NBC News Special: Life, Death and AIDS - NBC (1/21/1986)

they were actors teachers scientists bartenders and they were those who never had a chance to be anything in the end they were all victims of AIDS in a way we are all victims of fear and private anxiety and I am just wondering how certain that medical evidence is that the virus can't be transmitted in school as much as a common cold can be worried about AIDS is part of being a parent now what we really are gathered here today for is the welfare of our children anxiety starts those who need the public every day we're talking about the transference of money and other things back and forth you know is there any likelihood that aids can be transmitted in this fashion police firemen hospital workers deal with their only fears this is a pocket mask that goes over the nose and mouth of a cover victim the resuscitator would blow through the opening here this would avoid the mouth to mouth context the threat alarms Denver's everyone agonizes over blood transfusions my husband had surgery and when we were asked if we would accept blood if the need should arise we denied it because of the fear of AIDS and we wonder if that was the right choice even some of the faithful are frightened about receiving Communion from a common cup a new year begins and concern about age spreads throughout America I'd like to know what steps an average American can take to avoid contracting AIDS a sizable majority of Americans believes that no segment of the general population will be spared aids that all of us are at risk seventy-six percent said so in an NBC news/wall Street Journal poll released just tonight AIDS is on the minds of just about everyone three out of five people say that they have heard or read about it a great deal about victims disowned by their families about soaring medical bills disability payments and lost income well over six billion dollars to date and sixty percent of that public money jobs that are lost school doors that are close to some children the conflict between public health responsibilities and civil liberties we also know that all the laboratory tests all the technology have not prevented a single AIDS death this is an NBC special report life death and AIDS a national forum here again is Tom Brokaw good evening tonight we deal with a plague called AIDS what is precisely known and not known about age has sometimes been distorted magnified discounted may be many people uncertain and confused and NBC News special report on AIDS last November drew more than 20,000 letters the most asked questions am i at risk how can I protect myself should I be tested we also heard this it's what they don't know that bothers me so it's our hope on this program tonight as much as we can to demystify this disease and we have assembled the leading experts in the nation to answer your questions about AIDS and casual contact about AIDS and blood transfusions what is safe sex and what is not who gets AIDS and why to answer those questions and others standing by at the National Institutes of Health near Washington are dr. Robert Gallo who identified the AIDS virus and is leading the fight to find a cure and dr. Samuel Broder who runs the clinical drug testing program dr. Harold Jaffe of the Centers for Disease Control he's an epidemiologist is in Atlanta tonight and dr. Paul bull birding runs the AIDS program at San Francisco General Hospital he's there with two of his patients we will be calling on other experts and individuals deeply involved with the age crisis throughout this hour for the record almost all known cases in the united states have been traced to sexual contact or to drug abusers sharing infected needles or two blood transfusions or it can be passed on to babies born to infected women the AIDS virus unknown and human beings until a few years ago breaks down the body's immune system making the victims defenseless against infections that they normally would fight off the case is reported to the CDC since AIDS was first identified in 1981 those cases now number well over 16,000 with more than half of the victims already dead and just as frightening at least 1 million Americans some put this figure as high as 2 million are infected with the AIDS virus they probably don't know it they may never get the disease but they could infect others about a third of the people that we polled still fear carrier and casual contact this question well there's so much written or heard about you know children with AIDS and we how they're you know stay out of school and everything what about teachers with AIDS or the cafeteria workers with AIDS we're going to have a lot of discussion about casual contact throughout this hour but dr. Jaffe in Atlanta tonight what about that question of public health facilities cafeterias restrooms and so on are you at risk there you really have no indication that aids would be transmitted in such facilities the best evidence really comes from studies of the family members of AIDS cases and they are except for transmission between sexual partners and for mother to child we see no other transmission so in other settings like schools or businesses where the amount of contact is considerably less we would think the risk would be even lower thank you dr. Jaffe as I say there will be more discussion tonight about casual contact should also forewarn you that we will be using some explicit language it is necessary in the discussion of this disease only about seven percent of the people in the NBC poll say that they have changed or admitted that they have changed their sexual habits because of the age threat but a vast majority