Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant. Uh, nobody's in here with us,
Speaker 1: so it's just two of us and you, dear listener.
Speaker 1: We're just free Leal and Bob Dylan whoever that is
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan? Who come on? And um this is part
Speaker 1: two of two of a special two part series that's
Speaker 1: right on HIV aids. Yeah, if you didn't listen to
Speaker 1: first one, I would suggest you do that. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: you're gonna be lost. There's probably gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of in jokes and referential jokes back to the first one.
Speaker 1: We explained it in the first one. Yeah, that's very
Speaker 1: important and like the actual nuts and Bolts disease, some
Speaker 1: skip ahead, don't be lazy. UM So Chuck we left
Speaker 1: off you were talking. We talked originally about UM, you know,
Speaker 1: the different varying levels of risk depending on the type
Speaker 1: of intercourse, depending on the tie of UM uh group
Speaker 1: you remember of UM. We talked about how it works,
Speaker 1: where it came from, what what could possibly be left
Speaker 1: to talk about as far as HIV can is concerned.
Speaker 1: There's a lot. Oh yeah, yeah, because we did not
Speaker 1: touch on and I know you're being coy because I
Speaker 1: see all your notes in front of you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: look at all. But one thing we didn't talk about
Speaker 1: that we're going to start with is uh treatment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big one. That's a big one. Uh you
Speaker 1: want to go and talk about the AIDS cocktail? Yeah. So. Um.
Speaker 1: Back in a very very very famous basketball player named
Speaker 1: Irvin Magic Johnson played for the l A Lakers, announced
Speaker 1: that he was retiring from the NBA because he had
Speaker 1: been diagnosed with HIV. I remember the day. That was
Speaker 1: a huge deal. I was at Georgia Southern for some
Speaker 1: weird reason that weekend. That is weird. It was a
Speaker 1: big deal. Um. I mean you talked I think last
Speaker 1: episode about Easy catching it and you know that was
Speaker 1: that was a big deal. This was probably even bigger.
Speaker 1: I think Magic Johnson was a bigger name than Easy.
Speaker 1: Were more widely recognized him among more people. He was
Speaker 1: a sports figure, he was straight what the heck is
Speaker 1: going on? And I remember thinking, like many people at
Speaker 1: the time, oh my gosh, Magic Johnson is dying. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people, most people who are
Speaker 1: familiar with this thought, well, he's a goner in a
Speaker 1: couple of years. But he kept living, and he kept living,
Speaker 1: and he kept living. He came back and played more basketball.
Speaker 1: Even I didn't know that, and you gotta be pretty
Speaker 1: fit for that, sure, And he kept living. And everybody thought,
Speaker 1: what the heck happened with Magic Johnson? And it turned
Speaker 1: out that he had access to what's now known as
Speaker 1: the highly active anti retroviral therapy a k A HEART,
Speaker 1: which is now the standard of treatment for HIV um
Speaker 1: and he had access to it a couple of years
Speaker 1: before it became widespread in the I think, and it
Speaker 1: has helped keep him alive. He recently he was thirty
Speaker 1: two when he announced that he was diagnosed with HIV,
Speaker 1: and he turned fifty six and two. It's a very
Speaker 1: very long lifespan, especially for somebody who was diagnosed in
Speaker 1: the early nineties when people were still like, what is
Speaker 1: going on here? So correct? Uh, Magic Johnson got a
Speaker 1: head start. Not because he's super famous. Well, that had
Speaker 1: something to do with it. I think I'm very rich, well,
Speaker 1: but he was he was willing to It was still
Speaker 1: in the in the experimental phase at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure there were plenty of HIV patients who
Speaker 1: are like, do whatever you need to do to cure me,
Speaker 1: but didn't have the money, so he got a jump
Speaker 1: on it. But he has not. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that he is getting some other special
Speaker 1: treatments that no one else is getting, or he's paying
Speaker 1: his way into something. It supposedly there's a Kenyan witch
Speaker 1: doctor rumor. Yeah, he's getting the same treatment that other
Speaker 1: people are getting. And there are plenty of people that
Speaker 1: have lived much longer than him. Oh yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: he's just the most famous. Uh, and that's a good
Speaker 1: thing because he's HIV activists and activists. Yeah yea, not
Speaker 1: to disparage anything about magic Jacks, and he definitely took
Speaker 1: that that label at a time when it was that
Speaker 1: was a gay disease, and uh, he became an HIV activist.
Speaker 1: We should say specifically, he does not, never has had aids.
Speaker 1: His um T helper cell count never got to the
Speaker 1: UM two hundred thousand or less mark. So he's HIV
Speaker 1: positive and he is still UM Like we said in
Speaker 1: the last episode, it's a chronic disease because reservoirs developed
Speaker 1: UM and I believe it was a couple of years
Speaker 1: between diagnosis and treatment for him, So those reservoirs had
Speaker 1: a chance to get a foothold, but he got it
Speaker 1: early enough that he his lifespan is it's it's basically
Speaker 1: that what was it twenty four years that he's been
Speaker 1: alive since diagnosis. That's pretty normal for people who were
Speaker 1: treated with the hard cocktail in a reasonable time after
Speaker 1: being uh diagnosed, which they're finding that window of time
Speaker 1: is intensely important. Oh yeah, we're gonna get to that man.
