WEBVTT - The Activist Responsible for Life Saving AIDS Drugs 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.000 But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.160 The Outspoken podcast Network. 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:12.200 And at nine twenty nine and fifty five seconds, I 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.800 say go and we stand up. We unfurl the banner, 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:21.239 and we each have a pocket sized marine foghorn. These 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.720 things are fucking loud, and we all raised our hands 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.520 and boom. Nobody heard the opening bell. This this piercing screen. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.680 It felt like time was standing still. Everything stopped. Every 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.600 the Trader's like, what what the fuck is this? They're 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.160 like confused, and then they're putting two and two together. 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.159 Those fuckers got inside. I was smiling from ear to 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:48.600 ear because I knew we had pulled it off and 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.559 that their anger and their homophobia and their hatred was 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.000 going to turn to our benefit. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:01.920 As a gin a kid growing up religious and in 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.640 the South, I thought being gay was the worst thing 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.360 I could ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.160 to unlearn that by seeking out our history, and what 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:17.160 I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.880 and love. In this episode, we'll meet Peter Staley, one 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:26.039 of the most impactful AIDS activists in America. We'll learn 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.240 how his own HIV diagnosis motivated him to stage some 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.000 of the most infamous protests in American history with Act UP, 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.800 and how those protests led to the creation of HIV 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.160 drugs that would save millions of lives. From My Heart podcasts, 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.440 I'm Jordan and Solves and this is what We loved. 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.880 The other night, I found myself at a gay club 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.000 at two am with my best friend Kevin. The floors 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.200 were sticky from vodka, soda spilling, and sweat. They were 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.760 blasting the Brat album. Kevin pulled me up onto the 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.920 stage to dance in front of everyone, and after a 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.240 few songs, I looked out into the crowd. Some people 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:36.639 were making out. One shirtless guy was doing poppers, a 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.640 few people were there with their friends like me, and 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.200 some were just happy to be dancing on their own. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.760 My eyes filled with tears looking at all of them, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.480 and when I turned to Kevin, he was crying too. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:56.960 We hugged each other. I think we were just overcome 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.679 by the joy. Creating this sh and meeting so many 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:06.000 queer elders affected by AIDS has shown me just how 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.840 privileged I am to have moments like that. My next guest, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.560 Peter Staley, is one of the many people. I have 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.720 to think he helped pioneer the HIV drugs that literally 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.320 brought many queer people back to life from their deathbeds 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:25.200 in the nineties. His activism also ensured wide access to PREP, 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.400 the drug that prevents the spread of HIV. In the eighties, 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.560 he was the poster child of act Up, the political 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.360 organization that pushed the government and society to slow the 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.520 wave of queer death caused by AIDS. But he wasn't 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.480 always out and proud. In fact, he didn't come out 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.280 until he got his own HIV diagnosis, just as the 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:58.000 AIDS crisis was beginning to build. So why don't we 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.480 start at the very beginning, When was the moment that 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:03.840 you knew you were gay? 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.640 I'd give most credit to uh Kirk and Spock of 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:13.280 the original Star Trek moved right when I was hitting puberty, 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.599 around I don't know, ten or eleven, I'd moved to 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:21.280 the suburbs of Philadelphia. And with today's TV, it's it's 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.799 almost hard to believe, but back then, there was no 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.640 nudity and not a lot of opportunities. When there was 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.640 just men's bodies, you know, just shirtless, and there was 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.800 occasional shirtless scenes in Star Trek, and that was the 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.880 show I loved, and I was like, why am I 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:50.080 obsessed by these stirring spock especially Kirk. And then there 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.600 was you know, a couple famous Zulu scenes, one particular 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:58.279 where he becomes a swordsman, old school swordsman, shirtless, running 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:03.240 through the ship, threatening people with his sword, and he 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:08.120 was all hot and sweaty and crazy and ripped. So yeah, 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.359 all those are kind of seared into my head. That 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.040 was your gay awakening, that was my gay awakening. So 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.919 I knew that I was attracted to men's bodies, not 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:22.080 women's bodies. And even before that, I knew that that 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:22.800 was wrong. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:24.839 Tell me about that. 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.719 Just growing up school yard stuff, the F word was 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:36.599 frequently used towards any kid that was not popular, But yeah, 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.839 towards me. I was a bit of a loner and 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:41.520 a music geek. 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:43.000 What kind of music? 