Saunders: 'Frontline' on AIDS' trail

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Frontline, public television's superb documentary series, doesn't worry about the size of the Nielsen audience or jittery advertisers.

Granted, the show's producers and public broadcasting honchos want to be competitive in this growing television universe, but the product remains the main consideration.

The result: The Age of AIDS, a four-hour two- night (Tuesday and Wednesday) report airing on the 25th anniversary of the first diagnosed cases of the disease.

Obviously, this is the type of program you'll never find on commercial television, and The Age of AIDS deserves a larger audience than it will get.

Let's start with the startling figures gathered by Frontline producers: Since the first cases were diagnosed in June 1981, roughly 70 million people have been infected with the virus and 22 million have died of AIDS.

An unwelcome prediction: Over the next decade, an estimated 50 million more people around the world will contract HIV, and many millions will die.

While the four hours are full of frightening statistics of that nature, the investigation regularly plays like a well-crafted medical suspense drama, mainly through the use of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of film and video and a wide variety of interviews.

The Age of AIDS begins with the medical and scientific mystery that emerged in 1981 when five gay men in Los Angeles were diagnosed with a mystery disease.

This led to the frantic search by American and European scientists and epidemiologists who, to find the source of the deadly infection, began tracking the disease that had spread among gay men, intravenous-drug users, hemophiliacs and then to the general population.

The trail took them from American and European cities to Haiti and finally to the Congo, which most experts believe was the source of the disease.

Notes virologist George Shaw: "It has become incontrovertible that the HIV virus that currently infects millions of humans is a consequence of a single transmission event from a single chimpanzee in west-central Africa to one human."

The Age of AIDS is, of course, more than a medical story, since it deals with fear, politics and stigmas. AIDS, which became known as a gay man's disease, quickly became a major debate topic in political, religious and social circles.

While some political and religious leaders hammered away on the "gay issue," AIDS continued to spread around the world, partially because of the use of infected needles by intravenous-drug users.

The Age of AIDS also documents the political indifference and bureaucratic non-decisions that prevailed in the '80s.

Many American parents yanked their children from school, thinking that AIDS was transmittable by everyday human contact.

The Reagan administration comes under close scrutiny for its early lethargy in providing funds for research and for not toning down public fears.

Particularly eye-opening is tape of a bizarre 1985 press conference in which President Reagan was asked whether, if he were a parent of young children, he would he send them to a school with a child who had AIDS.

Instead of assuring the public that the AIDS virus was not transmittable through casual contact, Reagan said: "Medicine has not come forth unequivocally and said, 'This we know for a fact that is safe (to send your children to school).' "

Also highlighted is the death of Rock Hudson, who became the gay poster man for the AIDS epidemic.

The second two hours, a bit more clinical than the initial segments, explore the chasm that has emerged worldwide between the rich and the poor since the development in the mid-'90s of the "triple-cocktails" HIV treatment that signaled a potential era when AIDS would no longer be a fatal disease.Also included is a pessimistic picture of the future.

David Ho, who was a young Los Angles medical resident in 1981 when he saw his first AIDS patient, offers a decidedly negative outlook.

"Even if we come up with a cure or vaccine tomorrow, just think about the time that would be needed to implement all these measures widely throughout the world.

"To me it is clear that I'm not going to see the end of this epidemic. And it's pretty clear that my children won't see the end of this epidemic."

TODAY'S NOSTALGIA: On May 30, 1980, CBS News veteran Douglas Edwards anchored the final edition of the CBS Mid-Morning News, the last scheduled national network daytime newscast.

Dusty Saunders is the broadcasting critic. Saunders@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5137