Aids: The Victims

Two AIDS sufferers recount their experiences battling the disease and society's misconceptions.

Current affairs series TV Eye meets two AIDS sufferers who recount their experiences of living with the disease and facing society's suspicion, fear and misconceptions. HIV-positive Bill Ayers is especially candid, refusing to conceal his identity or display any shame at being an out gay man despite virulent homophobia in the British media. Junior Health Minister John Patten's agreement to meet and shake hands with Ayers - two years before Princess Diana's famous visit to an HIV ward - is presented as a significant step forward.

Other interviewees in the programme include Joan Palmer, whose husband was the first haemophiliac to die of AIDS. Specialists featured are Dr Stuart Glover (Ham Green Hospital, Bristol), Dr Anthony Pinching (Clinical Immunologist, St Mary's Hospital, London), Dr Jonathan Weber (St Mary's Hospital, London), and Dr David Miller (St Mary's Hospital, London). When the programme was made 58 AIDS-related deaths had been recorded in Britain; by 2011 that figure had grown to over 20,000.