Speaker 1: That was a great article ascent. So we're talking heart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: heart or cart or just art whichever you want to
Speaker 1: call it. I call it art with or heart with
Speaker 1: the double A. I call it the AIDS cocktail. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's another word for uh. So, each one of these
Speaker 1: drugs and we talked about in part one is very
Speaker 1: specific to its task um to basically disrupt as many
Speaker 1: stages of the process as possible. Uh, should we go
Speaker 1: through these um in r t I S nucleo side
Speaker 1: reverse transcript as inhibitors, they basically blocked the ability to replicate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: remember the reverse transcript as takes the r n A
Speaker 1: instructions for the viral UM creation and turns it into
Speaker 1: d NA, which is then inserted into the c D
Speaker 1: four plus T cell nucleus. Right, so you block that.
Speaker 1: It's a big problem for the HIV virus. It's a
Speaker 1: big problem. It is UH in n R T I
Speaker 1: S non nucleoside reverse transcription inhibitors, they disable a protein
Speaker 1: another protein requiring it to replicate another disruption p I
Speaker 1: S prote s inhibitors, So proteas was UM that was
Speaker 1: the one that actually cut the polypeptides into their individual components. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you had a long chain of enzymes that made up
Speaker 1: these viruses. That's the party didn't get right, and then
Speaker 1: you cut them up. So the thing that cuts them
Speaker 1: up isn't there. You just have all these long chains
Speaker 1: and they build up and it's basically like um lucy's
Speaker 1: running the chocolate factory assembly line or something there. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then you have entry fusion inhibitors. They blocked the ability
Speaker 1: to enter those c D for our cells to begin
Speaker 1: with UH, and then finally integrays inhibitors UM once they
Speaker 1: get in that c D four cell. UH. We talked
Speaker 1: about the insert of that genetic material, and it basically
Speaker 1: blocks the ability to do that. So the current cocktail
Speaker 1: recommended cocktail are two in r T I s in
Speaker 1: the shaker, one in a r T I and the
Speaker 1: p I and then either a integrays inhibitor or a
Speaker 1: right tone neighbor, which I don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: do you know, let's just say it's the key. Let's
Speaker 1: say it's the the bidders in the cocktail and makes
Speaker 1: it right. You put it all in there, you shake
Speaker 1: it up. You've got your AIDS cocktail. Once you put
Speaker 1: that into place, if you catch it early enough, you
Speaker 1: can bring your mortality rate just about to normal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's a chronic disease. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and your immune system will probably not become so compromise
Speaker 1: that you're gonna from something. You need to be on
Speaker 1: it for life. Uh. And everyone is supposed to be
Speaker 1: on this cocktail. Uh. Although if you have b um,
Speaker 1: have a recent CD four count below five, or if
Speaker 1: you are pregnant, then you are given a priority. And
Speaker 1: it's all gonna cost you about ten to twelve thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year, although that is supposed to increase. And
Speaker 1: the reason why you have to stay on it indefinitely
Speaker 1: because we said in the last episode that um HIV
Speaker 1: produces reservoirs of inactive varyans that just spread throughout the
Speaker 1: body and accumulate. And even when you're treating what amounts
Speaker 1: to one outbreak, another one can come very soon afterward.
Speaker 1: And that's what makes it chronic. Right with heart it
Speaker 1: will eventually get all these reservoirs, but it takes I
Speaker 1: think we said sixty to eighty years. It's a very
Speaker 1: long time, right. So there's been some suggestions as to
Speaker 1: how to eradicate UM this disease a little faster, yet
Speaker 1: different ideas, which is great. I mean, they're really smart.
Speaker 1: People are coming up with different strategies. One of them
Speaker 1: is kind of nuts. But also which one the one
Speaker 1: that uses pro Stratton I believe is what it's called.
Speaker 1: It basically goes in and says, um, oh, you're an
Speaker 1: inactive HIV, so well, I'm going to activate you. It's
Speaker 1: basically making an HIV outbreak take place, but you're doing
Speaker 1: it while you're under heart care, right. Yeah. The way
Speaker 1: I thought of it was, it's like flushing out those
Speaker 1: invisible reservoirs, but the only way to flush them out
Speaker 1: is to activate them to get them going. So the
Speaker 1: T cells actually know it's there. So that scary sounding
Speaker 1: it is that the heart treatment also disrupts their function,
Speaker 1: so it starts them up, and apparently they don't stop
Speaker 1: and go back to sleep or go dormant again once
Speaker 1: they start up, so it starts them up. The heart
Speaker 1: treatment um keeps them from doing what they want to
Speaker 1: do normally. And then also the cell that they're infecting
Speaker 1: will die sooner than later and just get it over with.