eighty-three percent of those that we question who feel that aids will eventually be spread believe that it will be largely through sexual contact yes can past exposure from other people that even in contact with sexually spread aids to your spouse if you married about that dr. bull birding what are you learning in San Francisco yeah one of the tragedies of the disease is that a person can be infected and fuel and appear perfectly healthy and be contagious during that period of time so it is possible although it must still be very rare for for this to happen we do think it's a it's a thing to be concerned about other often expressed concerns on the part of the general public there is no vaccine yet of course and doctors seem able to do very little for the disease's victims I was wondering if I meant from up attending the developments to prolong an AIDS victims life this is a disease where we have a significant amount of understanding already of the cause and how it works and i would give cautious optimism that the longer you're free of medical problems with this virus even if you have AIDS I there is a possibility and a reasonable possibility that something important will be done about the disease at the heart of the disease with a chemical approach and probably a biological approach I speak of chemicals that directly attack the virus and improve and improve the immune system and I wouldn't be surprised if major advances in that in those directions will have come in the next few years also on this program tonight the American Red Cross has set up telephone lines with medical experts in many of your areas to take your calls the next two hours so if you would just watch the screen in your home for the Red Cross telephone number to call or that of other organizations and government agencies want to help as aids cases grow so do personal concerns the future of AIDS is already here medically puzzling politically sensitive how to handle it is a perplexing problem for all of society the questions some of the answers coming up but you hear people talk about living the fast lane I had a very active recreation of life and very intense professional life and when the brown spots showed up on my leg in December I knew I had it before the company I knew December 13th when I realized that's what they told me it was for and has never been a doubt since that night in the shower when Island oh my god that's how it begins then there's the terrible waiting the daily checking for symptoms even a common cold seems like it could be the end seventy-three percent of the victims are males with active homosexual and bisexual lifestyles largely between the ages of 20 and 50 most of the cases are concentrated in San Francisco New York and Los Angeles in those cities as many as forty percent of those living the homosexual lifestyle are now infected yet the gay community quickly got the message about AIDS and for the most part it has been the most effective in dealing with it Richard Dunne is the executive director of the gay men's health crisis here in New York and in San Francisco tonight John Lorenzini of the people with aids alliance he's had the disease now for two years and Duncan Gwynn diagnosed as having AIDS four months ago let's begin with you if we can mr. Dunn we heard that man talking about the fast lane and an active recreational lifestyle that has changed and much of the homosexual or gay community hasn't it it was always a small percentage Tom and I think it's important to remember that the people that were first infected were the ones the first exposed and so it's not surprising that those who had a large number of sexual partners would be the first ones to get sick but when we see people diagnosed now there really isn't very much difference between the number of lifetime sexual partners they've had simply because the virus is so prevalent in the gay community that any sexual contact now carries a risk but shouldn't those who remain very active who may be infected be identified in some fashion singled out as it were think they need to be identified for purposes of educating them we assume that everyone knows the facts and that's not the case in addition to that even those who know the facts that aren't changing their lifestyle need to be supported in the changing of that lifestyle and that can only be done with a massive education program and in San Francisco mr. Lawrence ed as I understand it more and more members of the gay community now are using condoms most definitely it's it's a very important part of safe sex and without safe sex there's no way that we have of dealing with this disease at this point we need to basically get the education and the responsibility in the hands of everybody to be able to protect the community at large and what would be your advice to young people who are coming up and want to lead a homosexual lifestyle be very very careful read and learn practice safety thank you very much the hardest high-risk group to reach however also poses the most danger for society seventeen percent of all cases involve intravenous drug abusers too many addicts sharing needles years of shooting up have already weakened their immune systems so they are especially susceptible unlike a gay community the drug subculture has not changed its way of living or dying here is NBC News science correspondent Robert Brazil Tom as we discuss AIDS we hear about gay men's health groups gay lobbying organizations campaigns to educate gay men there are a few such organizations or efforts for intervenors drug users even though they account for about one-fifth of the AIDS cases nationwide drug users don't seem