Even though the first British AIDS death occurred in December 1981, it was some time before the British Press took any real interest in the disease. In the first quarter of 1983, the number of references to AIDS in the national Press ranged from one to 3, with less than 200 column centimetres being devoted to the subject (1). But in the following quarter this rose to 75 references and more than 1900 column centimetres (1). And that trend continued upwards for some years.

Yet there had been no sudden change in the nature of the disease; no increase in its infectiousness or rapid increase in British AIDS cases.

But what had happened was that the BBC had broadcast two programmes about the disease. The first, Love’s Pestilence on March 7th 1983, looked at the increase in Herpes and AIDS in gay men. But it was the second documentary, Killer in the Village on 25th April , that really seemed to trigger Press interest.

The film spelled out the AIDS situation in minute detail. Focusing on US cities with large gay male populations (New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles) it looked at virtually every conceivable aspect. Not only did it identify the major symptoms such as Kaposi’s Sarcoma, Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia and Cytomegalovirus, it also interviewed various people with those symptoms.

Bobbi Campbell being interviewed. Campbell was one of the first people with AIDS to go public about his diagnosis.

It explored the major theories of causation at that time. Given that a virus was yet to be identified, some of these seem quite bizarre nowadays. Repeated exposure to sperm? Immune system breakdown following repeated exposure to other sexually transmissible diseases? The use of ‘poppers’ (amyl nitrites)? Interestingly, it touches very fleetingly on the possible role of the virus HTLV III (which was subsequently to be established as the cause) before moving quickly on to another theory.

To emphasise just how serious this new disease was, a graphic was presented to show the current rate of growth. Every two years there were ten times more gay men with AIDS than there were the previous year. “Unless there’s some dramatic change, that exponential will continue.” And so the graphic grows into tens of thousands then hundreds of thousands. The producers certainly make no efforts to hide the fact that it’s a bleak situation. (Although, sadly, they don’t touch on the Reagan administration’s criminal failure to respond to this crisis.)

The programme’s major focus was on gay men and gay communities, since they were the ones most impacted by AIDS. But it also explored other groups that were being affected, including heroin addicts, Haitians, and haemophiliacs. Cue graphic of ‘the four H’s’, with homosexuals being at the top of the pile.

But it was the exploration of the other groups – haemophiliacs particularly – that was to trigger the interest of the British Press. Haemophiliacs used an anti-clotting agent known as Factor 8, and it was suggested in the programme that this may have become contaminated with the causative agent for AIDS. And then the revelation that, “half of the Factor 8 used in Britain comes from the US.”

Less than a week later, on May 1st, the Mail on Sunday ran the alarmist story, ‘Virus Imported from US. Hospitals Using Killer Blood’. and the Daily Mail the next day ‘Probe on imports of ‘Killer Blood”. Also on May 2nd, the Daily Telegraph ran ‘“Gay Plague”  may lead to blood ban on homosexuals’, the Sun ran ‘Watchdogs in “Gay plague” blood probe’ and the Daily Mirror, ‘Alert over “gay plague”‘.

So now the British Press were interested in AIDS. Sadly, that interest was not quite what we, as gay men, the main victims, would have hoped. For this was the beginning of the widespread use of the term “gay plague” when referring to AIDS – that is, something that comes from gay men or is linked to being gay. And even though Killer in the Village had mentioned British gay men dying from AIDS, the Press saw the problem as the threat to ‘innocent’ people through the contamination of blood products. They were themes that were to grow ever louder in the following years.

• Killer in the Village is still available in the UK on the BBC’s iPlayer
• References:

(1) A.I.D.S. through the British media, monograph by Julian Meldrum, Hall-Carpenter Archives, July 1984