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Video (240 min) available in windows media and realplayer formats. |
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Also available in VHS and DVD formats. |
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Originally broadcast as a segment of the television program Frontline on May 30, 2006; remote version viewed on Jan. 31, 2008. |
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Part one: 1. A deadly new disease -- 2. The spread escalates -- 3. Politics & tracking AIDS' history -- 4. Scientific breakthrough -- 5. A death gives AIDS a face -- 6. The power of leadership -- 7. Setbacks -- 8. At the brink ; Part two: 1. Political indifference -- 2. A radical new treatment -- 3. The struggle to get the drugs -- 4. The relentless spread -- 5. Financing the battle -- 6. New challenges -- 7. 40m infections + 40m to come. |
| Summary |
On the 25th anniversary of the first diagnosed cases of AIDS, FRONTLINE examines one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known in "The Age of AIDS." After a quarter century of political denial and social stigma, of stunning scientific breakthroughs, bitter policy battles and inadequate prevention campaigns, HIV/AIDS continues to spread rapidly throughout much of the world, particularly in developing nations. In Part One's two-hour broadcast, "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 new disease. The film documents the frantic search by American and European scientists and epidemiologists to find the source of the deadly infection as they tracked its spread among gay men, intravenous drug users, and hemophiliacs, and then into the general population. The trail led them back in time, from major American and European cities to Haiti and finally to the Congo. The story then moves from the mysterious virus to the fear, stigma and political controversies during the Reagan administration. Attempts to prevent the spread of the disease, most prevalent among gay men and intravenous drug users at the time, sparked furious public debate. As the film tracks HIV's devastating spread around the world, it documents how some countries-in Europe, Africa and Asia-found tools to slow its progress, including needle-exchange programs and massive condom distribution campaigns. Part Two of "The Age of AIDS" begins by exploring the chasm that emerged between rich and poor following the development of the miraculous "triple cocktail" HIV treatment. In the mid-1990s, when doctors discovered the cocktail, it seemed to signal a new era in which AIDS was no longer a fatal disease. But the high price of the drugs meant they were unaffordable to patients in developing nations. "The Age of AIDS" tracks the political struggle to lower those prices, in countries like Brazil, and documents the South African government's tragic failure to battle the epidemic that was overwhelming its country. The film also examines the next wave of the AIDS epidemic in some of the most populous and strategically important nations in the world, including Russia, India and China, and tracks the same pattern of official denial and political indifference that characterized the epidemic in so many other countries. |
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AIDS (Disease) -- History.
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AIDS (Disease) -- Social aspects.
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AIDS (Disease) -- Psychological aspects.
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AIDS (Disease) -- Political aspects.
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| Added Author |
Cran, William.
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Lyman, Will.
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Barker, Greg.
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PBS Video.
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WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.)
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| Added Title |
Frontline (Television program)
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Frontline online
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| OCLC # |
69747560 |
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