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whitechapel season 5 au - ep 1 & 2; due to the failure of the Abrahamians case, the group are sent to stay at a remote team building workshop in a cottage in Ightham. With Chandler focused on nothing other than Louise Iver, and tensions still present with the rest of the group, a sinister side to their retreat slowly starts to appear. Buchan soon uncovers that the place they are staying echoes that of the Seal Chart Murder 1908, where a woman was mysteriously killed in an isolated summerhouse surrounded by a heavily wooded area. Her husband later committed suicide, and her death remains unsolved. based (x)(x)
When future generations asked what we did in the war we have to be able to tell them that we were out here fighting. And we have to leave a legacy to the generations of people who will come after us. Remember, that someday the AIDS crisis will be over. And when that day has come and gone there will be a people alive on this earth who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought, and in some cases died, so that others might live and be free.
- Vito Russo, Aid-Activist.
An ACT UP Appreciation Post
When the majority of those diagnosed with HIV were homosexual the U.S. government’s barely-concealed homophobia developed into a complacent attitude in approaching the disease. The government banned HIV-positive people from immigrating into the United States, encouraged celibacy as well as a “change in lifestyle” in the absence of proper health policies. In light of the U.S. government’s response (or lack thereof) to the AIDS Crisis, advocates decided to take matters into their own hands. And so, in 1987, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was formed. They consisted of a large, extremely knowledgeable, and diverse group of people who utilized their expertise in their respective fields to save millions of lives.
An incomplete account of their accomplishments that doesn’t do them justice:
- In the late 1980s, there was very limited information about AIDS to the general public and no real effort from the government authorities to change that. ACT UP realized that this information was essential for survival if one was HIV-positive. A group within ACT UP formed themselves into a “science-club” in which they read medical journals to educate themselves of the disease. Within weeks, they managed to refine the information and create a glossary for AIDS treatment terms and distributed them to anyone who was interested.
- They also pushed for the release of a drug called DHPG to give to people with both cytomegalovirus and advanced aids because those who had both often became blind. At first the FDA disagreed claiming that the difference in the data between DHPG and AZT (the only prescription drug for Aids that was highly toxic) to be “the difference of night and day”. Then they looked over the DHPG data and suddenly agree with ACT UP and DHPG becomes FDA approved.
- ACT UP organized countless demonstrations and protests for change:
- They protested the banning of HIV-positive people from immigrating into the United States as being homophobic and useless as a health policy.
- They demonstrated against the sky-high price of $10,000 for AZT a year, the only prescription drug to slow down the progression of AIDS.
- In March 1992, ACT UP organized a political funeral at Washington where they spread the ashes of their loved ones that they had lost to AIDS.
- There was no national research plan for the United States to tackle the aids crisis, no effort to deal with the entire map aids and the entire constellation of opportunistic infections, nor the gaps in research. ACT UP decided to do it for them. At the International AIDS Conference of 1989 at Montreal, ACT UP presented a plan for the government to adopt. According to, Susan Ellenberg, PhD, Chief Biostatistician Division of Aids of the NIH, who picked up this plan at the conference: “This has clearly been written by the people who were very knowledgeable, very intelligent, and really wanted to do the trials the best way possible. They were not cutting corners”. Consequently, less than a year after Montreal, the government approved a drug that prevents blindness in people with aids.
- When it was discovered that a triple drug combination was the correct treatment. The activists proposed the study design, which the industry used and the treatment became approved in six months.
If one was to abridge ACT UP’s accomplishments even more, it would be safe to say that the Aids activists created a system that was better, quicker, more efficient and more ethical, and that eventually brought the correct treatment to the table. And with that put an end to millions of deaths and suffering from AIDS.
Unfortunately, despite scientific advances of HIV and its prevention, the global HIV/AIDS epidemic is not over. Most people living with HIV or at risk for HIV don’t have access to the correct prevention, care, and treatment. According to the World Health Organization, 1.2 million people died of AIDS in 2014 alone. You can help change that:
Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation
Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance
Sources
Gif footage: How to Survive a Plague directed by David France.
Video Source: How to Survive a Plague directed by David France.
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