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:46.320 I started studying classical piano as soon as I got 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.240 to Philadelphia, like when I was nine, And when I 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.200 was thirteen, my parents bought me a grand piano and 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:57.400 I got a much better teacher, professor at the local college, 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.000 and he became like a second father figure for me. 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.960 I read that you went to Oberlin for college? Was 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:06.480 that for classical piano? 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:08.040 It was that's how I got in. 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.240 And were you still in the closet? I was. 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.240 I still hadn't had gay sex. So I get to Oberlin. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.000 I'm there for over a year, still living in the closet, 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.880 still pretending to be straight. And my sophomore year, I 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.520 see this flyer put out by the Gay and Lesbian Union, 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.400 which was one of the earliest gay and lesbian student 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.719 groups in the country, founded right after Stonewall. But it 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.280 was all over campus, just a eight and a half 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:38.880 by eleven sheet that said a night of gay and 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:44.200 lesbian short films about us, about our lives. They had 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.400 the list of films and one of them had a 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.760 bunch of asterisks said noe X rated and it was 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.800 I forget the name of it. It was like Alan 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.520 and Paul or something. It was about two guys. It 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.160 was going to be the short documentary about how how 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.680 gay men have sex, and it said it was X rated, 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:10.680 and I was like, hmm, I've actually not seen gay sex. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.960 I hadn't even dared to buy a magazine or anything, 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.559 so I thought since it was a night of film, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.000 the theater would be dark. I could sneak in a 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.920 little late, find a seat in the back. Nobody would 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.200 know I was there. It's exactly what I did. And 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.400 then we get to Alan and Paul or whatever it is. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.600 You had to watch all the films first. 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:38.440 Couple other little documentaries and it was the most hysterical 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.520 thing ever. It was a bunch of queer old men 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.680 in San Francisco who decided to make the director who 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:50.480 decided to make this documentary for younger gays, to show 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:55.040 them how gays hook up and have sex. And it 0:07:55.080 --> 0:08:00.880 was done like an animal documentary of how lying mate, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.560 oh wild in the wild, how the lions would scope 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.360 each other out, you know, get to know each other first, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:15.520 touch noses then and with Attenborough's deep British voice going, 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.720 and then they spotted each other across the field, and 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.280 there was that vocal, not British but in a deep 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.640 baritone over the entire thing. And it starts with a 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.800 cocktail party and two guys spot each other from across 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.880 the room and he describes the gay gaze, you know, 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.480 they not looking at each other's eyes and then looking 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.800 back and not looking away. And that's how you knew 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.480 so you learn about that. And then they go up 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.920 and they start chatting and they get friendly really fast, 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.240 and then one of them says, let's go, and then 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.480 it cuts to them going into a bedroom and meanwhile 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.040 the guys sing and then they start the foreplay and 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.160 you know, and they start kissing and unbuttoning each other's 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.560 shirts and by the time they reached the first button, 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:03.480 I have to cross my leg. I was just they 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.960 were very hot men on the film, and I was 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:13.400 just going crazy. I said, Okay, I am going to 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:18.440 do this. I've been wondering for a decade since I 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.959 was a little boy, and this is nuts. I am 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:26.440 going to do this somewhere somehow, and I don't want 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.840 anybody to find out. I still want to keep my secret. 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.600 But I am going to London in early January to 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.240 check out the London School of Economics for a possible 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.640 junior year abroad. My parents are going to let me 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.040 go there by myself for a week, and nobody knows 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:44.600 me in London. I'll be turning twenty while i'm there. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.240 So I land in London in the morning and I'm 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.560 walking around and back then there was an active red 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.920 light district in Soho, and right on the edges of 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.600 the red Light district there was a gay porn shop. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:01.240 I was like, bullseye. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:02.120 Wow. 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:06.239 Six hours after landing, I'm in my first gay establishment. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.240 I'm alone in this square room with magazines and all 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:16.040 the walls, and this thirty something old guy behind the register, 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:18.440 the first homosexual I've ever met. 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:19.080 Wow. 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.760 And I look at the magazines and I work up 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.839 the nerve to talk to him, and finally I say, Hi, 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.000 I just got here from the States and wonder if 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.560 you could help me with some advice. I think I'd 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.600 like to go out dancing tonight. Do you have any suggestions? 