:00:00. > :00:00.rescue. Now, time for me the author. `` meet
:00:07. > :00:15.the author. Norman Smith was the Health
:00:16. > :00:17.Secretary won the world was confronted with a new illness, AIDS.
:00:18. > :00:19.His response was the biggest confronted with a new illness, AIDS.
:00:20. > :00:24.His response was the new health campaign mounted by the government.
:00:25. > :00:33.Now, 30 years on, he has written a book, Aids: Don't Die Of Prejudice.
:00:34. > :00:38.Now, he is a vigorous and respected aids campaigner. Despite what many
:00:39. > :00:43.of us think, his message is that we are very far from winning the battle
:00:44. > :01:04.against a disease that kills 1.5 million people around the world.
:01:05. > :01:08.Conservative politician. You are a family man. I doubt you
:01:09. > :01:14.had much to do with injecting drug users, and yet you have become a
:01:15. > :01:21.campaigner on the subject of HIV. Why? Well, it obviously goes back to
:01:22. > :01:31.where I started when I was Health Secretary back in the 19 80s ``
:01:32. > :01:36.1980s. This unknown disease came forward and we had to respond to it.
:01:37. > :01:44.And we responded with a massive public education campaign. It then
:01:45. > :01:51.seemed to me that when I left government, that the issue had not
:01:52. > :02:02.gone away. And that their work are the few politicians are taking the
:02:03. > :02:13.first the pain because I think there is so much against the people who
:02:14. > :02:18.suffer from HIV and that someone in the political world is to stand up
:02:19. > :02:21.and speak for them. For most politicians it is the very opposite
:02:22. > :02:30.of a vote winner. People who vote for them are not likely to
:02:31. > :02:38.sympathise No. That is the case of the world. Probably the case in this
:02:39. > :02:45.country as well. Around the world and campaigns against a people, you
:02:46. > :02:55.are campaigns to users, that is liable to be popular rather than
:02:56. > :03:00.popular. One of the things you are inside surface of his policies any
:03:01. > :03:06.country on a subject where they are at odds with the population? Yes,
:03:07. > :03:18.the defensive politicians want to leave from the front. The trouble is
:03:19. > :03:24.that in countries like Uganda be easy and the popular ways to be
:03:25. > :03:31.antagonistic and arsenals. There are 80 countries in the world where
:03:32. > :03:42.homosexuality is illegal. Hovi and his in the world today and that's
:03:43. > :03:50.how big a problem is a scheme in the sword so that most of the people. 35
:03:51. > :03:56.and died. On the 36 million people have exactly. The people are
:03:57. > :04:02.diagnosed. They don't know they have it. That continues to spread the
:04:03. > :04:08.virus. It is a major problem. One of the things we must do is try to get
:04:09. > :04:11.people to test if they do not test, there is no way they're going to go
:04:12. > :04:18.to treatment. Then they go full circle. If you live in a country
:04:19. > :04:22.where homosexuality is illegal, are you going to volunteer to go and
:04:23. > :04:29.have a test? If you are liable to be prosecuted? The hands of a hole.
:04:30. > :04:33.That is why I called the book, don't die of prejudice, because it is the
:04:34. > :04:38.prejudice of countries, not just those that have passed laws, which
:04:39. > :04:44.stands in the way of effective treatment. How optimistic are you?
:04:45. > :04:49.Your own experience back in the 1980s, faced with this unknown
:04:50. > :04:55.disease, was to throw everything at it. The advertising campaign the
:04:56. > :04:58.Department of Health ran was one of the most hard`hitting, if the `` if
:04:59. > :05:05.not the most hard`hitting government had ever run. Don't die of
:05:06. > :05:08.ignorance. You were able to mount that campaign in the teeth of
:05:09. > :05:14.opposition from a lot of Cabinet colleagues, including Margaret
:05:15. > :05:18.Thatcher. You persuaded her, or at least she did not veto what you
:05:19. > :05:21.wanted to do. It seems that governments in other countries today
:05:22. > :05:29.are much less willing to go with the evidence. Some countries. Many
:05:30. > :05:34.countries I fear that applies to. To be fair, there are many other
:05:35. > :05:38.countries where they do get it. Australia, for example. And a number
:05:39. > :05:44.of the European countries, obviously. Everywhere it has gone
:05:45. > :05:50.off the boil, in the West it has gone off the boil. I think the
:05:51. > :05:55.reason for that is that people feel a pill is available. It doesn't
:05:56. > :06:01.really matter if they get HIV. It is a very bad idea. In my experience,
:06:02. > :06:05.nobody has ever said this is a matter of no consequence. It is a
:06:06. > :06:10.matter of consequence, even if you have an anti`retroviral course of
:06:11. > :06:13.treatment. We are back with this problem of the politicians ignoring
:06:14. > :06:19.the evidence because of prejudice on the part of themselves or their
:06:20. > :06:25.constituencies. Are you ultimately optimistic that we can beat this, or
:06:26. > :06:31.do you think we will be stuck with it and the misery it causes, for
:06:32. > :06:36.decades? I am not particularly optimistic, I have to say. We can
:06:37. > :06:42.reduce the prejudice, I hope. You have got to remember that 80
:06:43. > :06:48.nations, homosexuality is illegal. India is not changing. What we
:06:49. > :06:53.should be doing is concentrating now upon financing and putting as much
:06:54. > :07:01.resource as possible into developing a vaccine. They have had a trial in
:07:02. > :07:07.violent, 31% affected. `` Thailand. Not good enough. It is a banner of
:07:08. > :07:13.hope that we can do it. If we can get a vaccine, I think then we can
:07:14. > :07:23.visit the defeat AIDS. `` obviously defeat AIDS. There are many things
:07:24. > :07:27.we can do. Apart from science fiction, a whole range of. I don't
:07:28. > :07:33.think we're ever going to invade that the vaccine. That's my hand