authorities in the public but in doing so the book created the false myth of patient zero scapegoating gate and duga even if the canadian man was not an actual patient zero schiltz's book makes it clear that he stubbornly continued to spread hiv through unprotected sex but that claim is disputed as well the cdc first stated that aids was sexually transmitted in january of 1983. gayten's discussions with the cdc and the san francisco health official took place in 1982. duga's behavior was certainly promiscuous he definitely lacked caution but it wasn't as brazenly irresponsible as portrayed in the book he was not consciously infecting as many men as he could what really matters to us is that hiv in the u.s did not start with gayten it most likely cannot be traced to one single individual and most likely did not start in the late 1970s or early 1980s considering that hiv can take as long as 15 years to display symptoms many people could have been infected long before then in october of 1987 an article in the chicago tribune reported a story about tests run on samples belonging to a teenage male from saint louis the samples tested positive for hiv and in fact the individual had died from an aids-like condition in 1969. a nature article in 1990 found that tissue samples from a british sailor had also tested positive for hiv he'd died in manchester from pcp in 1959. more clues pointed to an earlier origin of the disease and to a location many miles away from north america in 1983 a joint belgian and american research trip to zaire now the democratic republic of congo established that a similar disease to aids was widespread there affecting mainly heterosexual men and women in 1987 medical journal the lancet found evidence of hiv-like infections in central africa dating back to 1959 researchers were closing in on the place of origin of this plague of the 21st century and it was sub-saharan africa one of the most credited theories on the origins of aids is the one dubbed cut hunter theory one of the proponents is microbiologist jacques paypal in his 2011 work the origin of aids he proposes a likely travel route from central africa to north america and the rest of the world hiv likely originated as a pathogen in primate populations most probably chimpanzees late stage infected chimps developed a syndrome called sid simeon immunodeficiency sometime in the early 1920s the virus jumped species this is when the virus somehow relocated from an infected ape into the bloodstream of a human the most likely candidate would be a hunter whose open wounds were infected by the chimpanzee's blood the cut hunter in other words in the 1920s and 1930s french equatorial africa and the belgian congo enjoyed close trade and employment ties meaning that any infected individual could have traveled across highly populated centers via short boat rides spreading the disease further and further papa in fact found evidence of a disease similar to aids causing an outbreak in a railway camp in french equatorial africa in the 1920s and early 1930s hiv may have spread via sexual contact but also via irogenic transmission these are infections caused by doctors reissuing unsterilized needles travelers and sailors visiting central africa may have contracted hiv as early as the 1950s however paypal was able to establish with more certainty a link between zaire and the caribbean during the 1960s several thousand haitians were recruited to work in xayah it is possible that many of them became hiv-positive and carried the infection back to their country from haiti hiv made its way to north america by two avenues the transnational blood industry and sex tourism a study published in nature in october 2016 ascertained that blood and plasma collected from haiti by new york hospital was indeed hiv positive by cambridge historian richard mckay argues that haiti was a popular destination for american gay men looking for sexual liaisons from these two entry points the virus gradually spread to hemophiliacs heroin users and homosexuals and of course there are scores of potential haitian immigrants jumping the gulf to the united states the four h's that we already mentioned through the effects of paypal mckay and other researchers it is clear now that the whole concept of duga as patient zero is more or less debunked the first outbreak of what could be called aids dates back at least half a century before and it went completely undetected before it swelled into what appeared to be an unstoppable pandemic since the beginning of the epidemic 76 million people have been infected with the hiv virus and about 33 million people have died of aids-related infections luckily advances in medical science have made it possible for hiv-positive patients to live much longer than ever before what used to be a fatal disease has now become a chronic illness it can't be cured but it can be managed through the regular use of antiretroviral drugs the first treatment indicated for hiv was approved by the fda in 1987. in july of 1996 the 11th international aids conference established heart as a breakthrough approach leading to a drop in morbidity and mortality advances in other disease areas have also made it possible to prevent or treat the symptoms of the most common opportunistic illnesses however hiv and aids are far from being completely defeated at the end of 2019 about 38 million people were estimated to be living with hiv across the globe during that same year 690 000 people died of aids three hundred thousand of them died in eastern and southern africa alone despite some advancements in treatment rates sub-saharan africa is still the region suffering the most from hiv and amongst the infected about three-fifths are women and young girls according to unaids the joint united nations program on hiv aids the progress of the hiv crisis is related to the low supply of antiretroviral therapies naturally this is a situation which may be exacerbated by the concurrent pandemic we are now going through with covert 19. but unaids identifies another set of reasons gender inequalities lack of access to secondary education for girls scarcity of sexual and reproductive health services there's also the ongoing stigma which prevents hiv-positive people and at-risk populations from seeking treatment and preventative advice now we've mainly focused on the american hiv story but here at today's conclusion i'd like to bring things closer to home in 1987 millions of households in the uk received an information booklet on the risks of hiv and aids the booklet was tied to an effective tv ad campaign and it used frank language on the matter of transmission via sexual intercourse the tagline of this department of health campaign was don't die of ignorance it drove the point home during any public crisis knowledge and the responsible behavior that grows out of it are really key as you've seen today ignorance about the disease caused millions to die but ignorance and its brother prejudice can also isolate condem and taint the memory of those who don't deserve it so i really hope you found today's video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe as always thank you for watching you

Channel: Biographics

Views: 439,918

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Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

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Length: 23min 10sec (1390 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020