We Could End AIDS. So Why Are People Still Dying?

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Host Kai Wright started his career covering the impact of HIV and AIDS on communities in America. A new project brings that experience full circle. Kai hosts the latest season of the Blindspot podcast, “The Plague In The Shadows,” which introduces listeners to people who were affected in the early years of the HIV and AIDS epidemics.

Decades later, AIDS is still with us and its status as an epidemic remains accurate. In this episode, we learn why that is from two women whose careers have centered around this disease in different ways. Journalist Linda Villarosa is the author of “Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation;” and June Gipson, Ph.D. is the director of the organization My Brother’s Keeper, which works on both HIV prevention and access to treatment in Mississippi. They discuss the medical achievements in the field of HIV and AIDS treatment, as well as the barriers to eradication. Plus, listeners from across the country weigh in with their own stories and we hear from one of the people you meet in the Blindspot podcast, Victor Reyes, who was born with HIV in Harlem in 1989.

To hear more of Blindspot: The Plague In The Shadows, listen and subscribe here.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET., and listeners to the broadcast and podcast are invited to join the conversation at 844-745-TALK(8255). Podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We were so blessed to really establish something that helped us survive at that time and be creative and be productive.
0:12.0	Because society forgot about us.
0:14.4	She was dying. She was so angry and wanted the record to reflect that we had to fight
0:22.2	tooth and nail to be acknowledged of dying of AIDS.
0:25.0	I mean stigma was high, I mean stigma was so high that people were almost abused.
0:30.0	It's all right to be HIV positive. There's nothing right to be HIV positive.
0:33.0	There's nothing wrong with being HIV positive.
0:36.0	Your neighbor could be HIV positive.
0:39.0	Back then there was like a lot of pills we had to take.
0:41.0	The virus for me is under control because I take these medicines
0:45.1	and well actually it's only one medicine. One pill once a day. And the It's notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. This is a special edition of our show in which we are talking about an
1:15.4	epidemic that has been with us for more than 40 years and asking why it persists.
1:21.6	Over the past several months I've been reporting on the early history of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the United States.
1:27.0	It's part of a podcast series I'm hosting called BlindSpot, The Plague in the Shadows,
1:32.0	produced in partnership with the History Channel. called Blind Spot, The Plague in the Shadows,
1:32.7	produced in partnership with the History Channel
1:34.9	and the Nation magazine.
1:36.6	You can find the whole series at BlindSpot Podcast.
1:39.4	org.
1:41.2	I came of age alongside this epidemic. It's been an intimate companion for me and for millions of others.
1:48.0	I am deeply familiar with its nuances.
1:51.0	But you know, after revisiting this history, I'm left with a
	...

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