(00:00:00) The following is a special program on AIDS its Origins and spread its effects on society and the efforts of science to conquer it. The program was produced for the Canadian broadcasting corporation's radio network current affairs show Sunday morning. It was first broadcast, September 22nd 1985 host of the broadcast is Christopher Thomas. (00:00:40) father abandoned child wife husband one brother another for the plague seemed to strike through breath and site and so they died and no one could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship those words could apply to AIDS but they were written in the year 13:48 about the black death which devastated all Europe in just four years the clear simple horror that the words convey is characteristic of what we now call the plague mentality societies shocked and bewildered reaction to a ravaging sickness that seems unexplainable and incurable this Disease has the potential to be the black death of this Century. The people with AIDS the people with a disease probably only represent the tip of the iceberg Biggest Part under the water consists of individuals who've been infected with the virus, but who have absolutely no symptoms associated with this infection and are possibly infectious to other people as a society. We may all at some level be in danger of getting AIDS and I think that we as Canadians have to look upon this as a global problem and not simply a problem that is restricted to one or two groups with special interests. It's clear that the virus is being transmitted heterosexually in the United States in Europe certainly in Africa, and there's no reason to expect that. It won't sweep through the young heterosexual population in the near future. In fact that's already happening. This disease has been escalating dangerously since it was recognized unless we do something quickly. We're going to be so far behind that. We'll be just left trying to mop up the disaster that has occurred because of this huge spread. We won't have enough time or Personnel Resources not to mention the money to try and get ahead of it. In the next hour and a half through a series of feature reports Sunday morning examines AIDS in the four years since it was identified its toll of victims his growing geometrically some 14,000 Americans have come down with the disease so far, but it's estimated that 500,000 to a million have been infected in Canada. There are now about 300 AIDS patients but projections are the two hundred thousand Canadians will become infected within the next five years. There is no cure for AIDS. It's already killed half of its victims. No one has ever been known to recover from AIDS authorities say it could become one of those epidemics the changes world history and mass fear has become widespread. I'd like you to meet Walter a middle-aged Montreal man who learned two years ago that he has AIDS virus free. I submitted myself. I was wondering whether my I was going to turn into a leper and a good life. I service people are I thought I was a good person you start thinking of all these things because the media then was calling at the gay cancer and you started thinking am I being punished my victim? And that took a lot to break through because the media kept reminding you and all those are the right-wing groups that you being punished. The best thing about AIDS is that it's killing all those people that gay disease will hear from Walter a few times as we continue our coverage of AIDS this morning. It will step back every so often to reflect more on how people have traditionally reacted to disease when it's unfamiliar and frightening, but first we go to Paris the Pasteur Institute caught the Public's attention this summer when actor Rock Hudson was treated for AIDS there now as Sunday morning correspondent Bridget Phillips discovered. The French government is worried about a second possible epidemic public panic over (00:05:08) AIDS. (00:05:15) Fall (00:05:15) fall last week doctors identified 58 new AIDS victims in France all young children, most of them in school that news jolted the French public to an outrage over AIDS or Sita in French that has never before surfaced. There are 400 AIDS victims in France and doctors are reporting 7u cases a week this summer. Even the Prime Minister stepped into calm public worry about AIDS the change occurred in France when the numbers of victims rocketed doubling in the past year and it came with an influx of foreigners. They came from across Europe and especially from the United State vainly seeking the magical cure doctors who believed to have concocted at the Pasteur Institute. Dr. Phillips. Also Nettie describes what the pastor hospital was like at its worst last winter these people pulled that we had the drug and (00:06:05) that was it. So we had a lot of calls. We had a lot of pressure. We even had people coming here with their suitcases. I mean no call nothing just showing up at the hospital. And that was very difficult to handle because you mean you had these poor people here looking for treatment at least and what could we do and was very difficult to recheck (00:06:28) his people. Dr. Thompson Eddie chief of the clinic for infectious diseases that the pastor Hospital says he is now getting endless calls from sick people convinced. They have AIDS the rush of those suffering from AIDS has subsided but the public has started to overreact to the disease. We also (00:06:49) get a lot of calls from people believe they might have AIDS or just, you know, reading the press or hearing the news and most of these people have nothing obviously, but you know AIDS patients is a real limited number of patients and these are the serious ones we have to deal with and most of their calls are very anxious. (00:07:13) Constant discussion of AIDS in the media fuels the panic and makes the illness worse for those who are afflicted rations Salim is a Canadian who is doing internship at lap ETA hospital where much of the clinical testing for AIDS is (00:07:26) done. It is not a private thickness anymore people. Usually they are not that sick, but they are they here in the newspaper and TV radio about something that might have and which makes things much worse for them. (00:07:45) Perhaps the height of the publicity and France came in July with the very public pilgrimage to Paris of Hollywood AIDS victim Rock Hudson. Dr. Willy Rosenbaum chief of the clinical testing unit at lap. ETA Hospital says the attention focused on AIDS and what he calls The psychosis building around it only complicates the (00:08:05) problem, that's true, but it's not justified because it's this is like another you know, if you if you look about hepatitis, for example, who is another sexually transmitted viral disease. I'm sure that this disease is responsible for more deaths. Then AIDS it's very difficult to trick to get a hit even with sexual contact. It's quite impossible to get AIDS by casual contact not quite but it's completely impossible (00:08:44) head. It's been a hundred years since Louis Pasteur founded a medical research institute after he discovered the cure for rabies, but a hundred years of medical breakthroughs have pale beside the pastor's pioneering work on the virus causing Aid some doctors believe a cure or at least a method to control the disease could be available in less than five years. Meanwhile, what do doctors at the Pasteur Institute tell victim. Dr. Swanson Eddie reflects in his office a wing of The Faded century-old Pastor Hospital built around an ornate Greenhouse that he believes there is no point holding up false hopes for a quick cure. No, I would never tell them (00:09:26) this sort of jokes. I mean, it's that wouldn't be serious. I mean these people are in a very serious conditions and they know it and it would be stupid to telling them that there is hope for cure now. We don't do that. (00:09:42) Whatever odds are placed on a cure there is no question that there is a furious battle to find it. The frenetic work on AIDS doctors in Paris. Say can only be viewed as part of the long tradition for research that was established a hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur for Sunday morning. This is Bridget Phillips in Paris. (00:10:04) What makes the AIDS virus so hard to conquer is that it attacks? The very weapons our bodies normally muster against illness leaving us vulnerable to a huge number of ailments that normally