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.600 And oh, well, it depends on what you're looking for. 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.440 You're looking for guys my age, you want guys your age. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:53.400 And I'm like, sheepishly going my age. And he said, oh, well, 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.400 you'll be wanting to go to Heaven. I'm like, oh 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:57.320 my god. 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.760 They had Heaven the Wow. Okay, yeah, yeah, so. 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.120 The largest gay dance club in Europe. When you walk in, 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:10.440 it's like Heaven exactly. It's at my doorstep. He said, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.160 if you like, I was thinking of going tonight and 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.840 we could meet at a pub at like eleven and 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.040 then I could show you how to get there, and 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.320 I thought that was so nice. I was, oh, that's 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:25.880 so nice. And he's like, you know, he's like making 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:31.320 his moves right right right. I'm clueless, so I said sure. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:32.960 So we met at the pub and he brings me. 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.520 I walk into heaven. We're at this long coat check 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.880 in my big puffy winter coat, and the bathrooms are 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.200 on the other side of the coach check and all 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:48.720 the stream of guys, shirtless, sweaty, beautiful young men were 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.760 walking by to go to the bathroom and they were 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:53.840 all checking me out. I was like the new meat 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.840 in town. Wow. And it literally was like walking into 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:05.160 actual heaven. I was like, I was like, oh my god, 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.880 this these are my I found my tribe. 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:08.319 Wow. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.920 I found my tribe the first night. And I had 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:17.800 like multiple opportunities to choose from within two hours, but 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.760 believe it or not, I decided to be a gentleman 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.720 and go home with the guy that brought me. 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:24.680 Wow. 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.520 He could tell it was my first time, and he 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.000 asked me how old I was and I said, well, 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.600 what time is it. He said it's one thirty years 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.280 said I just turned twenty. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:40.880 Wow, so that was your first sort of gay experience. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.120 January ninth, nineteen eighty one. 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:48.000 Wow. Not long after that is when the New York 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.120 Times article comes out about AIDS. To tell me about 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:57.440 your first time learning about that, because it sounds like 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.040 it was right as you were sort of coming of 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.920 age and coming into your own well. 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.200 I didn't see that article. I wasn't in New York. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.960 I went back to Oberlin. I don't think I heard 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:13.480 about AIDS until a year later. In fact, that was 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:18.800 mostly because the American press ignored it. The first nightly 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:23.280 news story on age happened in eighty two, not eighty one, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.840 when the disease broke. I mean, imagine if that happened 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.800 with something like COVID. I mean so, I think it 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:33.640 was a year later, and it was just like like 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:37.320 a general newscast. It didn't really register. Nobody was talking 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.920 about it on campus. I didn't have any conversations about it, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:46.080 And it wasn't until early eighty three. Then I get 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.000 to New York. I had given up piano and decided 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.800 I wanted to work on Wall Street for ten years 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.000 and then run for Congress, and on the weekend start 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.920 finding the gay bars and everything closeted bond trader on 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:01.680 Wall Street during the day. 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.440 Were you out to friends in New York? 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:10.920 Only the guys I was meeting at the bars that 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.079 summer in eighty three, at a gay bar with a 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:18.079 guy about my age and I'm twenty two, who was 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.520 also pretty closeted. He said, I hear, it's only really 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:24.920 happening to the older gays who have sucked with like 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:29.960 a thousand guys, which is not completely devoid of truth. 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.440 Kind of the early deaths were the crowd in their 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.920 thirties and forties who had been partying hard all through 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.240 the seventies, and there was just zero condom use in 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.240 eighty three. And I didn't pick up the gay newspaper, 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.400 but I didn't know any of the politics, nothing, and 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:48.880 stayed oblivious to all of it. 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.720 When was the moment that it became real for you 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.280 my diagnosis tell me about that. 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.800 It was two years later. I had had this wonderful, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.760 really fabulous two week tourd affair with a guy my age, 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:07.280 a bartender that had kind of come to a natural finish, 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.960 and I obviously had some STD I didn't understand and 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.200 know what to do with, and so I asked one 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:16.280 of my gay mentors, one of the older gay men. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.320 Do you know of any gay doctors in New York? 