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rescue. Now, time for me the author. `` meet | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
the author. Norman Smith was the Health | :00:07. | :00:15. | |
Secretary won the world was confronted with a new illness, AIDS. | :00:16. | :00:17. | |
His response was the biggest confronted with a new illness, AIDS. | :00:18. | :00:19. | |
His response was the new health campaign mounted by the government. | :00:20. | :00:24. | |
Now, 30 years on, he has written a book, Aids: Don't Die Of Prejudice. | :00:25. | :00:33. | |
Now, he is a vigorous and respected aids campaigner. Despite what many | :00:34. | :00:38. | |
of us think, his message is that we are very far from winning the battle | :00:39. | :00:43. | |
against a disease that kills 1.5 million people around the world. | :00:44. | :01:04. | |
Conservative politician. You are a family man. I doubt you | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
had much to do with injecting drug users, and yet you have become a | :01:09. | :01:14. | |
campaigner on the subject of HIV. Why? Well, it obviously goes back to | :01:15. | :01:21. | |
where I started when I was Health Secretary back in the 19 80s `` | :01:22. | :01:31. | |
1980s. This unknown disease came forward and we had to respond to it. | :01:32. | :01:36. | |
And we responded with a massive public education campaign. It then | :01:37. | :01:44. | |
seemed to me that when I left government, that the issue had not | :01:45. | :01:51. | |
gone away. And that their work are the few politicians are taking the | :01:52. | :02:02. | |
first the pain because I think there is so much against the people who | :02:03. | :02:13. | |
suffer from HIV and that someone in the political world is to stand up | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
and speak for them. For most politicians it is the very opposite | :02:19. | :02:21. | |
of a vote winner. People who vote for them are not likely to | :02:22. | :02:30. | |
sympathise No. That is the case of the world. Probably the case in this | :02:31. | :02:38. | |
country as well. Around the world and campaigns against a people, you | :02:39. | :02:45. | |
are campaigns to users, that is liable to be popular rather than | :02:46. | :02:55. | |
popular. One of the things you are inside surface of his policies any | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
country on a subject where they are at odds with the population? Yes, | :03:01. | :03:06. | |
the defensive politicians want to leave from the front. The trouble is | :03:07. | :03:18. | |
that in countries like Uganda be easy and the popular ways to be | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
antagonistic and arsenals. There are 80 countries in the world where | :03:25. | :03:31. | |
homosexuality is illegal. Hovi and his in the world today and that's | :03:32. | :03:42. | |
how big a problem is a scheme in the sword so that most of the people. 35 | :03:43. | :03:50. | |
and died. On the 36 million people have exactly. The people are | :03:51. | :03:56. | |
diagnosed. They don't know they have it. That continues to spread the | :03:57. | :04:02. | |
virus. It is a major problem. One of the things we must do is try to get | :04:03. | :04:08. | |
people to test if they do not test, there is no way they're going to go | :04:09. | :04:11. | |
to treatment. Then they go full circle. If you live in a country | :04:12. | :04:18. | |
where homosexuality is illegal, are you going to volunteer to go and | :04:19. | :04:22. | |
have a test? If you are liable to be prosecuted? The hands of a hole. | :04:23. | :04:29. | |
That is why I called the book, don't die of prejudice, because it is the | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
prejudice of countries, not just those that have passed laws, which | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
stands in the way of effective treatment. How optimistic are you? | :04:39. | :04:44. | |
Your own experience back in the 1980s, faced with this unknown | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
disease, was to throw everything at it. The advertising campaign the | :04:50. | :04:55. | |
Department of Health ran was one of the most hard`hitting, if the `` if | :04:56. | :04:58. | |
not the most hard`hitting government had ever run. Don't die of | :04:59. | :05:05. | |
ignorance. You were able to mount that campaign in the teeth of | :05:06. | :05:08. | |
opposition from a lot of Cabinet colleagues, including Margaret | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
Thatcher. You persuaded her, or at least she did not veto what you | :05:15. | :05:18. | |
wanted to do. It seems that governments in other countries today | :05:19. | :05:21. | |
are much less willing to go with the evidence. Some countries. Many | :05:22. | :05:29. | |
countries I fear that applies to. To be fair, there are many other | :05:30. | :05:34. | |
countries where they do get it. Australia, for example. And a number | :05:35. | :05:38. | |
of the European countries, obviously. Everywhere it has gone | :05:39. | :05:44. | |
off the boil, in the West it has gone off the boil. I think the | :05:45. | :05:50. | |
reason for that is that people feel a pill is available. It doesn't | :05:51. | :05:55. | |
really matter if they get HIV. It is a very bad idea. In my experience, | :05:56. | :06:01. | |
nobody has ever said this is a matter of no consequence. It is a | :06:02. | :06:05. | |
matter of consequence, even if you have an anti`retroviral course of | :06:06. | :06:10. | |
treatment. We are back with this problem of the politicians ignoring | :06:11. | :06:13. | |
the evidence because of prejudice on the part of themselves or their | :06:14. | :06:19. | |
constituencies. Are you ultimately optimistic that we can beat this, or | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
do you think we will be stuck with it and the misery it causes, for | :06:26. | :06:31. | |
decades? I am not particularly optimistic, I have to say. We can | :06:32. | :06:36. | |
reduce the prejudice, I hope. You have got to remember that 80 | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
nations, homosexuality is illegal. India is not changing. What we | :06:43. | :06:48. | |
should be doing is concentrating now upon financing and putting as much | :06:49. | :06:53. | |
resource as possible into developing a vaccine. They have had a trial in | :06:54. | :07:01. | |
violent, 31% affected. `` Thailand. Not good enough. It is a banner of | :07:02. | :07:07. | |
hope that we can do it. If we can get a vaccine, I think then we can | :07:08. | :07:13. | |
visit the defeat AIDS. `` obviously defeat AIDS. There are many things | :07:14. | :07:23. | |
we can do. Apart from science fiction, a whole range of. I don't | :07:24. | :07:27. | |
think we're ever going to invade that the vaccine. That's my hand | :07:28. | :07:33. |