occur. Only rarely here again is our anonymous AIDS patient Walter. I have a team of doctors. I have my main doctor here plus my dermatologist plus an oncologist cancer doctor that's infectious disease. respiratory doctors who checks my x-rays together so I get a lot of medical. Looking at I've had herpes rectal herpes diarrhea. lots of fevers and chills I've had something called Candida or thrush just fungus in the mouth. Well these little diseases so these bugs and viruses that's what kills a lot of people not having AIDS the complications from all these opportunistic diseases. I started reading voraciously, but of course everything you read is dated, but I managed to get a good background for theories and the past of how it started, you know with the green monkeys in Africa a lot of good that (00:11:35) does. (00:11:46) Central Africa is almost certainly the place where AIDS originated it's already reached epidemic proportions in Zaire Rwanda and Burundi according to the World Health Organization, but its full extent is unknown. Most Central African governments are extremely secretive about the situation except for the little country of Rwanda of a population of five million more than 5,000 have AIDS five times that many have probably been infected Sunday morning contributor piggy Riley visited Rwanda and sends this report. (00:12:31) Like most of central Africa the people of Rwanda often consult both a modern medical doctor and a traditional healer when they're ill traditional healers rely on Ancient therapies, which range from her Beau potions to sorcery and Witchcraft one traditional healer may use musical therapy. He plays the harp on the patient's back another might use razor blade to bleed the patient a practice which can pass along any number of infections including AIDS. Most traditional healers are to be found deep in the Rwandan Countryside because people there are more likely to believe in their alleged Powers, but there is one Healer who lives on the outskirts of Kigali down the narrow winding dirt path. So the shanty town called to condo because traditional medicine is so important in this country. It seemed perfectly legitimate to find a Healer and ask him about AIDS. He had not heard of the disease and said he'd seen no one with the symptoms I described but he did tell me about his special top secret medicine that he's famous. (00:13:31) Or electricity Goku Boot and (00:13:35) Connie is this example for the liver problems? You should have patience goes to the doctor on call you all day, and they have been told they have liver problems and you should admit there's not much help then the comes to him. That's something for the liver. He says it's a lot of different kind of bush and I don't know the name. I don't think he'll tell us and they're soaking in water and then he uses the water boiling it coming back. The boil it first after the stirring it then bring it and then the strain it and put it in bottles and it's really conducive and then you drink it. Yes. It's wrinkle cream waffles. And then you're all like when you feel better for life, if someone came to him with cedar does he think he has a cure for for that? Love you and welcome. Where are we if someone comes to him for him, he thinks you'll examine them and you give them the medicine is someone who has worms, but he doesn't have a cure for that. My understanding is that people are not told what they have in this part of the world that just told but they're ill As I know no one has been to have they heard of it. Are there sort of rumors going around about me going wrong about that, but they don't think it can affect them because you just said something that has to do with the white people. So don't don't bother they think it's a white man's disease. Yes, the don't think that because I've spoken to someone this morning who has it. I asked them. What do you think you have? He said, I don't know. You don't think she don't know. No that doesn't belong to (00:16:02) us. What is this? What is this current weight in (00:16:07) kilos? A number of people in Rwanda told me that they were charades had come from America but researchers in America disagree and think it's well worth looking to Africa for the possible origins of the disease. One of these researchers is Douglas Feldman who was sent to Rwanda by the AIDS Medical Foundation in New York to spend two weeks Gathering data at the Kigali Hospital. Rwanda was a natural place for filmin to carry out his study because according to preliminary finding the number of possible AIDS virus carriers in the country is alarmingly high (00:16:39) a quarter of a million people currently are infected with the AIDS virus in this country at this time. (00:16:46) And that's a population of how many out of five and a half (00:16:48) million. We're talking about a disease that that is potentially lethal where where 250,000 people in a country the size of the state of Maryland have the bar. As we're talking about a significant problem. It may be well maybe higher and maybe lower on the average. I would say good estimate would be about 25,000 would develop AIDS and die from AIDS within five years (00:17:19) by mid-morning. The Open Market in the middle of Kigali is jammed women with babies bound on their backs flash glittering white and gold Smiles as they haggle over the price of beans or bright green banana others parade around skillfully balancing everything from wicker baskets two suitcases on their heads based on the testing of blood samples last year Belgian doctors estimate that 30,000 people in Kigali are presently carrying the AIDS virus in a population of 150,000 that could mean one in five people in this market is infected with AIDS, but much more testing needs to be done. We wonder is still a rather remote place people identify themselves as either being from the Hutu or Tutsi tribe and there are small groups of pygmies called the trois. There's no television in Rwanda and international news events just don't seem to be relevant to what is basically a primitive farming Society. But the news about AIDS that's being splashed Across the Western press almost every day quickly trickles down to the streets of Kigali and there's news about AIDS that's even being made in Rwanda where Belgian researchers are continuing their work to try to establish. If the AIDS figures are as high as their early study suggests Rwanda used to be under Belgian control. So it's only natural that Belgian doctors would be carrying out this effort their work depends on the cooperation of the Rwandan government, although touchy about the AIDS issue so far the Rwandan government has set a model example by assisting the Belgian doctors and reassuring an apprehensive public with radio broadcast and newspaper articles. That's a lot more than Some other countries in central Africa have done as dr. Peter piot with the Institute of tropical medicine in Antwerp explains. In other countries in (00:19:10) Africa. The even talking about AIDS is Real Taboo, and I know of one country were the minister of Health declared on television that there is no AIDS in the in this country, which I mean we know from seeing patients here in Europe from that country that it's not true on the other hand. We have to be to understand that these governments may be somewhat reluctant to give full publicity to to the problem because if we think of what the damage that has been done to Haiti princes into the tourist industry in Haiti. Now, the latest fashion in speculation is that it's that it's it originated in Africa. Up to now, this is a hypothesis which is being taken seriously, but we have no hard facts to prove it and even if central Africa is the source or is where it came from. We still have to find out how it arrived in central (00:20:17) Africa. Even if an AIDS vaccine is discovered the continent that may need it the most would probably be the last to receive it the vaccine would almost certainly be very expensive and many African governments can hardly afford to buy enough of the vaccines that already exists. Dr. Piat. (00:20:36) We have to realize that these countries have is very small budget for health princess. Rwanda has a health budget per person per year of $1. It's all they can spend per person per year. If you have that type of budget and you have other diseases that are killing even more people such as measles in children and malnutrition tuberculosis. Malaria. And