to care much about the disease many public health officials believe the drug users represent the greatest danger for the future spread of a in a vacant lot on the lower east side of manhattan a young man and woman prepared to inject heroin into their veins they have just bought the drug nearby and they can't wait to get home before they take it first they dissolve the powder into a liquid then they draw it in two syringes and they inject it these addicts know about age and how it can be bred by sharing needles are you were scared to death when they inject the drug they draw large quantities of blood into the saran to make certain they get all of the heroin into their body it is because so much blood is involved that the widespread practice of sharing needles has led to a huge epidemic of AIDS among drug users in New York and other cities calling in a catastrophe would be an understatement we estimate that approximately half the people who inject drugs in the city have already been exposed to the virus in New York City alone that adds up to 100,000 people infected with the virus because of drug use the attics say that because of the fear of AIDS they try not to share their syringes and needles what they call their works I use a brand new said every time I never used to sit you know I won't even share mine with him anymore now but they admit when they really need the heroin they don't worry about it when you're sick you don't care about AIDS all you care about is getting straight that's the crucial phrase when you're sick when a drug user is going into withdrawal he is going to use whatever needle is available someone else is used to he's likely to use it public health officials including dr. Desjarlais say that drug users are the most likely people to infect others outside the usual age risk groups they are clearly a major threat for transmission through heterosexual content of the heterosexual contact cases in the New York City approximately ninety percent involve a drug user as the apparent source of the virus a majority of the street prostitutes in New York and other cities are drug addicts who could infect their customers almost all of the hundreds of children born with aids and aids like illnesses have been the victims of drug users most heavy the drug addicted mothers or mothers who got the virus from a drug-addicted husband or other public health officials hope to begin more campaign to educate drug users about the dangers of AIDS but there is evidence that many already know about AIDS and are trying not to share needles but when they really need to fix it doesn't matter one of the main indications of addicts concern has been that the price of new needles and syringes on the street has gone up from about a dollar a few years ago the four dollars now some officials have suggested that addicts be provided with free sterile needle but so far political leaders have rejected those suggestions during that the free needles might encourage more drug use Tom thanks Robert we want to ask our panel of experts tonight about this particularly vexing problem of drug abusers and AIDS after Jaffe in Atlanta what do we do I mean the drug community always has been very unresponsive to the idea of any kind of order and discipline I think it's true that as various groups with an AIDS problem the group of IV drug users has been by far the most difficult to reach I think perhaps we need to really develop novel approaches to get to this group to say don't use drugs if you can if you must use drugs at least don't share needles then there are the other victims of age three percent of them were blood recipients who contracted the disease through transfusions and babies born to infected mothers most of those cases are linked to blood collected before last July when the federal government ordered a new blood test for AIDS it was however several summers too late and of little comfort to some Americans the victims of chance a case in point 24 year old Indiana woman received three blood transfusions in 1982 for a bleeding ulcer she was married a year later and during the same week in May nineteen eighty-four she learned that she was pregnant on Wednesday but on Friday she was diagnosed as having AIDS hi I'm Amy Sloane and I have AIDS people don't seem to understand what a it's all about I can do almost everything that you can do raise my little boy and go about my business just like everyone else we know a lot more about AIDS and some people give us credit for Sunday we'll even find a cure until then remember that people what they are just like you except that we have a disease that kills and as you can see Amy Sloane is in Indiana tonight she's there with her husband the song are you bitter about your experience no I don't think I am bitter and I'm angry I'm angry at this disease and I hate it that I have to be sick but I don't feel like I'm better and how has it affected your relationship with your husband who's there with you tonight I don't feel like it's affected it in any bad way we had a good marriage before I was sick and we have a good marriage now I think that it just makes us love each other even more you live in great fear mr. song no we just pretty much accepted it and I just don't feel much fear about it we used to accept it you have one child right and there's been no sign of the AIDS virus on that child through what just turn one I get this right right last week he turned one year old and he's been tested three times I think and he all all the tests are negative and he's just doing fine one of the leading authorities in the blood area in terms of AIDS is dr. jerome groopman of New England's