Speaker 1: So it's basically a way they're trying to figure out
Speaker 1: to accelerate an HIV infection while in the presence of
Speaker 1: highly active anti retroviral therapy. So it keeps you from
Speaker 1: actually dying from this accelerated HIV infection. It's pretty cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's one strategy. Does even that they call it anything,
Speaker 1: that should call it something cool? Uh the gun Slinger, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the gun Slinger hid. All right, I think we should
Speaker 1: get to this next. This is uh. You sent an
Speaker 1: awesome article from the Pacific Standard called getting to zero
Speaker 1: very close to a cure for AIDS, and the city
Speaker 1: of San Francisco is doing something. Uh there, they're pretty
Speaker 1: radical out there in San Francisco. Sure you know all
Speaker 1: those hippies out there. So what they're trying to do
Speaker 1: is they're trying to make their city the first city
Speaker 1: with no new infections, no deaths, and no stigma. And
Speaker 1: they called the program getting to zero, and they're doing
Speaker 1: this in a in a lot of ways. Um, some
Speaker 1: of the background here is there. Historically over the past
Speaker 1: few decades hasn't been a ton of money allocated toward
Speaker 1: finding a cure for AIDS. Yeah, and not because for
Speaker 1: various reasons. I think a lot of people, especially initially
Speaker 1: are like, well, because it was gay disease, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think is its spread out and started infecting more non
Speaker 1: gay people and more non gay white people. It started
Speaker 1: to get a lot more funding, but it also didn't
Speaker 1: get a lot of funny because a lot of people
Speaker 1: were like, we can't cure this, it's an incurable disease. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think, um, I think cynics might also say, like,
Speaker 1: it's you make a lot more money to keep people
Speaker 1: on drugs for life than you do caring something. But
Speaker 1: from what I could tell, the main reason was because uh,
Speaker 1: it was such a new scary thing. They put all
Speaker 1: of their efforts into trying to save people who got HIV.
Speaker 1: And coming up with these these this drug cocktail. However,
Speaker 1: things are changing, which is good. Um. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight and two thousand nine, that was a very
Speaker 1: cool case. Timothy ray Brown. He was, Yeah, the second
Speaker 1: Berlin patient. There was another one in the mid nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was, I know everything. That was an anonymous Berlin
Speaker 1: patient in the mid nineties who I think, uh got
Speaker 1: HIV and then no longer had HIV. But what's up
Speaker 1: with Berlin? I know, seriously, it's cool city. But Timothy
Speaker 1: ray Brown was a special case. He's an American that
Speaker 1: was living there as a translator. HIV positive and started
Speaker 1: taking medications. Uh, and then about a decade later find
Speaker 1: out he had leukemia. So his doctor, very clever person,
Speaker 1: Gero Hooter or Hero, call him Hero. I think Hero.
Speaker 1: He said. He had a very weird unique I D idea.
Speaker 1: He said, why don't we see if we can take
Speaker 1: there are these people out there one percent of Caucasians, Yeah,
Speaker 1: one percent of people who have a protein Caucasian people
Speaker 1: uh CCR five, which basically makes them immune to HIV.
Speaker 1: They lack that protein. Yeah, that's a protein on the
Speaker 1: surface of your t helper sell that the HIV virus
Speaker 1: docks with can doc can infect and very few people
Speaker 1: have this one percent. He said, why don't we try
Speaker 1: and find someone like that who can donate their bone
Speaker 1: marrow which is where stuff like that is produced, and
Speaker 1: to this guy and basically basically replace his immune system
Speaker 1: with with this one percenter and not that kind of
Speaker 1: one percenter. He's like, I'm gonna be rich. I got
Speaker 1: rich bow. So he did that. They found someone UH
Speaker 1: that had that that was a good match, and it worked.
Speaker 1: It worked like he was funk only cured of HIV
Speaker 1: I think like fully cured. Is was like, they keep
Speaker 1: testing him and testing him. This is I think two
Speaker 1: thousand eight or two thousand nine UM, and they testing
Speaker 1: no signs UM. I don't know that enough people have
Speaker 1: been cured of HIV AIDS so that they It's like
Speaker 1: with UM with cancer. I think if you're five years
Speaker 1: without UM any kind of growth, it's considered remission. I
Speaker 1: don't think they have a standard like that yet. UM.
Speaker 1: But so they keep testing this guy and he's it's
Speaker 1: not coming back. These reservoirs are not becoming active again.
Speaker 1: It doesn't appear that he has HIV or AIDS any longer.