these are all diseases you can cure. Whereas age is an incurable disease up to now. I really wonder whether AIDS is a priority for these (00:21:12) countries as Dawn breaks over Kigali the city's only Hospital slowly stirs to life the Maternity Ward plays the reveling as usual some patients have had to spend the night to an embed relative sleep outside on the grounds of the hospital compound despite the chill Mountain are the relatives are the ones who make sure the patient is fed. The hospital does not serve meals in the Red Cross comes only on Sundays. There are people here with age-old killer diseases like malaria and hepatitis. And at any one time there are at least ten patients in the hospital who have the much newer AIDS the two women patients one age 24 and the other 42 could be Ethiopian famine. Victims doctors believe that both probably got the disease from their husbands the husbands who abandon their wives are roaming the country free to infect others others who can also infect people unknowingly are the hospital's ambulatory AIDS patients who come in for cerumen treatments. The disturbing thing is that some of these patients are neither told what they have or even advised to refrain from sexual relations. I met one of these patients at someone's home in the shanty town of giocondo. May I ask him if he's had venereal diseases? It is Kyra. Typically, there's a man he never had a disease in the past. Did he have did he make visits to any prostitutes? Yes. Yes. They have he has been to the positive. He told me personally that he can't help it. He everyday have to have woman. The Belgian doctors defend the practice of keeping certain patients in ignorant by saying that giving the patients and use of AIDS must be weighed off against one possible reaction that the patient may flee the hospital to seek a traditional healer or just simply go home to Die the most important feature of AIDS in Africa is that it provides the proof that the disease can be spread as easily by heterosexual contact as it can by homosexual contact as dr. Piat discovered in a study. He did in Zaire which showed that the ratio of males to females with AIDS and his sample was almost 121. Dr. Piat (00:23:40) major road of transmission was in is heterosexual contact. Although I must say it's most of the patients with AIDS in Africa are really very promiscuous heterosexuals. So the common link between homosexual men with AIDS and heterosexual Africans with AIDS is sexual (00:24:04) promiscuity. Weaving my way to the back streets of Kigali. I found a group of Zaire Ian prostitute like many others. They are Housewives and single mothers by day prostitute By Night studies done in central Africa have found prostitutes particularly vulnerable to the disease more than 80% in the surveys had the AIDS virus despite the frightening figures these prostitutes. I talk to either had serious misconceptions about AIDS and how its transmitted or they decided to make light of the Disease by joking about it what it is. okay, they say (00:24:49) it's an (00:24:51) illness which gives so many people they think it started because there are some some men (00:24:58) and women who came to make love with with dogs come we have sexual intercourse with dogs, (00:25:07) but they understand that it is a sexually transmitted disease they say (00:25:17) They could accept that theory (00:25:20) if (00:25:21) children could not be attacked by the disease the disease but they say that even children can get it (00:25:29) but you explained to them that the only way children can get it as if they're born with it from a mother who has it. This disease were to be (00:25:41) generalized so many women and men and women could have already died. So they don't believe it exists here very much. (00:25:51) Do they have any fear of getting Theta this is the fear is because it is no medicine to cure it. Doctors here admit they're worried even scared about the future. It's like in the movie Jaws when Belgian doctor said when they saw the shark they said we are going to need a bigger boat. Well, we're going to need a bigger hospital. He warned a Rwandan doctor pinpointed prostitution as the area of greatest concern (00:26:25) is Dina Melody three kids can be compared to cancer is both diseases are incurable in Africa. The situation is becoming serious and we hope that an AIDS vaccine can be found quickly out in the Villages and in the countryside AIDS isn't too common yet. But in Africa cities were morality is more relaxed and sexual contact is more frequent. It's spreading very very quickly prostitutes or the most common AIDS cases a single prostitute can infect perhaps 10 people per day and all these people in turn infect their wives or girlfriends. It's one of our greatest public health (00:27:00) problems. For the moment doctors are prescribing disposable needles the use of condoms and a general education program as a way to combat AIDS in Africa. That's the same advice that's being given in North America. But until there's a medical breakthrough this recipe for the prevention of AIDS seems to be about all doctors around the world have to offer for Sunday morning. This is Peggy Riley in Kigali Rwanda. (00:27:44) Traditionally the diseases that have become epidemics in the western world have been imported from other continents black Africans Asians and orientals have all been blamed for various epidemics and the lower classes have been reviled for spreading them. But when an epidemic raged eventually no one was safe wealth power land social status none could offer protection from a plague. So the ruling classes ultimately had to protect themselves by combating the disease the Black Death led directly to the creation of the first Municipal Boards of Health to public sanitation measures in many of the cities of Europe and to the acceptance of surgeons and other kinds of practical doctors in a field that had previously been top-heavy with Theory and philosophy. This pattern has continued through the centuries in the Mammoth epidemic of Cholera struck first Canada, then the United States. It was brought here by desperately poor Irish immigrants. It was quickly labeled the Poor People's plague Morales said the disease was God's retribution against the poor. Here's what the children of the time were told in a widely distributed Sunday school paper drunkards and filthy Wicked people of all descriptions are swept away and heaps as if the holy God could no longer bear their wickedness just as we sweep away a mass of Filth when it has become so corrupt that we cannot bear it the cholera is not caused by intemperance and filth in themselves, but it is a Scourge a rod in the hand of God and yet when the color of began its spread across class lines medical research was stepped up relief funds and charitable agencies began springing up to Aid cholera victims. They inspired this comment in a newspaper of the day. The Retro might have died and squalid want unseen unmarred by our hard-hearted blindness ringing from Fear what pity would not Grant becomes the sudden object of kindness now that his betters he may implicate and spread infection to the rich and great in 1985 the rich and great our Hollywood stars Medical Research into AIDS has been proceeding frantically since the disease was first identified, but it was the news that Rock Hudson had contracted AIDs that one at the attention of Ronald Reagan and inspired Gala celebrity-studded fundraisers like the Hollywood Extravaganza this week. It is said to have raised a million dollars and AIDS research needs that help scientists have learned a lot about how the AIDS virus operates but progress towards a successful treatment a cure or prevent of Maxine is slow and difficult Sunday morning producer Heather Pullin has this report on the medical struggle to conquer AIDS this morning and it clearly is better. Now that we have you on the back room. So hang in there with that. When's it going to come back? Well, you know, it's a situation as I've explained to you before that when your immune system is is compromised the way yours is that you just have to keep heads up that you know, it could come back any time does it (00:31:12) look like, dr. Anthony fauci has stopped on his rounds in a Bethesda, Maryland Clinic to visit Frank Frank feels terrible. He has swollen glands a lung infection and skin cancer common ailments for AIDS victims. Dr. Fouch e can offer