deaconess hospital he's in Boston today are you telling all of the folks that you're talking to up there dr. groopman that they can be reasonably assured now that they can go to a respectable blood bank and not expect to contract the AIDS antibody I think that's correct the nation's blood supply has essentially been decontaminated to a very high degree ninety-eight percent plus from the AIDS virus so that transfusion in 1986 is quite safe with respect to contracting AIDS dr. Jaffe if you were injured in an automobile accident say somewhere in Texas away from your home and you were rushed to a hospital and they said that we want to give you some blood transfusions would you have any second thoughts about taking them from a blood bank say in a large respected hospital in Dallas I would have no hesitation at this point in accepting blood and I certainly hope that no one would refuse necessary surgery or other procedures because of a fear about AIDS through blood transfusion as many as 1,000 Americans are being infected with the AIDS virus every day according to the CDC estimates infection is for life although most of these people probably will never get the actual age disease but they could pass the virus on to others today next week 10 years from now for the rest of their lives unknowingly in a moment how much of a common risk are these silent carriers we reported earlier that the number of Americans carrying the AIDS virus varies anywhere from 1 to 2 million that's the grim statistic and it may double in the next five years doctors right now have no way of knowing who among those infected will get the disease itself and who won't the truth is we don't know how long the incubation period can extend we know that someone can get infected and have serious problems within a year or two and then the upper limit has been extended to seven years or so the long-term consequences of infection with this virus are still not known and how long an incubation period it can have before producing disease my guess would be is can be extremely long that you might do well 10 and 20 years and still later might get a serious problem as an indirect or even direct effect of this virus there are a lot of issues that still need to be studied that would help us understand why some people who are exposed to htlv 3 come down with a disease while others seem not to come down with the disease their issues related to the age of the patient upon contact with the virus their issues related to the dose of the virus or borrow the route by which someone encounters of ours dr. Jaffe in Atlanta tonight a lot of people are wondering out there they watch this program I would guess how do I know whether I have the antibody in my system what do they do go to their family physician and get a regular blood tests the antibody test is commercially available and it would be possible for someone virtually anywhere in the country to get the test the real question is should they get the test I think at this point there is not any general recommendation for people to get the test unless they perceive themselves to be at high risk where it talks more now about casual contact and age we've heard that the virus cannot be transmitted by a casual social contact most experts also say that there is small danger of it spreading into the heterosexual community but the public seems to have its toughest time in separating this fact from fiction in both cases 10 children contact AIDS by drinking fountains glasses and sections I would like to know if you can contact AIDS by kissing touching or just being around someone that has the disease my concern is how a woman goes about getting that she has to be with a homosexual person and if it was she get it if I was to go out with her would I get it to dr. bull riding in San Francisco that business about kissing and saliva a lot of early speculation about the presence of the AIDS virus in saliva what do we know now well as you know there have been reports that the virus can occasionally and I stress occasionally be found in saliva on the other hand there is absolutely no evidence that that represents any real risk for transmission of this disease and I think the best examples we can look for our studies where families are examined where one child has AIDS or is infected with a virus and yet none of the other children even after daily contact none of the other children are infected with the virus as you know dr. pol burning some mothers are saying that we're not going to allow our children to go to school with another student who is infected with a virus because what if that child bites my child couldn't he or she then gets AIDS well I think the problem we have is that people are demanding with this disease absolute answers in the absolute protection and that's not a it's not a way we normally live our lives what I would say is that the risk of that would seem to me to be very very small in the case of school-aged children at least and that in the case of nursery aged children we do recommend that that consideration be made to keeping the infected child out of a group setting dr. Britt manan Boston tonight you heard that final question about how does a woman get age does she get it only from a homosexual and then if I have sex with her do I run the risk of getting AIDS how do you answer the those kinds of questions well I think women are at risk for contracting this virus and developing AIDS through having sexual contact mainly meaning vaginal intercourse we think with either a bisexual man or a man who's used intravenous drugs or someone who's been transfused or the wife or a girlfriend of the