I'm a sufferer of frequent and severe migraines.
And I am so incredibly thankful to live in a time when my crippling headaches can easily be treated.
Imagine living in a world where you had a condition, one that would eventually kill you.
There were treatments being developed to prolong your life, but the federal government dragged its feet. While they tested and delayed getting medicine out to the public, you watched your friends, colleagues, and family members die. There was nothing to be done.
That's the premise behind the Oscar nominated documentary How To Survive A Plague.
How To Survive A Plague uses archival footage, current interviews and first person accounts to paint the picture of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's and 1990's in New York City. The documentary focuses on two AIDS activists groups, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group). Both are run by AIDS patients and their allies.
How To Survive A Plague was one of the most moving documentaries that I have ever seen. Seeing so many young people on screen and knowing that they didn't live to see 40 in most cases was extremely sobering. How To Survive A Plague teaches us that sometimes in order to get what we need, we have to break the rules. While sometimes the activists took things a little to far, I agree with them for the most part. It was largely due to the ACT UP and TAG activists that treatments like AZT were provided to AIDS sufferers in a much more timely manner.
I hope that if my generation ever experiences something as terrible as AIDS I will have the courage and moral strength to act as the ACT UP and TAG members did. Only time will tell.
Keep it classy,
~E
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