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:23.840 And his doctor was Dan william And unbeknownst to me, 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.200 he was one of the frontline AIDS doctors in New 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.520 York because he was a gay doctor who had a 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.360 huge practice of gay men. He was on the front lines. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.440 And so I went in to see him and I 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.960 had the STD taken care of. But then I get 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:45.520 this cold and I go in to see him about 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:50.480 this cough. And by that point he had been losing 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:54.440 so many patients. I didn't know this, And I go 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.720 in there and he had gotten into the practice of 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.920 any of his gay patients coming in for anything, he 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.640 would do a standard CBC complete blood account, and he 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:08.440 had this trick because if it showed a low white 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.160 blood cell count, it was a tip to him that 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.120 this might be yet another patient of his that had HIV. 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:22.760 So it was just a cold that brought me in. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.240 But the CBC had a low white blood count. And 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.640 on November fifteenth, nineteen eighty five, I got called at 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.800 my trading desk by the nurse in my doctor's office 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.680 at work and he's like, we need you back for 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.720 more blood. Work, and I said, what is it? He said, 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:42.400 a low white bud cell count. And I said, well, 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.680 what could that be? What might that mean? He said, ah, 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.400 he'll talk to you about that. And I'm really you know, 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.520 I'm on my trading desk. I'm pushy as all hell. 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.280 I'm an aggressive bond trader, right and I'm like, na, 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.360 you can tell me what might mean. I really pushed him, 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.080 and he said, well, we do see that a lot 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:09.960 in our patients with HIV. And in a flash, all 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:18.280 the denial and ignorance and youth and innocence just emptied 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:25.040 out of me. And I knew It's like duh, I 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.680 was this young gay guy fucking in New York, which 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.720 is ground zero for this AIDS crisis. I've been hearing 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.240 about and thinking I'm immune, so you. 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:39.000 Go in and get the additional tests. What was the 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:40.240 moment of diagnosis? 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:45.160 Like, well, I knew right then it was that. And 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.680 the country was in a total panic about AIDS. There 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.879 was lots of AIDS all over the news stand but 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.159 in the worst scariest possible way, America was in this 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.920 a Bola like panic. Parents were pulling kids out of 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.880 school if there were rumors about other kids. Shit like that. 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.000 A family with hemophiliac boys was burnt out of their 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:10.080 home in Florida. All of this was happening when I 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.840 get this news, and I was actually I had a 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.080 guy I had met in Amsterdam was staying with me 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:23.480 and I was taking him to Disney World that weekend. Wow, 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:25.640 he even knew less than I did. And we had 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.280 to La Guardia. I scoured the news stand for anything 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.840 about HB and there was one science magazine that had 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.480 a cover story on everything that was known about the 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.639 disease from a scientific standpoint, written in layman terms, and 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.520 I snatched that up and read it on the plane 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.760 about three times. And when we got to our hotel 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.000 outside Disney World, I broke down and just started sobbing. 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.880 And the guy who was dating was also named Peter, 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.280 and he was so scared for me. He didn't know 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.359 what was going on or how to come for me. 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.639 And I said, it's part of me, it's genetically integrated. 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:05.840 I'm fucked. 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.040 Peter had just learned that he was living with HIV. 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.399 By the end of that year, nineteen eighty five, there 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:30.480 would be nearly sixteen thousand Americans dead In nineteen eighty seven, 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.320 a man named Larry Kramer founded a group called act UP. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.760 It stood for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Made 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.879 up of mostly people in their twenties, their goal was 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.359 to bulldoze any barrier in the way of ending the 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:49.760 AIDS crisis, insurance companies, big pharma, and the government itself. 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:55.120 Act UP members became experts on infectious disease and masters 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.359 of drug policy. They staged dramatic protests that would catch 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.200 the media as a time tension and direct public pressure 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.440 toward their targets. Peter was on the Treatment and Data Committee. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.240 Their goal was to accelerate treatment for HIV and to 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.439 stop the death But Peter didn't hear about act UP 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:15.919 until he got to work one day on Wall Street. 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.639 Tell us how you ended up getting involved with act UP. 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.320 You are one of the most prominent members of act UP, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.400 But how did you get involved with actub? 