haemophiliac so there's no question that women have contracted the virus through sexual contact and there are some early data that indicate that men can contract the virus from women who carry the virus and how do you counsel the people that you're seeing in the Boston area about how they talk to each other about their sexual relationships especially casual sex between a man and a woman are you encouraging them to be candid one with the other I think it's terribly important given the risks to everyone in the population to contract this virus through anonymous sexual contact that people be very careful about entering relationships and having sex apart from the scientific research and the scientific symptoms of AIDS of course the score debate is generating more and more political heat these days in state legislatures and city council chambers it is fast becoming the most socially charged health issue of the decade in a moment a growing conflict between the rights of a minority and the welfare of the majority past the state's expect to deal with aids-related proposals as legislators began the 1986 session there is considerable talk about mandatory reporting of all AIDS cases and required blood tests and much agonizing over the question of quarantine Texas considered one all we want to do is medically isolate the person and someone brought out that we have to keep them until death and that isn't necessarily the case an emotional issue an ineffective way of dealing with the situation and something which is very very frightening to us to be blunt such a policy and i quote could not be enforced without the use of detailed sexual surveillance opposition was heated state health officials dropped the idea the US armed forces began blood testing of recruits last October but not without challenge the military of this country have the legal right this tribes need young men simply because their blood tests positive for the HP lv3 AIDS antibody in the workplace one company put to aid suspected employees on paid leave we're basically trying to to ensure the safety of all personnel they're playing the waiting game with me thinking that it's going to be cheaper in the long run to pay this man every two weeks because he's not going to be around that long now what we see is that most of the cases coming in or not from people with AIDS so people who are perceived as having AIDS for one reason or another either they knew gay people platonically who had AIDS or they had an IV drug using boyfriends who had a that sort of thing and we see that perception of AIDS as the fastest growing area of discrimination even children who prefer Lee knew somebody with AIDS were asked to leave school most states most politicians were reluctant to put much public emphasis on the AIDS issue originally partly because it seemed to be only a problem for homosexuals and other minorities partly because its geographic focus was so limited but now it is an ever-widening circle with questions of civil rights privacy and confidentiality joining us tonight to discuss these issues are Jeff Leedy in Washington he's a lobbyist for the National Gay task force and in Portland Oregon Christine Getty the administrator of the Oregon Department of Health Services she has the Aged task force for the association of State and territorial health officials you think that we ought to have a state organized reporting list of some kind for people who have AIDS we already do AIDS is a reportable disease in every jurisdiction in this country that's true for many many communicable diseases and is a typical public health tool for monitoring what is going on the question that is still under discussion in a variety of settings is whether in addition to the disease aids being reported the infection with the virus should be reported in order to enable monitoring of the whole spectrum of the infection that is true in some states and I think will become true in many more states over the course of the next year to 18 months mr. Libyan Washington what do you think about reporting do you think that there should be any kind of a master list whether it's confidential or not well we've certainly supported the reporting of people who have developed the full-blown disease aids of the area of controversy is over whether the htl v3 antibody test those who test positive should be reported to the state and the reason that we're generally opposed to that is twofold one is it will discourage people from being tested for fear that their names will become part of the master list and the other is because there is no medical intervention at this time for anyone who's htlv three positive other than education and we would submit that the money spent on testing and tracking and creating lists would be much more effectively spent if it were spent on education programs for targeted at high-risk groups and for the general public in San Francisco dr. bull birding do you think that you would have had fewer actual of AIDS cases in that community if people had known who was carrying the virus itself well you have to appreciate the the enormous problems that come about from testing nine may be in a minority position on this but I think there probably is a real role for a person knowing his antibody status or for antibody status to help in the process of Education the problem that we see though is that is that as as one comment was already made at this point we don't have an intervention we can't really do anything to to change that person's risk of developing disease dr. Jaffe in Atlanta as you look at communicable diseases generally we're seeing a very rapid growth now in aids cases in this