day-to-day encouragement, but no hope he knows Frank has six months or less to live dr. Fouch e and other researchers at the National Institutes of Health lead the North American campaign against AIDS their studies reveal a virus that for now is an overwhelming (00:31:48) enemy. This is the only viral or any infection known to man with a Target cell for the infection is the very cell that is responsible for fighting the infection. It's almost as if an army attacks, but the first thing they attack is your ammunition Supply so that you can't fight back because you don't have any more ammunition, for example, if you were to get an influenza infection, the influenza virus would be infecting the cells in your upper Airway in your nose and your throat and then in your lungs, but the immune system would be totally capable. Coming in and ultimately overcoming that influenza infection with AIDS those viruses that virus the the cause of age first and foremost knocks out your defenses. So you can't make a defense against it and what about the catfish? He's is it is it going to continue? I mean these these spots are driving me crazy. Are they going to continue? Are they going to get bigger or what? Am I? What can I expect out of this? Well, the ones that were on your legs and on your feet that we looked at yesterday and looking at them now looks like they're they're sort of getting a little bit angry. They hurting you a lot when you walk or is it just (00:33:09) the red bruise like sores on Frank's Body are kaposi sarcoma. This rare form of skin cancer Brands many victims of AIDS. The virus has overpowered Frank's immune system leaving him vulnerable to illnesses and infections that kill. Sadder still is the fact that the virus may also be attacking Frank's brain Canadian expert. Dr. Stanley Reid says that fully a third of AIDS patients suffer brain damage. So not only must they cope with death. They have to face the prospect of going insane. Dr. Reid is with the Canadian national advisory committee on AIDS. (00:33:51) What we notice is that if you look for it, there are early subtle changes in mental abilities in understanding memory various functions that can be tested and early on. These are very subtle changes. If you follow these people along with time, they become more dramatic and more severe and more obvious and a certain number of individuals with AIDS actually become seriously impaired as the result of this ongoing. Process and this often will animate people who would otherwise be friendly toward them because they don't understand what's going on and they can't understand why this person they're trying to help as being so difficult. This whole thing is a building within a building and we're not allowed to go in here. In fact only very few people are with a series of keys the air flow in and out of this facility is carefully controlled the air that leaves here is sterilized the water that leaves here is sterilized there. (00:35:04) Dr. William has Alton and his colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Take no Chances with the AIDS virus. They grow it here in high concentrations for research. It takes three keys and two changes of clothing to get into the labs where the virus is grown in met. Dr. Hazelton made a very important Discovery one that can Times the potency of the virus he found that it reproduces or replicates a hundred to a thousand times faster than other known viruses. In other words, give it an inch. It'll take a mile and fast (00:35:42) once infected the virus can very quickly establish a toehold in the body. It can see it in too many cells in the very early infectious phases of the disease before the body of it has time to react it is also probably responsible for the ability of this virus to be so infectious in people-to-people contacts that is a little bit of Iris getting in can do a lot of (00:36:07) damage. Doctor has Alton has made another major Discovery. He has learned that as the virus reproduces it changes this mutation happens so fast that the genetic code for the new cells get scrambled doctor has Alton (00:36:25) the process of virus replication particularly of these kinds of iris is inaccurate. It's like you had a bad xerox machine. No virus is identical to any other virus and what that means is the more the virus replicates. The more mistakes is going to make them. So even if you are mounting a good immune response, the virus can change faster than the body's ability to react to it. (00:36:50) This is bad news for scientists who are trying to develop a vaccine against AIDS. The changing AIDS virus is like an enemy that's always in different disguises as dr. Hazleton points out. The body can't fight something. It can't recognize (00:37:07) one part of the virus a changes faster than any other is the outside shell that's the part that the body has to recognize to protect itself. Now if one is going to make a vaccine, it's thought that the most important part of the virus for the body to recognize that is for people to be immunized so that they can recognize is the outside. If it's true that the virus is changing so fast that the virus that's present in one person isn't really the virus that's present in another then that raises the distinct possibility that there would have to be a unique vaccine for each virus, which is impossible. (00:37:44) But researchers aren't giving up on the search for a vaccine. In fact, they've discovered some air. Months of that outside shell which all forms of the AIDS virus seem to have in common using this information scientists in North Carolina and Texas have developed prototype vaccines there. Now testing them on animals these experiments show promise, but it'll be a long time before the vaccines can be tested on people. This innocuous gray machine serves two critical purposes. It's conducting the Eliza test the first practical method of detecting AIDS antibodies in blood samples. This tells doctors if their patients have been exposed to AIDS and it allows blood banks to screen donated blood for AIDS contamination. If antibodies are detected. It means the patient or donor has been exposed to the virus many people who have AIDS antibodies will never get sick themselves. However, they can be carriers and can unknowingly pass the virus on to others how the experts say. It takes an exchange of body fluids that is fluid from an infected person must enter the body of another person usually blood or semen the virus cannot take hold without direct access the director general of the Canadian laboratory Center for Disease Control, dr. Alistair Clayton. Is concerned that the infectiousness of the virus has been exaggerated. (00:39:20) The definitive word is that you have to have a lot of contact with somebody who has got AIDS in other words, you have to get multiple intimate contact with it be sexual or Through Blood products and under those circumstances. You do not get it casually and this is the big thing that people are misinterpreting. You cannot get AIDS as we understand it today from casual everyday social contact for example being served in a restaurant by somebody who has AIDS is not a problem associating with somebody in your home who has AIDS is not a problem sitting on a bus with somebody who's a has ait's not a problem. These are questions that have been asked of me. So that is why I bring them back in this way. You cannot get he's from a toilet seat with some people seem to think you can they're all the ways that you cannot get AIDS there are so many of them the essence of it is that you only get eats by multiple intimate (00:40:10) contact. Dr. Eric Jeffries has monitored the spread of AIDS in the Vancouver gay community for three years. He estimates that two out of every five gay men have been exposed to the virus and may be spreading it. (00:40:27) The real importance of the spread is through anal receptive intercourse and that has been shown in our study. It has been corroborated by nearly all the other studies and I still believe that that is the most dangerous method of spread. The other things are possibilities anything is possible in medicine. But whenever you're talking probabilities, then it is the person who is receptive with anal sex. (00:40:53) It's clear that a full-fledged cure for AIDS will have to do two things suppress the virus and boost the immune system. Dr. Anthony fauci of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda is attempting to do that for three special patients. Each of them has a healthy identical twin first, they'll be given drugs to hold back the virus and then a bone marrow transplant from the Twin bone marrow produces the blood cells and antibodies which protect the body from infection. Dr. Fouch. He says that if this works similar therapies could be tried on other AIDS patients. (00:41:32) Well, it's very important to establish whether you can eat under the best of circumstances cure the disease if you can't cure it here, then we're really in trouble. If you can prove that it can be done in identical twins. Then you can go to compatible non twin bone marrow transplants like are done with a lot of the leukemias and other types of diseases that will add another new dimension to the treatment. When we've made a discovery that we finally confirmed we celebrate and we celebrate by buying a bottle of champagne. So for example, this one it says Laura is tap (00:42:12) what that atop bookshelves and dr. William hazlitt ins office in Boston are lined with champagne bottles. Each marks an important discovery made in the lab down the hall for researchers. Like dr. Hazelton. The study of AIDS is an exhilarating Adventure. It earns him Prestige and recognition. Tell me about your most recent bottle. (00:42:34) Well, the most recent one has been the discovery of the Gene and the receptor for the gene on the virus that allows the AIDS virus to replicate so fast and that's a better brand of champagne there. That's the mobs. Yeah. The other ones are usually California and Champagnes, but (00:42:55) much has been learned in a very short time about how a Kills yet doctor has Wilton like many experts believes prevention not science provides the immediate solution. (00:43:06) We have to very serious problems. We have a very rapidly spreading disease and we have no means with which we can stop that the only tools we have to stop it. Now our public education. That is we know it's a venereal disease and we know it's transmitted by needles that we know in general how is transmitted and people should stop engaging in those practices which spread it that's what we can do right now. (00:43:32) There are more questions than answers about AIDS the current public concern which verges on hysteria is fed by ignorance. The scientific Community is scrambling to come up with answers in the end. Its success or failure will be measured in human lives for Sunday morning. This is Heather Poland in Boston. (00:43:56) And there's disturbing new information about Which social groups risk Contracting AIDS and how they get the disease fear is growing that the heterosexual transmission of AIDS is on the increase in North America. There's concern in some quarters that prostitutes may be dangerous carriers of the AIDS virus Renee Montagne reports from New York. (00:44:20) At the bustling Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. Dr. Nils Tighe beagle has been wrestling with the question of heterosexual transmission of AIDS for three years now back in 1982 stag beetle set up an ongoing study of female partners of men suffering from AIDS by 1983 one year later. His team had already observed that six of the seven women were suffering from either AIDS or aids-related complex pre-aids. His report was the first to establish scientifically that men could give aids to women since then several other Studies have come up with similar findings and as we've heard before a great deal of data has come in from central Africa and (00:44:58) Haiti namely that a large proportion of the individuals in central Africa and in Haiti who have AIDS are females a heterosexual transmission is probably involved in some of those Zaire individuals and Haitians who are (00:45:12) females while it's now been observed in Laboratories that blood and semen contain the AIDS virus. No scientists has yet shown that vaginal secretions do most researchers believe it's likely to turn out that way but even based on just what we know now sty beagle says women ought to be able to transmit the AIDS virus to (00:45:31) men sex during menstrual period would have a greater risk because the bug is in the is in the blood ordering just a the normal mechanics of intercourse is some breakdown and capillary of the AIDS individual the individual who carries it and then a small break down and mucous membrane or capillary in the recipient. And that's how it's getting (00:45:50) across the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Now put the figure for heterosexually transmitted cases of AIDS at 1% but that's mainly men giving the disease to women in those cases where researchers think that the disease is going from a woman to a man. This conclusion was always arrived at by a process of elimination The Man simply could not Gotten it. Any other way this logic is at work in a major study done at the huge Walter Reed Military Hospital in Washington DC done in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute. The study focused on three dozen military men who had come to Walter Reed for treatment of AIDS or aids-related complex in this study headed up by. Dr. Robert Redfield those men who didn't fit into any of the known risk groups eight men and all did however have in common a certain kind of sexual activity. (00:46:37) Some of the individuals had as a risk factor IV drug use in the past or current IV drug use and then the rest of the individuals had as a proposed risk factor multiple heterosexual contacts, including the employment of prostitutes in the late 70s early 1980 (00:46:56) Redfield is quick to say that this does not prove that women gave aids to these men, but he says it strongly suggest such a thing and Redfield takes it further reasoning that if multiple sexual contacts is a risk factor than having The Prostitute who also has multiple sex partners ought to be the most dangerous of all (00:47:15) in 1985 the heterosexual population of the United States this is this infection with this virus is very very rare. It's very unlikely that you are I will come in contact with this virus in interactions with an average heterosexual in this country. But if we were to have heterosexual activity with individuals that are known to have a high prevalence of infection, for example women that would have heterosexual activity with bisexual males in New York City would have a greater likelihood of coming in sexual contact with this virus. I would propose to you that men that have sexual contact with women that have multiple sexual partners which may include bisexual males or women that have sexual partners that maybe IV drug addicts or women that also maybe IV drug addicts IE all of those situations reflect prostitutes have a greater likelihood of coming in contact with the virus. (00:48:10) Projected that field study is stirred up a great deal of controversy mainly because the researcher deduces such significant findings from so little hard evidence epidemiologist Judith Cohen heads up the San francisco-based Association of women's AIDS research and education also called aware. Dr. Colin is skeptical about anyone claiming proof that prostitutes have a particular role in spreading the disease. There's a lot more suspicions about prostitution than there is evidence one way or the other there are no cases that we know of at least of specifically individually documented cases of anyone getting AIDS from a prostitute. There are prostitutes who have been found carrying the virus, but many of those also have a history for example of intravenous drug use if that is the case. It may provide us information with how the prostitutes got the disease but it doesn't provide any information as to whether that disease will in turn spread from them to anyone else. We don't know all we do know is that if prostitutes work area then we'd all be done. And Gloria is a spokesperson for the San Francisco prostitutes. I mean because you know prostitutes they see basically 5 to 25 guys are weak, you know, and so if one prostitute is seeing one, you know 5 to 25 guys a week and we have I don't know millions of prostitutes everywhere then everybody would be dying of this disease. Well, she does allow that intravenous drug users who have turned to prostitution to support their habit could be spreading the disease Gloria says what she terms straight prostitutes are being extremely cautious these days they are concerned that