Speaker 1: And The doctor was excited, obviously, but he also knew like, well,
Speaker 1: we obviously can't go around replacing you know, people's immune
Speaker 1: systems with these one per cent. But what it did
Speaker 1: was it kick started new hope and now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, all of a sudden, there was new funding
Speaker 1: for trying to find a cure. And it was what
Speaker 1: they call a proof of concept. I think we mentioned
Speaker 1: last episode it showed that AIDS can be cured. Yeah,
Speaker 1: before this, only about three percent of AIDS and HIV
Speaker 1: funding went to cure research. Um. Now there are new
Speaker 1: grants totally fourteen point six million a year in Obama
Speaker 1: in two thousand and thirteen said you know what, how
Speaker 1: about another hundred million towards a cure over three years?
Speaker 1: What is that funny? It's just what a hundred million
Speaker 1: used to be and what it is today. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just sounds like sure, just throwing money around. Um,
Speaker 1: go get yourself some nice funding. Uh. So we talked
Speaker 1: to Believe in the first episode about catching it early. Um,
Speaker 1: there's another story here. Basically, how it works now is
Speaker 1: you can get diagnosed with HIV and until you're t
Speaker 1: cell count falls below a certain number, you're just like
Speaker 1: not on any drugs, like you have to get sick
Speaker 1: before you get treated in most cases. Is well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the old I mean that's what it says
Speaker 1: in this thing. Oh that was the old, the old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the old guard I got you. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: the new the the bleeding edge right now, leading edge O,
Speaker 1: the leading edge um is quite the opposite of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Because they found if you get to it super early,
Speaker 1: like those first few days and weeks after you get
Speaker 1: HIV in the bloodstream is when it's most dangerous, very critical,
Speaker 1: most easily spread. And they found that if people who
Speaker 1: take these drugs right then are less likely less likely
Speaker 1: to pass it on to a sexual partner. Here's why. Again,
Speaker 1: one of the insidious, pernicious characteristics of HIV infection is
Speaker 1: that inactive reservoirs build, which makes it a chronic disease.
Speaker 1: And again, when you first stre exposed to HIV, your
Speaker 1: immune system can mount a pretty decent defense on its own. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have those reservoirs just yet, right, And it's
Speaker 1: those reservoirs that eventually overwhelm your immune system and can
Speaker 1: lead to your death if you're treated with heart very
Speaker 1: early on after or infection, those reservoirs never have a
Speaker 1: chance to build and that infection that you do have
Speaker 1: is helped with this extra therapy and your immune system
Speaker 1: can defend against it. And it's these these people feel
Speaker 1: like the time is such a critical essence that award
Speaker 1: eighty six, which is a legendary the um United States
Speaker 1: at least first UH dedicated AIDS ward AIDS Clinic in
Speaker 1: San Francisco General the very cutting edge. They've led a
Speaker 1: lot of treatment programs for UM HIV and AIDS over
Speaker 1: the years, but they have this program now where they
Speaker 1: will pay for a cab for you to be brought
Speaker 1: from your doctor's office where you were just diagnosed to
Speaker 1: Ward eighty six to be treated right then with heart
Speaker 1: to begin treatment. Yeah. It's a doctor researcher called Hero
Speaker 1: You hatano another hero another hero, You're right, And the
Speaker 1: program is rapid UH, which the first letter also stands
Speaker 1: for a rapid Yeah, I know, I don't think that's okay,
Speaker 1: Well we'll give it to him. Rapid is the Rapid
Speaker 1: Anti Retroviral Program Initiative for new diagnoses And like you said,
Speaker 1: basically it's a treat and test and treat program where
Speaker 1: as soon as you know you've got it. They want
Speaker 1: to knock down any obstacle in your way, including that
Speaker 1: first cab ride to get there and just go get
Speaker 1: going on that stuff so you're not spreading the disease.
Speaker 1: So we've got more on treatment and stuff like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to it right after this message. All right, Chuck.
Speaker 1: There's another UM. There's a group out there running around
Speaker 1: too who are saying that they are working on an
Speaker 1: AIDS or it's saying HIV vaccine. Yeah, you sent me
Speaker 1: this one. UM. They are studying what are called controllers.
Speaker 1: And these these controllers, they'll they get infected with HIV,
Speaker 1: it's in their body and they never get sick from it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're called long term non progressors or elite controllers, elite
Speaker 1: of it. They prefer to be called elite controllers. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they've estimated anywhere from one and two hundred to
Speaker 1: one in five people. Uh. They don't think Magic Johnson
Speaker 1: is one of these people, which we talked about. No,
Speaker 1: he just responded, well the part, but there was the
Speaker 1: thought that he might be. UM. And there's a project
Speaker 1: called the Immunity Project. It's a nonprofit that seeks a
Speaker 1: cure by stutting the blood of these elite controllers UM,
Speaker 1: which I don't know why it's controversial, but I have
Speaker 1: seen that other researchers are saying, like, don't do that,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna work, or yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe
Speaker 1: they think it's not resourced. Well, but they figured I mean,
Speaker 1: they feel like they figured out what makes elite controllers,
Speaker 1: what gives them that trait um. Apparently there's some proteins
Speaker 1: that UM show these people signal proteins in their body
Speaker 1: that that show the immune system where the best place
Speaker 1: to attack in HIV viruses. Yeah, so that's genetic it is.
