A Big Disease With A Little Name

A Big Disease with a Little Name

BBC Radio 4 LW

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

A Big Disease with a Little Name: The Beginning

The Beginning

BBC Radio 4 - A Big Disease with a Little Name, The Beginning

When the first cases of AIDS emerged in New York, gay men responded with fear and denial.

When the first cases of AIDS emerged in New York, gay men responded with fear and denial. Peter Staley recalls the emergence of a new 'gay cancer' in the early 1980s.

The coronavirus epidemic has shaken many of us out of a complacent view that if we get sick, doctors and nurses will know how to make us better again. 

Living in a time where there is limited treatment – and no cure - is a new experience for many of us, but not all.

A Big Disease with a Little Name looks back to the recent past to a similar time, and the dawn of the HIV/AIDS crisis, which to date has affected 75 million people around the world, of which some 32 million have died. 

 The series explores the emergence of HIV/AIDS through the stories of those who were on the front line. Speaking to gay men, doctors, nurses, politicians and activists, the series explores the confusion around the causes of this new disease, the frightening pace with which it spread, the pace of the political response and the devastating influence of conspiracy theories and fake news. 

In this first episode, Peter Staley recalls moving to New York in 1983,  to take up a job on Wall Street, as he puts it with 'one foot, if not two thirds of my body in the closet'. 

He recalls first hearing about a new 'gay cancer' and the response among young gay men like himself.  Some dismissed it as a condition only affecting promiscuous older gay men and was unlikely to affect the hot young things occupying the buzzing gay bars around Christopher Street and the East Village. 

But it wasn't long before most gay men living in New York knew someone who was sick, and when Peter was himself diagnosed HIV positive, he says the years of denial quickly evaporated. 

"It slapped you in the face. The reality took over and made everybody learn about it." 

At 24-years-old. Peter had to face up to the fact that, at best, he probably had two years to live.

Narrator: Chris Pavlo
Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Documentaries

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Charting the early years of the AIDS crisis, as told by the people who lived through it

Charting the early years of the AIDS crisis, as told by the people who lived through it, from patients to medical staff, activists and politicians.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

A Big Disease with a Little Name

The Beginning

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4