they have to protect himself, you know, they're using more condoms. They've got AIDS magazines laying around their house and you know, they had an article in Newsweek that made the front page about three months ago and the girl said she puts it right in her shower. So everybody can see it. I also know a couple of people that has went to domination so that they won't have to touch the guy, you know at all the prostitutes that are taking care of themselves and that are aware what's going on there. Really? Third glory is now working on a two-year study launched by dr. Judith Cohen involving 500 sexually active women a third of whom are prostitutes the study aims to pinpoint exactly what the risk factors are both for exposure to the disease and for transmitting it (00:50:30) in New (00:50:30) York. Another large study involving prostitutes is now underway. Dr. Joyce Wallace who's been studying sexually transmitted diseases for a decade and was one of the first to treat AIDS patients is now examining in-depth women who are or have been drug users a number are also prostitutes in her initial results will be published this fall. Dr. Wallace takes a middle ground on the issue of how much of a threat the prostitutes might be. They think because it's lethal. Therefore is highly contagious. Whereas the opposite is true. Yes, it is legal, but however, it is not highly contagious and people confuse the two I guess because of its seriousness though. Keep saying they want to take no chances and I think the media has made a lot of hullabaloo about the prostitutes and showing pictures of streetwalkers. I think this is potentially a problem, but we haven't been able to prove that. It's a problem yet. This is the work that I first did in 1981 where we showed that those homosexual men who were most sexually active almost immuno depressed just a question of odds and I think the same holds true for (00:51:39) women (00:51:41) late last week the Centers for Disease Control issued a warning that prostitutes could be carriers of AIDS the CDC cited a blood screening clinic in Miami where 10 out of 25 prostitutes were found to have the virus but researchers have yet to provide hard evidence that prostitutes can or are spreading the disease and so the debate goes on still there's one thing that all those involved in AIDS research seem to agree on anyone who has unprotected sex with lots of Partners. Is putting him or herself right in line for exposure to aids for Sunday morning. This is Renee Montagne in New York. (00:52:33) It's inevitable that news coverage of AIDS concentrates on new developments. We all want to know about research about how the disease spreads who's at risk, but what about those that are already suffering from AIDS. Once again, here's Walter people with AIDS want to be treated with dignity and respect. They want to be cared for as much as anyone they suffer greatly in great pain. There were times in the last few weeks when I just wanted to give up but I don't dare mention that to someone I know. Because they're using their strength and energy to keep me going a lot of people pray for me. Support me in so many ways. So I'm lucky. I've (00:53:23) been around a long time. I've suffered (00:53:27) more than anyone could ever know. (00:53:36) I get so (00:53:37) tired. I'm a fighter. I have good friends. You want me to live? Montreal was the first Canadian city publicly forced to confront the Grim reality of AIDS. It also had to face the strongly negative social attitudes bred by fear and uncertainty about the virus Montreal has the third largest Haitian community in North America and Haitians were identified early as high-risk carriers of AIDS medical scientist, no longer believe that's true. But Montreal's Haitian population still carries the stigma a third of the diagnosed AIDS patients in Canada live in Montreal Barbara Smith visited there and has this report you have some running booze. You have one on the 10th. Do you have one tomorrow? Yeah, how are you going to how are you going to get there? (00:55:33) This conversation would not seem unusual except for the fact that one man has AIDS. His name is Raja. He suffers from kaposi sarcoma a rare form of cancer the visible signs of the disease appear on Rachel's face. There are purple lesions on his nose and on the top of his ears. He went blind two months ago. He is frail and tired. With him is Peter robust and capable Peter Israel's body. The so-called buddy system is the major Community Support Program for AIDS sufferers as in other major Canadian cities the Buddies role and in this case Peter is to be a friend in need to raise young. (00:56:15) He's really a good friend to me as I you know, I've said to him already, you know, you're my buddy, but you're also a friend. (00:56:22) I'm not asking very much about (00:56:26) a (00:56:26) guy want to to help it's because if I think so much I mean about about hazel what my sickness but Hayes I will destroy myself to for the rest of the rest of my life. I still have to to go on. (00:56:46) You know to meet a stranger and that's the way the situation it is. When you first meet your buddy, you don't know them you kind of go with cold feet and sometimes there are personality clashes and sometimes it can be awfully frightening and sometimes it doesn't work. (00:57:06) Fear is also a big problem in hospitals two years ago when patient started arriving the hospital staff didn't know how to deal with AIDS because they knew very little about the disease itself. Some nurses were afraid to enter a patient's room to give treatment Irene. Corbett is Head Nurse of the second floor Ross Pavilion (00:57:25) at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. (00:57:28) It wasn't long before her nursing staff. Let her know specifically what they were afraid of things. Like, can I get it? Can I take it home to my family if I'm pregnant? What happens as a nurse? Am I obligated to look after someone that's got something unknown and we went through all the steps of well, why did you become a nurse? What does it mean to be a nurse? The other people are just as frightened as you are including the people from dietary the clergy housekeeping the doctors, they walk around like they aren't but they're just as concerned as we are really That fear went far beyond the (00:58:10) hospital corridors families and loved ones who couldn't cope with his new dilemma. (00:58:15) Simply abandoned. The person with AIDS Irene. Corbett says it was then left up to the nurses to fill the Gap. There's a young fellow that's just died on our unit just recently and he didn't tell his family that he was gay. He didn't tell them that he had AIDS until he got to the terminal stage of the disease and then they were not in the country. So we had to do this transatlantic telephone communication to his sister to tell her not only that he was gay but that he was dying of AIDS. You mean the nursing staff had to tell him we had to make the long distance phone call and had to help him with the words because he was at the stage where he couldn't form all the words and he had written it Down For Us in case in case he couldn't do it and she had agreed to come and see him She then talked to her husband and he refused to let her come. So we ended up with our patient. Not really having any family support whatsoever. I think he he felt that we cared and that he knew that we cared and that we wanted to do as much as we could to help them and it's sad for real the decision to tell his parents was a painful one (00:59:38) not knowing whether he would get the support of his family. (00:59:41) I was crying all the time and finally my my my my little look listen I had to talk to you. And which I did they (00:59:51) said I'm gay (00:59:55) and didn't even know about about that. (00:59:58) But I feel it would be such a big relief when I told my parents they all the truth. I forgot the hates and I was gay. I mean, I feel so relieved. I mean it's incredible. We don't talk about the but this situation anymore. I mean they know it and I know I know it and we're going to have to talk about it, you know. (01:00:24) But people also don't talk about the fact that AIDS patients face certain death despite the frustrating lack of knowledge about the syndrome. One thing is known the AIDS patient will face a painful ordeal (01:00:37) annoying fear about their future takes over after the initial diagnosis. (01:00:42) Toby