Speaker 1: But it's also like it's not like there's something weird
Speaker 1: with their own cells. It's like they're antibodies are UM
Speaker 1: specialized to search and destroy HIV viruses, which is weird,
Speaker 1: But that's definitely who you want to study. Why not
Speaker 1: throw an extra hundred millionaire? Uh. This other part of
Speaker 1: this article article from Pacific Standards, So it was interesting.
Speaker 1: There was a case of the French girl she's now eighteen.
Speaker 1: She was infected with HIV from her mother during pregnancy
Speaker 1: or delivery. Immediately started started on the anti viral drugs.
Speaker 1: Uh stayed on them for six years, and then she
Speaker 1: stopped taking the medications for almost a year. Usually when
Speaker 1: that happens is HIV just like really gets going again
Speaker 1: and it's back on the move because of the reservoirs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it didn't happen in her case. Um, and so she
Speaker 1: stayed off them for and she's been undetectable for twelve years.
Speaker 1: So now they're thinking maybe one thing we can do
Speaker 1: is get people on the drugs super soon, and then
Speaker 1: wean them off of the drugs at a certain point
Speaker 1: and see if that works. Basically like keeping good close
Speaker 1: eye on them obviously not just being like, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll see in a decade, let me know how it goes.
Speaker 1: I mean, why not? So that's pretty promising too. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's another uh potential strategy which is called shock and kill,
Speaker 1: and that is flushing out the particles into the circulatory system.
Speaker 1: So is that part of the one we talked about earlier?
Speaker 1: I think so the pro stratton where is that the
Speaker 1: same thing it activates dormant HIV cells to get them
Speaker 1: to attack. I would say if it's not the same
Speaker 1: drug or the same research group, it's the same principle,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to awaken the sleeping beast and may
Speaker 1: give us some big problems. Uh, Patient zero. We tease
Speaker 1: that in the first episode. Yeah, I thought this was
Speaker 1: super interesting. You referenced the book and movie and the
Speaker 1: band played on by the book was Randy Schiltz about
Speaker 1: the early days of AIDS and HIV, and um it
Speaker 1: is there's now a book out called Plane Queer. Uh
Speaker 1: and that is plane as an Airplane airplane terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know colon labor, sexuality and AIDS. In the history
Speaker 1: of male flight attendants and um, there was a man
Speaker 1: named Guton Dougas Gayton m. I was in an a Yeah,
Speaker 1: g A E T A N Gayton Dougas. He's Canadian
Speaker 1: flight attendant. He's kebec Qua. It's Canadian people in compactus
Speaker 1: maybe a national hero. Uh. They in this book. Basically
Speaker 1: there was a big fear that this book wasn't going
Speaker 1: to sell and get any attention. So the book publishing
Speaker 1: because it's like six pages of methodical reporting on the
Speaker 1: area of HIV eight Yeah, and um, the the the
Speaker 1: editor now or the publisher has come out and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we kind of um resorted to yellow
Speaker 1: journalism by allowing and leaking this supposed patient zero, this
Speaker 1: gay flight attendant, good looking guy who was very sexually active.
Speaker 1: He claimed to have more than partners over a ten
Speaker 1: year span from the early seventies of the early eighties,
Speaker 1: flying all over the world. Yeah, obviously it's a flight attendant. Um.
Speaker 1: And they let the story leak to the New York Times.
Speaker 1: Was at New York Times and New York Post. But
Speaker 1: not only did they leak the story, they really they
Speaker 1: really built up or overstated the guy's role as depicted
Speaker 1: in the book too. Yeah. Basically, like this guy brought
Speaker 1: AIDS to the United States. This guy is patients zero.
Speaker 1: They they I think in the book he does compare
Speaker 1: him to Quebec quaw typhoid Mary right away, because he did.
Speaker 1: He did say, like I'm not gonna not have sex
Speaker 1: or you nuts, like there are some stuff that this
Speaker 1: guy definitely did do and he was one of the
Speaker 1: early patients. But to lay the AIDS epidemic in America
Speaker 1: at this one guy's feet it patently unfair. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: untrue because he was not the first person. Uh he was.
Speaker 1: They did trace early on, when they were tracing it
Speaker 1: around the country. They labeled patients with l A as
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles or New York like l A four
Speaker 1: in Y three is what patient number and where they were.
Speaker 1: And originally they said that his designation was OH for
Speaker 1: out of California. Eventually that became zero. Uh. And he
Speaker 1: unfairly pinned with spreading AIDS. He was he was part
Speaker 1: of a smallish group, a very traveled, promiscuous gay men
Speaker 1: that did help spread AIDS. But um, he was not
Speaker 1: the reason he was not patients here. He was a reason.