country as I indicated what nearly 15,000 new cases expected this year do you think that the public outcry will grow for more governmental restrictions for closer monitoring of people who may have aged I think is the number of cases grow and the perception that aids is not completely limited to the so-called high-risk groups the level of anxiety and the general public grows in the call for the government to take some kind of radical action grows if everyone knew about safe sex about risk reduction guidelines they could protect themselves and that's the sort of education that's the sort of intervention that's the sort of prevention that's going to be most effective and will not involve trampling on people's civil liberties there's something I need to respond to that you said a little bit earlier where you you posed a division or were placed in opposition civil liberties and public health good public health takes into account the civil liberties of those who are affected because unless you're protecting those civil liberties you're not going to get the cooperation than the support of the people whose cooperation you most need I didn't mean to suggest that they were in opposition to one another I think it's a question of how do you balance all of them and that's a problem for society whether it's public health or laws or education or whatever and that's very much the situation that we have here education is one thing but what about those people who are out there and we've heard cases of them who do have the aids virus may even have the disease and continue to pursue what has been described as the fast one and lifestyle well those cases are very few and far between once effective education has been undertaken and I our first line of defense i'm going to say over and over again is good effective education in those rare rare instances where someone does behave in a way that threatens other people there is perhaps the a role for some kind of intervention mr. Warren GD you have AIDS once you discover that you had AIDS how did it affect your own lifestyle and how you treated that in terms of how you related to other people I really feel like I've emphasized or tried to incite some kind of normalcy in my life work continually try to be normal and live a normal lifestyle as anyone else with does that include sexual activity yes it does but you were candid with your partners very much so I felt that it was extremely important fact for them to know that I in fact headings and then then I also educated those individuals about what was safe sex and what wasn't and and in the many cases some of the people who I became intimate with didn't always have the know-how about safe sex so it was my responsibility not only to warn them but also to make it real clear to them about what was safe and what wasn't before me but weren't you treated like a pariah once you told one of your prospective partners that you were bearing age that in fact you had the disease very definitely but that was part of what was to be expected but you're really putting that person is a terrible risk and isn't that terrible answer I don't feel that way about it at all I feel that that when you follow the safe sex guidelines that you in fact are not putting anybody at risk and I'd also like to point out that while I do have the aids virus there are many people out there who are showing no symptoms at all who could possibly be even more contagious than I myself more questions more answers about life death and AIDS in just a moment you watch your friends walk away one by one and in some cases you watched family men walk away one by one it's it's a horrible feeling I would not wish this on my worst enemy and you know what what can you do is if you feel more comfortable being alone you have to do what's more comfortable for yourself sometimes you feel like being with people and they don't feel like being with you and it's a scary feeling sometimes but still one must never give up hope a lot of them want to talk about that and they can't dude with their family members or their lovers because that supportive network can't handle it right now so they'll talk to the nurse and he or she has that opportunity to be there to support this person I can't do anything for them i can't really and i can't fix it I can't make it better I can't make it go away but really what i could do is be there that's the human side of age dr. Reutimann in boston tonight what about the people who are caring for AIDS victims watching young people die left and right day after day after day is there a burnout factor for them I think it's very difficult emotionally it's clearly most difficult for the person who has AIDS but the emotional strain is felt by the nurses physicians everyone who encounters the patient someone who's 25 or 30 years old previously healthy and really in the prime of one's life to sound a bit try but it's real is afflicted with a with a really horrible disease with fevers return infections a disfiguring cancer and usually dies a premature and often unfortunately an uncomfortable death it has a tremendous strain on the physicians and nurses taking care of these patients I know you're a trained physician but has it been especially difficult for you as well because you have been living with it 24 hours a day I get I think it's very difficult being an oncologist the cancer specialist I had some background in caring for people who have terminal illness but not really in this age group and I think it's important despite the emotional strain to really fight and to try to help patients to do research to devise new strategies for treatment and for patients