Klein is a Montreal psychotherapist who helps patients overcome those fears. It's a matter of not being afraid to say what they're thinking. There are times when the patient is worrying about dying, you know, it's talked about it's in the newspaper all the time. It's on you know, everybody is talking about AIDS as the disease you die from I often get asked what do you do with somebody who has cancer or AIDS or any terminal illness are going to die, you know rather than looking at it. As how do you help somebody live in whatever time they have. (01:01:23) Oops? (01:01:31) But if you got candy (01:01:34) they're giving me food the Christmas candies, it'll be gone by tonight and she's (01:01:41) it is the quality of life that is on the mind of this AIDS patient. We are calling him Dan. He is recovering at the Montreal chest Hospital (01:01:49) from to Serious boats of pneumonia. (01:01:52) Most AIDS patients range in age from 30 to 40. It strikes the young (01:01:57) Dan is only 32. (01:02:00) He worries about future diseases. He may be (01:02:02) facing the thought of suicide does come up. I think if I came down with some of these really horrendous things that are happening to other AIDS patients that I couldn't take it how serious and painful are they going to be how painful is the treatment going to be whether there be disfiguring or disabling and the moment that I felt my family was suffering too much. Because of it that they were putting too much of themselves on the line. I would I would kill myself. It's a fatal disease. So I'm not doing anything I think is morally wrong because it's going to happen. Anyways, I'm just an ending the inevitable a little bit sooner. So far three quarters (01:02:53) of all AIDS cases have been in the homosexual Community, but doctors fear. This will change that more heterosexuals will be stricken by AIDS. This is causing Society to rethink its liberal sex attitudes of the 70s. Toby Klein. It's a concern for all of the single people today. I think it is for the entire population. I think gay straight people who have affairs, you know, I think people are thinking twice the freedom of their sex lives. Dan feels the gay community has to change its sex habits (01:03:33) having to meet someone every night. It's ridiculous attitude to have but I think it's an attitude that a lot of people may not admit to but I think have that when they go out to a club they can't have a good time unless they've met somebody new. Used to be my attitude. No, no as mean for a while, but it's too late. And that's I guess my biggest wishes that other people make that decision before it's too late. AIDS (01:04:09) changed Dan social habits, but when he leaves the hospital he may not be prepared for other changes in his life. He will face a community that is not prepared for him. (01:04:19) It could be the loss of a job (01:04:21) alienation of friends rejection from professionals such as dentists and doctors and in some cases learning to live with a horrible secret. Dan is among 104 reported cases of AIDS in Montreal here are the job of counseling and support is provided by an organization called the Montreal AIDS Resource committee David Cassidy is the president. He says his preoccupation is trying to cut through the red tape to get at Community Resources and crucial funding that will keep his own group going and Social Services doesn't have money to give (01:04:55) out and social services and Quebec is divided into social service centers, which have a priority for placement and so on and local community service centers, which are supposed to give Frontline services. So people not quite sure who are too To you have to bake in a sense. We've had to go to the head of Dental Care at the Jewish General to get some get some care which is still not working out the best but it's better than the none but there's still people that are not getting it or they're dying before they're getting it people that are reduced to welfare have to use their food money to buy salves and creams and other stuff. And so I've had people go actually (01:05:31) robbed stores (01:05:32) fish to give to get by to get some fish to have something to eat that night because they can't make ends meet (01:05:37) because they're not enough money is available. There are not support (01:05:40) money's out there. We have a small little fun of Thirteen hundred dollars set aside to help people that can't meet ends meet and we have a limit of a hundred dollars a person and yeah, that'll that'll go in 5 or 4 days. I mean there's this there's this whole bureaucratic mess out there. That's that there have created for (01:05:58) themselves and these people here are suffering and dying and they're worried about the bureaucracy not worrying about the people. The elderly handicapped and shut-ins are taken care of in the community. But AIDS patients aren't Nancy Fuller is director for social services at the Royal Victoria Hospital. She says these systems must be made available for AIDS patients many of whom cannot even shop or cook for themselves. The particular facility that I was trying to use was Meals on Wheels and I simply told this resource that this patient had cancer so which was not a lie, but on the other hand it wasn't the whole truth, but I didn't see any danger. There is no danger that we know of for someone to come in and provide that kind of service. It's very very tricky because confidentiality I think is is such an important ethical issue. And you don't want to keep people from getting services on the other hand. You have to respect their need for privacy. (01:07:05) It's going to be bad (01:07:08) as Richard's mother prepares blackcurrant T. He reflects on his own need for privacy. I don't want to show them I'm (01:07:15) blind. I just when I go out, I just tried to to work through it as possible to find out my way. So but I'm sure I look a sick (01:07:28) person but this is also to help to help you paint your family to isn't it so that they don't get bothered by (01:07:35) people. Yeah, of course. I mean, you know sometimes children could be very cool. Yeah. I don't want to hear anything bad thing you before I will suffer very much personally. If I hear things like that cool things. (01:08:00) It is a lonely existence where AIDS and the stigma around it has forced him to lose contact with people. I need to be connected with someone. (01:08:13) I need love it. Well, it's really I mean I really need it. Yeah. (01:08:23) two To feel someone, you know the this the llama in the Cal command sequences alarmed you can can (01:08:33) they touch of someone is what I (01:08:35) have someone yeah. (01:08:37) Yes. I was I was going to say just the touch to hold his hand and well he's going to get a backrub next week if not this week. And I mean that's that's important to him and I can do that and you know, it's no big deal and yet it's very important to rejean and you know, it can be important to me too. But often just the touch that's so important. (01:09:04) Peter and Raja continue to make plans for the future as simple outing in the country a meal with friends and even a night at the theater they insist on a normal life for as long as it lasts. This is Barbara Smith in (01:09:19) Montreal. As we move towards greater understanding of AIDS public empathy for its victims is bound to grow. This is the reason why the Burke family of Pennsylvania agreed to share their story with the public I should warn you it's a story that touches the heart but it underscores a key message AIDS is not just a problem of the homosexual Community Sunday morning producer Steve Wadhams visited the Burke's at their home in Cresson, Pennsylvania a small town about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh. The Burke family of four Patrick who's 27 his wife Lauren who's 24 their four-year-old girl, Nicole and Dwight who 17 months old until AIDS invaded their lives Patrick and Lon both worked in a home for the mentally retarded. They had steady jobs and good Futures. Now three of them are infected with the AIDS virus and chicken news. Ood when I arrived Lauren was feeding the baby white through a tube directly into his stomach (01:10:27) because he's too weak to eat orally so he had the to put in to get his weight Back up to where it should be. (01:10:40) What's he actually got what's wrong? (01:10:43) Oh, he has congestive heart (01:10:45) failure. That's one