During the

COVID pandemic, it was sometimes likened to an earlier plague that affected some communities

more than others tying the medical establishment up in knots.

The AIDS epidemic emerged some 40 years ago

and has since killed over 40 million people.

And yes, there are now available medicines that prove an AIDS diagnosis need no longer be a death sentence.

But thousands of people, including here in the US, still get infected with HIV, and plenty still die of AIDS.

And the hurts still lingers and the questions

about why it took the authorities so long to respond to the epidemic. That's why we decided to share this episode from our

colleague here at WNYC, Kai Wright. Kai hosts the weekly show Notes from America. He also helms a new short run series called

Blind Spot, The Plague in the Shadows, which unfolds a powerful story about the media as much

as anything that helps explain why we as a

culture took so long to get who and what was really at risk for AIDS for far too long. Here's Kai.

Hi.

So nice to meet you.

Valerie Reyes-Menez remembers how it all started or at least when they first

started to notice it. We said that people had the monster because they had that

look they had the sucked in cheeks they were really

thin a lot of folks were saying oh you know they had liver cancer you know they had cancer

that's what they died from because you couldn't name it yet

you called it the monster or grid or in another part of town maybe the gay plague.

Mostly though you avoided talking about it at all.

...