The Story of Aids: 1. The beginning
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2021
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We return to the beginning of the global Aids crisis and explore the personal and political struggles of the epidemic, as it unfolded in two very different countries – the United States and South Africa – and hear stories from people who fought through it, and survived. The series begins in the USA, where 40 years ago the Centers for Disease Control published a memo flagging a rare pneumonia found in five previously healthy, young gay men in California. Two of the men had died. These would be the first recorded cases of Aids in the world – a disease which would go on to kill 35 million people.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the BBC World Service. I'm Audrey Brown. This is the story of AIDS. |
| 0:10.0 | My life is populated with the dead. They follow me down streets, huddle around me in elevators, |
| 0:17.0 | sit behind me in movies, or next to me in empty cabs. |
| 0:23.0 | Spirit men, |
| 0:26.0 | Unquiet souls. |
| 0:28.0 | Alan, they clamor for attention, |
| 0:31.0 | demanding remembrance |
| 0:33.2 | new york |
| 0:35.8 | necropolis stuarts |
| 0:38.0 | monuments to dead times |
| 0:41.2 | and forgotten men. I move through their city, their voices whispering. |
| 0:48.4 | Remember, remember, remember. |
| 0:53.0 | Remember having sex in that alley? |
| 0:56.0 | Remember those guys at that party? |
| 0:58.0 | Remember that's my album, girl? |
| 1:01.0 | Dennis. |
| 1:02.0 | Remember how you cried when I dumped you? |
| 1:04.0 | Remember how you cried at my funeral? |
| 1:08.0 | They clutch at me and murmur, |
| 1:11.0 | please don't forget me. |
| 1:13.0 | And with each death, I feel my past diminish, |
| 1:18.0 | my history slowly vanishing. |
... |
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