Speaker 1: He was right, but unfairly labeled. Um. But in the
Speaker 1: end it ended up bringing a lot of attention to
Speaker 1: it at a vital time. So that's why the conundrum,
Speaker 1: that's why the editors of the editor of the book
Speaker 1: is admitting and now he's saying, like you know, ultimately
Speaker 1: it was a good move because it helped brought a
Speaker 1: lot of bringing a lot of attention to this through
Speaker 1: promotion of the book. But it was at the expense
Speaker 1: of this one guy. And he died in um March
Speaker 1: of kidney failure. Very sad. Uh. I think we need
Speaker 1: one more break, correct, Yeah, and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about um. Some other celebrity who have
Speaker 1: helped put a face to AIDS and the AIDS quilt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right for this, all right, Chuck, We're back. Yes, so
Speaker 1: you tease celebrities. I love celebrities. Everyone does love celebrities,
Speaker 1: And someone who is a celebrity who dies of AIDS
Speaker 1: is no more important than um any other person who
Speaker 1: dies of AIDS. But they are vital to putting a
Speaker 1: face on things, into getting media attention and basically slapping
Speaker 1: people in the face who think I can never get AIDS.
Speaker 1: You know, easy we mentioned, Yeah, it definitely makes people.
Speaker 1: What gives people pause? I didn't know, I don't I
Speaker 1: didn't remember that some of these people died of AIDS.
Speaker 1: Um Rock Hudson was a big one. Absolutely, Arthur ashe
Speaker 1: had forgotten about that. Oh yeah, uh, Freddie Mercury. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I was watching, Uh have you ever seen Queen live
Speaker 1: in Montreal? I don't know. Maybe was he wearing um,
Speaker 1: like white jumpsuit, white jeans and the Superman tank top.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's like Queen's famous sponsort movie that
Speaker 1: was on Palladium the other night. And I've seen that
Speaker 1: thing probably a dozen times. Every time I'm knocked out.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the Queen was great, and Freddie Murcury was
Speaker 1: just such a rock star. Dude. It was like and
Speaker 1: at the time when I was a little kid, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what gay was, you know, just knew you
Speaker 1: like Freddie Mercury. Absolutely. Yeah. I was the same kid
Speaker 1: who drew the village people in crayon and my mom
Speaker 1: was like, what's going on there? Um? But Freddiemurkey just
Speaker 1: he still blows me away. What what a fantastic, awesome
Speaker 1: rock star. I wonder how that he's gonna be Sasha
Speaker 1: Baron Cohen's working on. He dropped out of that, he
Speaker 1: came back back on baby. Well, I think he he
Speaker 1: looks enough like him and he can do great impressions.
Speaker 1: But he's just tall and lanky. So that's the only
Speaker 1: thing that bothers me. It wasn't Freddie Mercury pretty tall.
Speaker 1: He was a little guy. Oh really, Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, spit fire, so you know whatever. It's
Speaker 1: not like Christoph Waltz playing a guy from Nebraska into
Speaker 1: Big Guys. Did you see that pile of do? That
Speaker 1: movie bugged me so much every moment of it. I'm
Speaker 1: just a nice man from the Brascot it was so
Speaker 1: like he didn't even tried to copy. He didn't try
Speaker 1: to hide his exit at all. He didn't because Tim
Speaker 1: Burton probably wasn't even on set most of the time.
Speaker 1: Why because he's phoning it in. Yeah he stinks now.
Speaker 1: I did look up though, like, why in the world
Speaker 1: did he cast him and Tim Burton? Because he got
Speaker 1: some flak for it, and he was like, I just
Speaker 1: it was more about the spirit of the guy, not
Speaker 1: that he had heavy Austrian accent. Missed it a little bit,
Speaker 1: Maybe re redo the character a tad then there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff you can do or um was it
Speaker 1: Cameron Crow who cast? Um? What is her name? The
Speaker 1: White Girl? Is an Asian character? What in it? Like
Speaker 1: the most recent like his most recent movie? I didn't see, Yes, who?
Speaker 1: I can't remember her names? A very famous actors the Redhead.
Speaker 1: Yes from Birdman. Yes she plays an Asian character. Yes, yes, really,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna to look that up. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go read about it after this. Alright, there was the
Speaker 1: one tangent for the two parter. Yeah, we got a
Speaker 1: lot in there. So back to celebrities who have passed
Speaker 1: from aids Um Liberacci of course. Uh, Gia. That was
Speaker 1: another thing too. Have you seen behind the candelabra? Are
Speaker 1: you gonna say g of the model? Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a big one because that was a woman from hers
Speaker 1: was from Needles, I think, so it's a pretty big
Speaker 1: heroin addict. Uh Perry Ellis fashion designer, Mr Brady himself.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Robert Reid, yep, I remember Pedro Zamora from
Speaker 1: the Real World. That was a big deal because I
Speaker 1: think each one of these cases kind of opened the
Speaker 1: eyes of a different segment. UM and Pedro he was,
Speaker 1: you know MTV's Real World before he got really bad.