thing. (01:10:48) He has hepatitis. he has something wrong with the brain because of the AIDS virus eating away the brain tissue destroying it. It's got the thrush in his mouth and a runny nose all the time. That's why he's only antibiotic. (01:11:09) Must be hard to talk with the throat and (01:11:13) him him. Yeah, he doesn't talk at all. He doesn't do anything. He used to when he was 12 months old. He talked and walked in a walker Jolene, honey. Turn it off. Turn it off. Then go in your bedroom. And he walked in a walker and that was before the AIDS virus begins to destroy his brain and then he just went downhill from there. And now he just lays he doesn't (01:11:45) sitter or anything Lauren sounds tired and defeated. She's not she's coping with Incredible resilience and strength with a tragedy that overtaken her and her family it began about a year ago. When the baby Dwight was diagnosed as having AIDS Patrick and Lauren got themselves checked out and discovered. They were infected to the source of the virus was Patrick. He's a hemophiliac AIDS got into his blood stream. Thanks to a contaminated batch of the medicine. He takes to help his blood clot. Do you have any idea when that would have been there's no way to tell when I got it because I take the medicine about once a week. and there's just no way of telling how long ago I had it forgot it. When you were diagnosed Patrick, what did you think? I I really don't know. I still think I'm going to beat it. So I'm not too worried. The sad fact is that all this could have been avoided if the contaminated clotting factor that put the AIDS virus into Patrick's flood had been heat treated to kill the virus that procedure became routine in the United States just after Patrick was infected with Patrick and Lauren's parents have helped enormously with support and with money last month the rich New York businessman paid for a 5-day family holiday at Disney (01:13:17) World. There has been a fund that's been set up in our name in our behalf and the people from all over the United States and other countries have contributed greatly to it. And that's how we've been surviving because we have no income. We've had no income since December of 1984. We've had a total of $3,000 income since December of 1984. Which isn't a whole lot of money to survive on (01:13:50) let me ask you about the fear of other people of AIDS the ostracism that might happen if you if your neighbors for example know you have AIDS is that something that you've (01:14:02) experienced? Well, when we first found out we were even instructed, excuse me that It would be up to us if we would want to tell like where we work toward the people around us that was up to us. We didn't know what the reaction would be and the doctors even thought maybe it would be better not to tell anybody but we took the opposite approach and we told people we got our friends together in our families together. We went up and we talked to work together and we've had the opposite reaction. We've had support we had we have people come into our house wanting to take care of our children when we don't feel. Well. Nobody's taking care of me ever Mommy. It's a Grammy in your your grandma but not come Papa. Everybody takes care of you. Grandma takes me up the sports man's play with the kids. So we've had just positive. Soon we belong to a club like she said and she goes up and plays with all the other children. (01:15:15) I think the people in this area were all willing to learn they didn't just believe what they read. They were all willing to learn and I I think that makes the big difference once you find out how it is spread and you're not what are the misconceptions to people ask, you know, it's safe to come in here or is it safe to shake hands or what has happened in terms of social fear. No one has ever asked if it is safe to shake my hand or drink out of the same glass. They just come in and do it. So we have more friends now than we ever did more people coming (01:15:53) in. A lot of the times papers print things with headlines such as AIDS found in saliva. AIDS is found in tears. So are a lot of other diseases such as hepatitis hepatitis is found in in tears and saliva also, but it's not spread that way. I mean, I'm a registered nurse and I've taken care of people with hepatitis Patrick's hepatitis carrier, and I (01:16:24) don't have hepatitis. (01:16:27) So it's spread the same way but headlines are really (01:16:31) misconceiving (01:16:33) and now you see like a flash across the TV set that aids is found in saliva. And then you might not get to see the newscast and that's all you've seen was the headline and that's what you believe then (01:16:46) it all the reports. I've read say as far as they know nobody makes a qualified because other state of research is so so (01:16:54) new that's that's the problem, you know, there are almost a hundred percent sure, but they're not going to come out and say definitely, you know, because there's just so little known about it, but out of hundreds of thousands of people that have worked with the AIDS victims. No one no one even the ones that have jab theirselves with needles in there have been in the labs and stuff. None of them have come down with AIDS. (01:17:22) I can't quite appreciate. How you to live with the fear. You must live with we do think about it a (01:17:29) lot. I mean there are times that we have to think about it. But we've set aside days that are just for talking about it and crying about it and deciding what must be done in the future such as the time. We had to make out our wells and stuff like that and decide where we want to want to be buried and (01:17:50) and thus (01:17:51) the funeral home in case something like that should happen. We've also had to take precautions that if something should happen to Pat and I and white Nicole be left, you know, because the statistics show that children are doing a lot better than adults in that case. We had them divided and going to Grant the grandparents had to do that. But as for a day-to-day basis, we don't dwell on the fact that we're sick or that's all we do. We'd sit around the house thinking or sick. We don't we live our lives like normal people we Except for being tired and not being able financially to do the things that we always did before we try to try to live our lives normally because it wouldn't be fair to Nicole. It wouldn't be fair to us and we don't know how long we have to sit at home and just be sick and think we're sick and and dwell on the fact that we not might not be here tomorrow. You can't do that. You have to live life for today. And that's what we do. (01:18:56) Nicole knows everything that you said to me. Obviously. She's part of this process of preparing for the future. Yes. She is she knows I'm not (01:19:06) sure she understands because I'm not sure what children believe death is at the age of 4 years old, but she knows that brother and father and mother are very sick and may die anytime. And she knows that if that happens that we still love her and she'll go to her grandparents through love her very (01:19:29) much. it's hard, but just got to be strong. I got to be strong for my wife and kids. As long as I stay healthy you don't think about it. But when one of us are sick, it's really (01:19:48) hard. You know, you think when we first found out it was AIDS we thought oh we're going to die right away. That's it. But we're not we're surviving and we're doing things that we like to do. (01:20:15) Young Nicole Burke won't develop the symptoms of AIDS, but she won't Escape its Devastation either. She may be the only Survivor in her family. Nicole's future is uncertain and so too is the future of this deadly new Public Health Menace. It is unknown. It is unknown how rapidly AIDS will spread it is unknown what new forms of disease. It could generate it is unknown if scientists will ever find a cure it is the strength and determination of people like Lauren and Patrick Burke that will help Society deal with the fear that surrounds AIDS. It's a tragedy that in the end May touch us all. (01:21:22) This has been a special production of the Canadian broadcasting corporation's radio network current affairs program Sunday morning. It was produced by Beverly read Margaret daily and Robert Harris in Toronto and bye Trudy Richards in London. Your host was Christopher Thomas. (01:22:10) This is the American public radio network.