SVERIGES RADIO: We must not forget the AIDS epidemic

In New York, we meet those who are trying in various ways to keep the legacy of the AIDS epidemic alive. We can learn a lot about ourselves as people and our society by remembering what it was like during the early years of AIDS, they say.

Dave Harper is the director of the AIDS Memorial in New York. It is an organization and at the same time a park and a monument with a cultural scene to keep the memory of the AIDS epidemic alive. Today, there are many young adults who feel that the early years feel very distant, that it is like something out of the history books, he says.

He wants younger people to absorb the stories from the early years - about those who lived through everything and saw their friends die, but who also took matters into their own hands and made a lot happen, and believes that young people can also be inspired by the fighting spirit and care for each other that existed then.

Gerald Oppenheimer is a professor at Columbia University and both a historian and an epidemiologist. He became interested in the AIDS epidemic early on, because it contained such interesting aspects. Epidemiologically, it was a mystery at first how it was transmitted. The fact that it affected stigmatized groups made it politically interesting and the fact that the United States was so unprepared for a deadly pandemic was historically interesting.

Note: Radio report is primarily in Swedish.