Speaker 1: He was one of the UM. I guess it was
Speaker 1: the San Francisco and uh he helped up in the
Speaker 1: lines for a lot of teenagers and kids because it
Speaker 1: unfolded in real time on television. Oh. I didn't know
Speaker 1: about that at all. Yeah, it was a really big
Speaker 1: big thing. UM. Anthony Perkins yea psycho. UM, Brad Davis
Speaker 1: from Midnight Express. He was straight, but he was a
Speaker 1: drug user. So that kind of shone a light on that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Keith Herring, the artist Tom Fogerty of Credence,
Speaker 1: John Fogerty's brother got it through a blood transfusion. Man,
Speaker 1: So between he and Ryan White, You're right, like, those
Speaker 1: are all really different segments. Yeah, and I think, I
Speaker 1: mean that's why I'm mentioning them because I think each segment, like, uh,
Speaker 1: it just shines a light to a different group of
Speaker 1: people who might be fans of theirs. Um, So you're saying,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the aids quilte, Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: are you there? You got any more celebrities? No, I
Speaker 1: mean there are more celebrities than that, but we just
Speaker 1: went through a handful the aids quilt So have you
Speaker 1: ever seen the movie Milk? Yeah, the UM One of
Speaker 1: the main characters, Clive Jones, UM, is a real life person,
Speaker 1: as was Harvey Milk, who played Cleive Jones in the movie.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I want to say it was like
Speaker 1: the dude from UM Big Bang Theory, but it's not.
Speaker 1: I've never seen that show, but it looks a little
Speaker 1: bit like him. I don't really watch it either, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'm aware of pop culture, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So anyway, UM, Clive Jones was a guy
Speaker 1: who was a friend of Harvey Milks, and UM, Harvey
Speaker 1: Milk was very famously assassinated by Dan White the Twinkie Defense.
Speaker 1: I recognize the guy, but I don't know what else
Speaker 1: he's been in. He was from the Dogtown in z
Speaker 1: Boys movie and among many other things. Um So, uh,
Speaker 1: Harvey Milk was killed and in his honor, starting in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, I think Clive Jones organized the candlelight
Speaker 1: vigil for him and George Muscone, the mayor who was
Speaker 1: also killed by Dan White. Um but Harvey Milk was
Speaker 1: He was I think the first openly gay politician in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. So here's a gay rights hero for sure.
Speaker 1: Um So, to honors memory, they would hold Clive Jones
Speaker 1: would organize these candlelight vigils and um at one in
Speaker 1: five he found out that um about like more than
Speaker 1: a thousand in San Franciscans had died of AIDS and uh.
Speaker 1: He during organizing the candlelight vigil, he asked people to
Speaker 1: write the names of those people down on little cards, right,
Speaker 1: and then he took the cards he and some other
Speaker 1: volunteers at the end of the vigil and posted them
Speaker 1: on the Federal Building wall. And apparently it looked a
Speaker 1: lot like a patchwork quilt boom, and he thought the
Speaker 1: little light bulb went off his head. And Clive Jones said,
Speaker 1: I think we should make a quilt because they've been
Speaker 1: trying to figure out a memorial for um uh, people
Speaker 1: who had died of AIDS. Yeah. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: organic it was and how it started. And I just
Speaker 1: think it's such a neat story that is so it's
Speaker 1: very cleeve. Uh. In June seven, he um Well the
Speaker 1: first panel he created in memory of his friend Marvin Feldman.
Speaker 1: And in June of eighty seven he teamed up with
Speaker 1: a guy named Mike Smith and some other folks to
Speaker 1: organize the Official Names Project Foundation, and uh they started
Speaker 1: pouring in these these pieces of quilt, these patches started
Speaker 1: coming in from all over the country, then all over
Speaker 1: the world. And in October of nine they displayed it
Speaker 1: for the first of what would be uh one, two, three, four,
Speaker 1: five times in its full glory in Washington, d C. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first big deal. The first time, it was the
Speaker 1: size of a football field. The last time they displayed
Speaker 1: at Chuck Woods wind uh with the last time, and
Speaker 1: it was much bigger, it wasn't it. Yes, it covered
Speaker 1: the entire National Mall. That really drives at home. Well,
Speaker 1: which is the whole point, Like, look how massive this
Speaker 1: thing is. Uh. It has been on tour um more
Speaker 1: than a half a million people visited the first weekend
Speaker 1: and since then it's gone on many tours all over
Speaker 1: the country, all over the world, and uh has raised
Speaker 1: a lot of money I think so far over three
Speaker 1: million dollars. Is that right? Oh yeah, easily. It seems
Speaker 1: like it would be more than that, sure, but it's
Speaker 1: just through this one project. It says the Names Project
Speaker 1: found Asian has raised over three million dollars. I'm surprised.
Speaker 1: That's all. Um. In nineteen eighty nine it was nominated.
Speaker 1: The quilt itself was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
Speaker 1: and it's still the largest community art project in the world.
