AZT: The breakthrough treatment for Aids
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2021
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1987 the first successful drug treatment was developed for Aids. AZT went from initial test to approval in just over two years - at the time it was the fastest approval in US history. Claire Bowes talks to Dr Samuel Broder, the co-developer of AZT.
Picture: Dr Samuel Broder and President Ronald Reagan. Credit: Ronald Reagan Library
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC |
| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:48.0 | This week we're marking World AIDS Day and the 40th anniversary of the first report on HIV AIDS in a medical journal. |
| 0:56.0 | Today we're going back to 1987 and the development of the first successful drug treatment for the disease. |
| 1:03.3 | AZT was developed and approved in just over two years. |
| 1:07.5 | Claire Bose spoke to the man who developed the drug. |
| 1:10.9 | It's the mid 1980s and young men across America are dying of AIDS. |
| 1:17.0 | The call I am making tonight is to those of you who have something to offer and are doing nothing but burying your |
| 1:24.4 | heads in the sand and saying AIDS can never happen to me. |
| 1:29.0 | They are angry, desperate and frightened. |
| 1:31.6 | Help fight the greatest challenge we've had to face |
| 1:35.0 | and Hitler tried to exterminate us. |
| 1:38.0 | Many of the patients looked like pictures of individuals who had been caught in a war. |
| 1:44.6 | They looked, starved, although they had access to food, their body couldn't process the |
| 1:50.0 | metabolic requirements. |
| 1:52.3 | These emaciated and defeated looking young men |
... |
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