19/06/2014 Meet the Author

rescue. Now, time for me the author. `` meet

the author. Norman Smith was the Health

Secretary won the world was confronted with a new illness, AIDS.

His response was the biggest confronted with a new illness, AIDS.

His response was the new health campaign mounted by the government.

Now, 30 years on, he has written a book, Aids: Don't Die Of Prejudice.

Now, he is a vigorous and respected aids campaigner. Despite what many

of us think, his message is that we are very far from winning the battle

against a disease that kills 1.5 million people around the world.

Conservative politician. You are a family man. I doubt you

had much to do with injecting drug users, and yet you have become a

campaigner on the subject of HIV. Why? Well, it obviously goes back to

where I started when I was Health Secretary back in the 19 80s ``

1980s. This unknown disease came forward and we had to respond to it.

And we responded with a massive public education campaign. It then

seemed to me that when I left government, that the issue had not

gone away. And that their work are the few politicians are taking the

first the pain because I think there is so much against the people who

suffer from HIV and that someone in the political world is to stand up

and speak for them. For most politicians it is the very opposite

of a vote winner. People who vote for them are not likely to

sympathise No. That is the case of the world. Probably the case in this

country as well. Around the world and campaigns against a people, you

are campaigns to users, that is liable to be popular rather than

popular. One of the things you are inside surface of his policies any

country on a subject where they are at odds with the population? Yes,

the defensive politicians want to leave from the front. The trouble is

that in countries like Uganda be easy and the popular ways to be

antagonistic and arsenals. There are 80 countries in the world where

homosexuality is illegal. Hovi and his in the world today and that's

how big a problem is a scheme in the sword so that most of the people. 35

and died. On the 36 million people have exactly. The people are

diagnosed. They don't know they have it. That continues to spread the

virus. It is a major problem. One of the things we must do is try to get

people to test if they do not test, there is no way they're going to go

to treatment. Then they go full circle. If you live in a country

where homosexuality is illegal, are you going to volunteer to go and

have a test? If you are liable to be prosecuted? The hands of a hole.

That is why I called the book, don't die of prejudice, because it is the

prejudice of countries, not just those that have passed laws, which

stands in the way of effective treatment. How optimistic are you?

Your own experience back in the 1980s, faced with this unknown

disease, was to throw everything at it. The advertising campaign the

Department of Health ran was one of the most hard`hitting, if the `` if

not the most hard`hitting government had ever run. Don't die of

ignorance. You were able to mount that campaign in the teeth of

opposition from a lot of Cabinet colleagues, including Margaret

Thatcher. You persuaded her, or at least she did not veto what you

wanted to do. It seems that governments in other countries today

are much less willing to go with the evidence. Some countries. Many

countries I fear that applies to. To be fair, there are many other

countries where they do get it. Australia, for example. And a number

of the European countries, obviously. Everywhere it has gone

off the boil, in the West it has gone off the boil. I think the

reason for that is that people feel a pill is available. It doesn't

really matter if they get HIV. It is a very bad idea. In my experience,

nobody has ever said this is a matter of no consequence. It is a

matter of consequence, even if you have an anti`retroviral course of

treatment. We are back with this problem of the politicians ignoring

the evidence because of prejudice on the part of themselves or their

constituencies. Are you ultimately optimistic that we can beat this, or

do you think we will be stuck with it and the misery it causes, for

decades? I am not particularly optimistic, I have to say. We can

reduce the prejudice, I hope. You have got to remember that 80

nations, homosexuality is illegal. India is not changing. What we

should be doing is concentrating now upon financing and putting as much

resource as possible into developing a vaccine. They have had a trial in

violent, 31% affected. `` Thailand. Not good enough. It is a banner of

hope that we can do it. If we can get a vaccine, I think then we can

visit the defeat AIDS. `` obviously defeat AIDS. There are many things

we can do. Apart from science fiction, a whole range of. I don't

think we're ever going to invade that the vaccine. That's my hand