This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 18, 2012 - "Maybe this is our future, that we are going to watch each other die," says one of the activists profiled in "How to Survive a Plague," a compelling look at the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.
The documentary focuses on the men and women in the protest group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), whose confrontational methods raised public and political awareness of what was initially called "gay cancer." Eventually, AIDS activists forced changes in the protocols through which new drugs were tested and released to the public.
The activists in the film, based principally in New York, proved that they could do much more than simply watch each other die while the government and much of the public looked the other way.
At the time, potential new AIDS drugs spent years being tested in the lab and on animals before they were even tried on humans. Since many of the activists had only months to live, they were willing to be immediate test subjects for the literally hundreds of drugs proposed to fight the HIV virus. At the same time, they obtained the drugs themselves illegally and conducted their own carefully monitored if unorthodox tests.
The movie, directed by David France, a journalist who began covering the AIDS epidemic in 1982, focuses on the deadly decade that began about 1987. It is an important addition to such valuable works as Randy Shilts' book "And the Band Played On" and the feature film "Parting Glances" in understanding what it was like to be young, gay and infected with the virus that causes AIDS, then considered a death sentence.
Rather than succumb to despair, activists like Wall Street bond trader Peter Staley and public relations executive Bob Rafsky decided to fight the government and the drug companies, demanding more money and a greater sense of urgency be devoted to AIDS research. As a result, budgets were increased and, eventually, accelerated methods of testing developed by AIDS activists were partially adopted by drug companies and the National Institutes of Health.
In the film, government officials and drug company researchers who originally had rebuffed the activists are shown praising the contributions of the AIDS organizations in developing the combination of drugs that now are used successfully to keep the virus from developing into full-blown AIDS.
Although the film spends most of its time with the activists in their protests and their sometimes volatile meetings -- at one point, gay activist playwright Larry Kramer shouts in frustration "ACT UP has been taken over by a lunatic fringe" -- there also is footage of confrontations with political figures like President George H. W. Bush and presidential candidate Bill Clinton. In one outrageous scene, a giant canvas condom is wrapped around the Virginia home of openly homophobic Sen. Jesse Helms.
Near the end, one of the members of ACT UP, near death, asks a question that applies not just to the fight against AIDS but to our responsibilities as citizens of a diverse and decidedly imperfect community. He asks:
"What does a decent society do with people who hurt themselves because they are human -- who smoke too much, who eat too much, who drive carelessly, who don't have safe sex? I think the answer is that a decent society does not let these people die … because they have done a human thing."
Opens Friday Oct. 19