In the early 1980s in the United States, AIDS has no name yet, but it is beginning to worry health professionals because of its proliferation within the gay community. Focus on the first cases and debates of the medical profession.
"The AIDS epidemic is causing a real psychosis in the United States comparable to that of leprosy, we no longer count the various facts due to the fear of contagion..." announces an AFP dispatch. On the set of "Today Life", Dr.André SIBOULET, Institut Alfred Fournier, gives an update on the symptoms of AIDS observed mainly in homosexuals, its modes of transmission and formally confirms the existence of the syndrome.
In the United States, the development of a form of cancer (Kaposi’s sarcoma) in male homosexuals is being studied, a cancer that is developing very rapidly. For the moment all hypotheses are possible: a virus that would weaken the resistance of the organism but whose multiplicity of contacts in the gay community would promote transmission; the use of drugs, especially "poppers"; a very intense sex life? Report in New York where the virus is rampant.
In New York September 1983, a French AIDS patient, Martin F., explains the consequences of a press campaign on AIDS: "you become a plague victim" who can infect anyone. Many hospital staff, dentists or embalmers refuse contact with people with AIDS.
AIDS scientists from around the world gathered in New York for a conference to take stock of the state of research. Meeting and dialogue with some of them, sitting on a lawn. They discuss the behaviour of the virus (that of HTLV and that discovered by the Institut Pasteur), the risks of contamination, the presence, confirmed or not, of the virus in the sperm. The speakers are Dr Donald FRANCIS from the Atlanta Centre for Disease Control and Dr Robert GALLO from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda.
In the United States, an interview with a doctor who talks about the appearance of a new virus: he explains this new and rare situation because it will make it possible to make discoveries in the fight against cancer.