December 1982 - AIDS in Australia!
By Geoff
The plague had a small but ominous beginning: a rare gay cancer was reported in the United States. But by the end of 1982, the newspapers in Australia were filling with reports about this insidious and mysterious affliction with an unknown cause and no known cure. But it all still seemed so far away - over yonder, in America.
More significantly, the news reports labelled it a "gay plague", as though most people had nothing to fear. Ominously, though, by the end of 1982, news was filtering through that the "gay plague" was spreading to at least three known high-risk groups: homosexuals, Haitians and haemophiliacs ( a fourth 'h' group, hookers, was added later). The plague was beginning to spread, and Australians were warned in 1982 that it was only a matter of time before it reached our shores.
The year 1982 was the last glimpse of calm before the arrival of a storm.
In December 1982, a suspected AIDS patient was diagnosed in Sydney - an American visiting Sydney. He later returned to Florida, where he died in May 1983. AIDS had finally directly touched Australia.
Over the following months, our tabloids reported any number of suspected AIDS cases - the fear and hysteria were beginning (for those old enough to remember, the Queensland AIDS babies' blood scandal was still two years away, and the Grim Reaper Campaign was another two years beyond that). The AIDS fears were somewhat justified at that time: AIDS was an unknown condition caused by an unknown agent, with no definitive method of diagnosis or prevention, and no known cure.
In the following months, blood banks began to propose bans on gays, and the gay community itself began to mobilise. They called public meetings and began to establish AIDS Councils.
The first "Australian" AIDS case was diagnosed in April 1983, when an Australian returned to Melbourne after living in the USA for some years. He died in July 1983. Four nights later, a community meeting in Melbourne established the Victorian AIDS Action Committee - later to become the VAC. The early mobilisation of the gay/lesbian communities, and the willingness of particular State and Federal Governments to work with those communities, undoubtedly saved many Australian lives in the coming decades.
American author Randy Shiltz was to refer to the arrival of AIDS as a watershed moment - never would the world be the same again. The times before AIDS would henceforth always be known as the time "before".
people living with HIV/AIDS 20 million people have died from AIDS 14,000 people infected with HIV every day |
The Modern Plague
Twenty years later, no community or peoples across the world remain untouched by this pandemic. The UN Population Fund estimates that 60 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS and that 20 million have died in the last twenty years (3.1 million people died of AIDS during 2002). The UN also estimates that 14,000 people are infected with HIV every day, of whom half are women and one-seventh are children under 15 years of age.
Any belief that AIDS is an exclusively (or predominantly) homosexual affliction, is purely and simply wrong, as demonstrated by the epidemic's demographics which have existed from the outset. Some homophobic people, even today, try to blame the gay community for AIDS ("it's a gay plague!"), and refer to the fact that the world's earliest known AIDS deaths took place within the gay community. In reality, heterosexual people in Africa had been dying of AIDS for years and their plight had gone unnoticed. The discovery of AIDS among western gay men actually helped to bring the pandemic to the world's attention.
AIDS and Science Fiction
SF authors have been writing about plagues and diseases for many years. Probably the earliest example was, "The Last Man", written in 1826 by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the woman who arguably invented modern science fiction with her most famous tale, "Frankenstein" (1818). "The Last Man" tells the story of the hero who literally becomes the last man on Earth following a devastating plague.
In "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933), H G Wells included a prediction of a great plague which would sweep the world, ushering in a new Dark Age. His prediction proved to be correct in metaphor - the Dark Age was the ignorance, fear and prejudice which swept the world in the shadow of the AIDS plague.
More recent notable examples of science fictional plagues include, "The Martian Chronicles" (1950) by Ray Bradbury and, "I Am Legend" (1954) by Richard B. Matheson. Probably the most famous example in recent times is, "The Andromeda Strain" (1969) by Michael Crichton. His fictional plague arrived on Earth like AIDS did in real life - seemingly out of the skies, of unknown origin and striking down people unequally.
Noted astronomer/scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe co-authored, "Diseases from Space" (1979) and many other books/papers proposing panspermia - the transmission of organic life such as bacteria or microbes across open space.
1960s TV science fiction programs, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" and "Star Trek" both had episodes which dealt with plague, the latter ("Miri") featuring a disease which left discoloured blotches similar to an AIDS-related illness.
One might be forgiven for suggesting that SF authors/readers/fans might therefore have somehow been slightly prepared for the onslaught of AIDS. One would be wrong.