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.199 Well, on my way to work in March of eighty seven, 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.240 you're still a I'm still trading bond Wall Street. I 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:38.159 got handed a flyer on my way to work. It 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.360 was the very first act UP demonstration. I didn't see 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:43.119 the demo because I was at my trading desk. 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.720 This is the Wall Street demonstration. 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:49.000 Yeap Wall Street one we call it. And I was 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.560 I was like, oh, wow, uh. And there was a 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.560 discussion on the trading floor that was very painful to hear. 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.360 Tell me about the Well, the head trader. 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.800 Who was one of my mentors at work, he said, well, 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.200 if you ask me, they all deserve to die because 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.160 they took it up the butt. I just died inside 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.119 hearing that. But when I got home that night, I 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.200 turned on the national news and there was the demo 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:16.520 on the National news. 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:19.440 You hadn't taken part in the no I did even. 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.640 See it, and I had the flyer in my hand, 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:30.240 but they looked so determined. And the FDA Commissioner went 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.960 on TV and he had some snippets of response saying 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.520 that they were going to tweak some regulations here or there. 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:42.080 Already they were getting a national response. And I said, 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.720 this is this is hope. This is the only hope 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.000 I've seen. And I got to the very next meeting 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:48.920 and I never missed a meeting after that. 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.320 Wow. Well, what was the problem that you were trying 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:54.320 to solve with Act of. 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.000 Well, one of the primary things from day one for 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.840 Larry Kramer and many in the room was and I 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.840 think it was the right thing to make the top focus. 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.199 There was so much to work on with AIDS. There 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:13.399 was housing issues, et cetera. But certainly, if we didn't 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:17.760 figure out how to stop the relentless tide of death, 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:20.560 if we didn't work on the research side of it, 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.440 on trying to find some therapies that would buy us 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.760 some time or even a cure, getting that going in 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.920 a major way as it should have happened in eighty 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.840 one was job number one, and it's what I focused 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.159 on for sure. There was a group called the Treatment 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.600 and Data Committee that focused on it like a laser light, 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.080 and I joined them pretty early on. 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:49.720 So ACTUP is really famous for all of these traumatic 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:55.840 attention grabbing demonstrations, and you all had targeted the Food 0:22:55.880 --> 0:23:01.040 and Drug Administration, different pharmaceutical companies. One of the demonstrations 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:04.320 was at the Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange. 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:08.040 Tell me why you all chose the Stock Exchange and 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:09.520 the story behind that. 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:14.000 Yeah, I finally left Wall Street, went on disability, came 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:19.440 out publicly, became one of the spokespersons for the movement, 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:24.760 started doing lots of national TV and as soon as 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:27.680 I did that, the thing I was dying to do 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:32.000 was design actions and carry them out. I loved the 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:36.040 mission impossible. I just love pulling off the impossible. And 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:39.080 T and D would give me the ideas of the targets. 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:42.720 The Treatment and Data Committee and we had been following 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.240 act since its launch, which happened the same month ACT 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:49.600 UP was born. Turns out one drug is not enough 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.240 to fight HIV, so it would add a few months 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:56.399 if you were near the end to your life, but 0:23:56.440 --> 0:23:59.040 then it would stop working because the virus would mutt 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:02.280 around it. But the company burrows welcome. 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:03.479 The pharmaceutical company. 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:08.000 Pharmaceutical company, they slapped this obscene price. It seems it 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:11.080 seems low today, seems cheap, but at that time it 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:13.880 was the highest price of any drug in history, ten 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:17.600 thousand dollars a year. The country was shocked at the price. 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:23.199 Even some government officials were like, this is that's shocking, And. 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:27.640 For contexts, this is the only viable drug market drug 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:29.080 right that's treating AIDS. 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:32.960 So there was so much pressure that first year that 0:24:33.040 --> 0:24:38.000 the company eventually they lowered the price. By the end 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:42.600 of that first year twenty percent, down to eight thousand 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.520 and then the precursor to Act UP San Francisco was like, 0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:51.480 that's not enough, and they staged a demonstration at a 0:24:51.480 --> 0:24:58.359 Burrow's welcome warehouse in January of eighty eight. That blew 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:00.880 my socks off. I was like, Yeah, that's what you do. 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:03.679 You say that's not enough, and you hit them harder. 0:25:04.240 --> 0:25:07.520 In September of eighty nine, we decide to do a 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:12.320 huge demonstration on Wall Street in front of the Stock Exchange. 0:25:12.480 --> 0:25:15.840 But I'm like, hmm, nobody's actually gotten onto the floor 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:19.439 of the Stock Exchange. So I made that my mission impossible, 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:21.879