Speaker 1: And if you have not seen the documentary Common Threads
Speaker 1: Colon Stories from the Quilt, you should. One Academy Award
Speaker 1: for Best Documentary. And it has become a symbol and
Speaker 1: it all grew out of that one neat little idea
Speaker 1: from that candlelight vigil. Pretty cool, pretty cool indeed. And
Speaker 1: the reason they're not showing it in full anymore, I
Speaker 1: think it's because it's too big, which is sad, you know,
Speaker 1: like there's no space large enough to hold it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not true. You could probably go out to the
Speaker 1: desert somewhere. Oh yeah, you know, yeah, but then it
Speaker 1: get all sandy. Yeah, you don't want to do that,
Speaker 1: go to the beach. It's been weeks shaking that thing out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be tough. God, they can't imagine like transporting that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: in pieces. Yeah, I guess they may rease the whole
Speaker 1: thing back together every time. I don't think they saw it.
Speaker 1: They probably just put it together. Oh, I see, that's
Speaker 1: that's my guess. I'm not sure. Okay, I doubt if
Speaker 1: they folded up as one piece though, throw it in
Speaker 1: the truck, you know. Yeah, well it would very quickly
Speaker 1: reach to the moon. Have you ever heard that? You know,
Speaker 1: like you can fold the paper, normal sized paper, several
Speaker 1: times and very quickly it reaches right into outer space. Wait,
Speaker 1: I thought something couldn't be folded more than a certain
Speaker 1: amount of times. That's a lie, is it was? That?
Speaker 1: It don't be dune? What was the number of times?
Speaker 1: It was supposedly seven? And this girl in high school, Uh,
Speaker 1: somewhere in like the early two thousands proved it is possible.
Speaker 1: She did over like eleven or something. But the paper
Speaker 1: that she used like went from you know, paper thin
Speaker 1: to that after you know, ten folds, and so she
Speaker 1: did the math to see um after like twenty or
Speaker 1: fifty folds or something like that, it would hit the
Speaker 1: moon after like a hundred and twenty folds, it would
Speaker 1: expand further than the visible universe? Is that cool? And
Speaker 1: now she volunteers with the AIDS quilt holding it. That's right? Ah,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? Nope? No, I think you're right. Though.
Speaker 1: We could have made a whole entire podcast series out
Speaker 1: of this, right, Yeah, I hope you did a good job.
Speaker 1: We tried. We definitely did. H If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about HIV AIDS, UM, you should go research that,
Speaker 1: especially for this Aid's Day week. UM. You can start
Speaker 1: by typing the word AIDS into the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener men. Yes, and if you are
Speaker 1: sexually active, go get tested. Yeah, that's a great way
Speaker 1: to celebrate um AS day. No reason not to um celebrate, observe.
Speaker 1: How about observe, observe. Ye. Yeah, it's a little more
Speaker 1: solemn than celebrating AID to day, I think celebrating awareness
Speaker 1: is okay, that's all right. Thanks, I know what, man,
Speaker 1: thanks for letting me off the hook. All right, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be called listener mail. At the end of
Speaker 1: the HIV AIDS series. Hey, guys, just recently came across
Speaker 1: your podcast thanks to recommendation from Holly and Tracy. Stuff
Speaker 1: you miss in history class. It's nice. Just finished listening
Speaker 1: to ten most disturbing medical procedures, and I have a story.
Speaker 1: My husband recently was diagnosed with uh minyars disease. While
Speaker 1: he was being diagnosed, he was sent to an audiologist.
Speaker 1: An audiologist took him to a room no bigger than
Speaker 1: a closet and strapped him into a chair. The lights
Speaker 1: were then turned off in the chair of spun while
Speaker 1: the audiologist audio logist audio. Yeah that's right, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: had it right. Uh. The chair was then whilst um
Speaker 1: She asked him questions. The chair was then reversed in direction.
Speaker 1: He was asked you the more questions. These were basic
Speaker 1: questions like what's your wife's name, children's names, et cetera.
Speaker 1: He was even asked at one point to say a
Speaker 1: boy's name for each letter of alphabet starting with A
Speaker 1: and ending in Z. It would be a fun little test,
Speaker 1: Zeke and on. I found it amusing because you had
Speaker 1: mentioned in the podcast how the worldly chair is no
Speaker 1: longer in use and you couldn't find anything about it. Well,
Speaker 1: today it's called a rotary chair and is used to
Speaker 1: study the workings of the inner ear. While you would
Speaker 1: find it even more amusing after airing that show, while
Speaker 1: some people are treating the rotary chair as a new invention,
Speaker 1: me so, I think Heather here is saying that the
Speaker 1: rotary chair is the same thing as the Worldly chair.
Speaker 1: It's alive and well, yeah, thanks Heather. Yeah, thanks a lot, Heather,
Speaker 1: and the best of luck to your husband. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: still stuck in the worly chair going uh David Elias Frank,
Speaker 1: She's like, Frank doesn't count the short for France's start over.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff worst dot com and has
Speaker 1: always joined us at our home on the Web. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: M