who are really not eligible for this treatment or patients who are in the terminal phase of the illness what was said before in terms of being there and being supportive I think is is very important in helping someone with this disease more scientists learn about aids the more complex it seems to be there is evidence that it can invade the brain cells for example this is a computer scan of the brain of an AIDS patient damage plainly evident to medical eyes the theory is that the virus may have been dormant maybe four years before striking this is the same patient four months later the prognosis now hopeless even to the untrained eye the station died a month later doctors first became suspicious when certain neurological conditions cropped up in AIDS patients they couldn't otherwise be explained mental disorientation depression impaired memory and judgment dr. bro boarding in San Francisco are we about to see a whole new generation of people who are somehow demented is a result of AIDS of all the clinical problems that faces it's one of the most challenging and frightening 14 for those of us seeing large numbers of people with this with this virus infection as we talked about earlier in the program we don't know what's going to happen 10 15 or 20 years after the virus infects someone and we see a very real possibility that many of the people who are now still healthy will have ongoing infection of the central nervous system and it just adds another hurdle to for us to go over and developing effective antiviral therapies for these for these patients the proof that the virus which causes AIDS gets into the brain actually came from dr. Gallo and his co-workers and I think that that refocused the kinds of therapeutic strategies that we need I think all of us who are now doing new a drug research based on this important lead will be very uncomfortable with at least therapeutic strategies which do not provide some mechanism of getting effective agents in to the brain crossing what is called the blood-brain barrier and I think armed with that knowledge we can do a better job and I think that several agents that are now under discussion on an experimental basis have that capacity to cross the blood-brain barrier and get into the brain and I think that that allows us to do a more focused kind of approach for developing new therapeutic strategies thank you dr. otis although most AIDS cases are in the United States is also a growing international concern 18 countries listed almost 4,000 cases leading scientists think that the virus originated in central Africa where age is a major problem NBC News science correspondent Robert Brazil who incidentally is the only Western television correspondent to a visited Central Africa for a first-hand look at age has this report for smut Robert Tom there have been few official reports from African governments about age even though the disease's epidemic in several areas the governments are afraid of losing trade and tourism but AIDS in Africa is important for several reasons there's becoming a major public health problem in some countries it is spreading there among heterosexuals that could tell us what might happen here and studies of the origins of the disease might help find a cure or a vaccine these are AIDS victims in Africa patients at the regional hospital in bukoba Tanzania the talent is on the shore of Lake Victoria just south of the Uganda border this is the area of equatorial East Africa where age has become an epidemic in recent years infecting people in Uganda Zaire rwanda burundi Kenya and Tanzania during a visit to the tiny hospital in bukoba i was told that just as in the United States the incidence of AIDS here has been increasing dramatically depending done for anybody the patients here like this 23 year old woman complained of symptoms different from those of American AIDS patients usually they have intestinal disorders in rapid weight loss dr. Clinton Narian kume like his counterparts in the United States can treat the symptoms but he can't cure the disease the results are the same also do we see like this one they come and then it wasn't like this for one year sometimes they did better you tell them they go home and come back later well this 19 year old single woman has come to the hospital because she suspect she has what the natives call slim disease what the doctors know is aids there's a big difference with AIDS in Africa here it is a disease primarily of heterosexuals infecting as many women as men the evidence points to transmission not by insects not by cultural rituals not by needles but by heterosexual intercourse doctors say that the victims are reluctant to discuss their sex lives but we get an impression that a single young lady in this environment would be promiscuous we think so because she's young and she's single and she is not employed yeah and so we think that she might be having more partners than they tailor in some areas the AIDS virus is already infected ten to twenty percent of the entire population because of the extent of the disease in Africa many American scientists say AIDS originated here a concept which angers Africans who say the rest of the world is trying to blame them for the disease but researchers say the best evidence is that a harmless virus which infects the African green monkey mutated to become the AIDS virus and they say studies of the history of the virus in Africa may help find a vaccine a major question is if age is a disease of heterosexuals in Africa why isn't it spreading more rapidly among heterosexuals in this country so far researchers have found no good answer but we will be very