A poignant omen of the future was penned by science fiction master, Isaac Asimov, in his speculative book, "A Choice of Catastrophes" (1979), which examined possible and plausible causes for the end of our world. Full of the confidence borne of the antibiotic age, he confidently predicted in his section on New Diseases that:
"It would seem, then, that as long as our civilisation survives and our medical technology is not shattered there is no longer any danger that infectious disease will produce catastrophe or even anything like the disasters of the Black Death and the Spanish Influenza..."(page 248, Arrow Books edition, 1981.)
Within two or three years of this prophecy, the new pandemic - HIV/AIDS - was discovered by the world, proving that even science fiction's most respected writers cannot always accurately predict the future. And in the cruellest possible twist of cosmic irony, his widow, Janet Jeppson Asimov, has recently revealed that her husband Isaac himself died of AIDS in 1992.
Science Fiction AIDS - The Final Taboo?
Media SF fans can feel the touch of AIDS in their own world. At least three people connected with “Star Trek” are publicly acknowledged as having been lost to AIDS, although Paramount Studios has yet to honour their memory in any form. It has been reported that Paramount refused a script for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” because it featured two discretely gay crewmen and a space-borne AIDS-like disease.
Some individuals involved with "Star Trek" are not as cautious as the Film Studios. Actor Patrick Stewart appeared playing a gay character in the film, "Jeffrey" which examined the impact of AIDS in the gay community. Whoopi Goldberg is also well known for her AIDS work, including the film, "Boys on the Side" (1995) (she is also significant for her gay-supporting roles in films. "In and Out" (1997) and, "The Celluloid Closet" (1995) and arguably in, "The Colour Purple" (1985).) Former "Star Trek" writer David Gerrold has also provided fund raising efforts for an AIDS charity (he even raises funds on his web site.)
Less timid media science fiction to touch upon the subject is "Babylon 5", which allegorised AIDS, AIDSphobia and extinction in the episode, "Confessions and Lamentations" (1996).
Literary SF has also responded to AIDS, often as allegory. For examples, see, "Journals of The Plague Years" (1988) by Norman Spinrad, "Why 2-K?" (1999) by Australia's own Stephen Stonewall or, "Space Journeys!" (2002) by Adrian Gaetano.
One of Australia's more striking SF-related AIDS figures early in the 1990s was "Condoman", a superhero-type posterboy designed by the Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health, Aboriginal Health Workers of Australia (Queensland).
The definitive AIDS science fiction novel is still possibly yet to be written - from the perspective of a fuller history. One can only hope that any such future history shall be able to assign AIDS to extinction.
Closer to Home
Melbourne's own science fiction community has lost at least three of its members to AIDS in the last ten years, and two of those people are memorialised on the Australian AIDS Quilt. Another SF fan from Brisbane also appears on this Quilt.
As we now enter the third decade since the discovery of this plague, we need to recognise that no-one under 36-38 (approx) has ever known sex without AIDS. A whole generation has grown up with AIDS as a constant fact of life. With multi-drug therapies available in Australia, it is easy to forget that we live a somewhat sheltered existence. For most of the world's population, AIDS is more than a simple fact of life - it is a hovering fact of death as well.
Australians tend to think that the AIDS battle is over. The war has barely begun. What will future historians make of our complacency?
For information about AIDS, try:
For information about panspermia, try:
For information about "The Last Man", a contemporary review is at:
For information about "Shape of Things to Come", a good literary resource is:
For information about Isaac Asimov, try:
For information about David Gerrold's fundraising, try:
An invaluable source for science fictional research can be found at:
http://www.worldaidsday.org/facts/
http://www.unaids.org/
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2002/english/ch6/index.htm
http://www.acon.org.au/
http://www.vicaids.asn.au/content/default.asp
http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/20years.htm
http://www.ejaf.org/
http://www.amfar.org/
http://www.aidsquilt.org/
http://www.hivaids.webcentral.com.au/
or your local AIDS Council.
http://www.cf.ac.uk/maths/wickramasinghe/
http://www.english.udel.edu/swilson/mws/lgrev.html
http://www.arts.adelaide.edu.au/personal/DHart/Films/ThingstoCome.html
http://www.asimovonline.com/
"It's Been a Good Life", edited by Janet Jeppson Asimov, publisher Prometheus Books, March 2002.
"A Choice of Catastrophes", Isaac Asimov, 1979.
http://www.gerrold.com/special_offers.htm
http://www.scifan.com/