complacent if we assume that what is happening in Africa could not happen here tom night Robert let's ask dr. Gallo know about that very question if it is happening in Africa what should we know about what is going on there and what is the application of the United ah cacao I don't know how much of analogies we could make from Africa because we don't have enough detailed information yet really we don't know enough details to say that exactly what happened in Africa could happen in the United States I would say that I see no reason that anyone should be panicking that the virus is spreading rapidly in the heterosexual population that is just not true and you've heard it said by everyone and I would agree with that that it can go heterosexually i believe is established but i suspect if medical science doesn't intervene adequately and no other change occurs population density or the way we live that will be a very gradual increment in the heterosexual population and then maybe in 50 60 70 years it would be a significant error or sexual problem I don't imagine it's going to be a significant heterosexual problem in the very near future a laboratory battle against age doesn't look so helpless and hopeless if judged by the distance already traveled and not just the distance to go we want to talk about that now about where we are going from here and how far we have come at the gala when you mentioned earlier in the program that we are making real progress are we just making death easier for AIDS victims are we making their process less painful than it might have been or are we seeing the real possibility of developing a vaccine oh right if you will on the horizon we think during the coming year will see the first evidence of a what I would like to call a an effect or a dent on this disease I speak not yet of a cure but of a real effect on the virus that helps people with the disease I don't think we need a miracle I think what we need is continued hard work a few more creative ideas to get over a few more hurdles but that one can understand the etiologic agents now we can grow it we understand its genes to a certain degree we understand a great deal of how this virus killed the critical cell of the immune system known as the t4 helper cell we understand even something of the molecular mechanism already regarding a vaccine there's a great deal of activity going on now I I don't think anyone is in the position to predict a vaccine will be effective next year or in two years or three years but I do think that in the coming year or two we are in a position to be able to say yes a vaccine is likely at least in a limited population and likely to work without toxicity in X years by next year or the year after let me rephrase that in summarizes some time in 86 or 87 I believe science will be in the position to answer your question as to when a vaccine should be available the answer might be not for a long time or it might be in a few years thereafter there's enough ongoing work now that makes me state that as my best guess of what's going to occur dr. Jo let me ask a doc Scruton if I may are you getting enough money to do the kind of research that you need to do doc Bruton I think that after an initial period when there was very little money for research and even less money for education congress appropriated funds i'm very concerned about the gram Rudman amendment and the cuts both in the programs based at the national institutes of health as well as the cooperative programs they've been a number of articles and I in the paper recently and no one knows exactly what will be caught but what is being threatened our educational programs which I think are terribly important and also some of the moves to have multicenter treatment trials for patients with AIDS thank you and remember if you have questions about any of the information in tonight's program there should be a telephone number at the bottom of your screen you can call the American Red Cross or other health agencies phone lines have been set up so that experts can take your calls we'll be back with more on life death and AIDS in a moment to all of you in Washington in Atlanta Boston and in San Francisco tonight thank you very much for what has been in a lightning hour we all know a great deal more about AIDS and what lies ahead so far as we can tell at this point we are appreciative we hope that you have learned tonight as well we have all heard again and again and again tonight the bulk of medical evidence says that for most Americans the risk of getting AIDS is minimal if you are heterosexual and don't live a freewheeling lifestyle involving sexual experimentation or promiscuity if you don't shoot drugs or have sex with people who do your chances of getting aids are one in a million the chances are greater that you could be killed in a car accident or in America even murdered aids if not stoppable can be slowed down now by changing sexual behavior within high-risk groups by a careful screening of the nation's blood supply or by getting the message to drug users in the meantime however people continue to die of AIDS and ever-increasing numbers all of us of course hope that there will be a cure or a vaccine but for the moment education and caution are the only vaccines I'm Tom Brokaw for all of us at NBC News good night Oh Oh life death and AIDS is a production of NBC News which is responsible for its content wonderful

Channel: Rainbow History Project

Views: 48,945

Keywords: Rainbow History Project, HIV, HIV/AIDS, AIDS, NBC News, Tom Brokaw

Id: 1gjxud-dX88

Length: 49min 25sec (2965 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 03 2018