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Okay, time for a not-fun topic. [Teacher talking at the front of a classroom]

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We'll give you a picture of a cute baby animal when we're done, but we gotta talk about it…

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AIDS.

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Yep, that awful pandemic that’s been wreaking havoc across the world, now for decades.

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To say the symptoms are dire would be an understatement. [Doctor talking to a patient]

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It causes the number of cells in the body that fight other diseases to take a nosedive.

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If your body was an army, AIDS is like a spy network that weakens all your defenses.

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All scientific studies show that AIDS is caused by human immunodeficiency virus or HIV. [Scientist working in a lab]

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It’s what’s called a retrovirus, and its favorite prey is macrophages,

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or disease fighting cells.

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HIV originated in Africa with the bushmeat practice of hunting monkeys for food. [Bushmeat hunter shoots monkey with a bow and arrow]

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When bushmeat hunters kill and skin a monkey, they often contract that monkey's diseases

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through blood-to-blood infection after monkey blood gets into their cuts.

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One monkey disease, called simian immunodefiency virus, appears to have infected humans and

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mutated into HIV on at least three different occasions since 1910.

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And that's three more occasions than is preferable… [3 sick people in hospital beds]

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And in other awful news, the virus wasn't noticed for seventy years, mostly because

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it was only popping up in Cameroon and Congo.

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There, administrators chalked it up as a form of syphilis, another sexually transmitted

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disease.

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This was one of those very rare times that declaring a disease as syphilis was actually [Upset looking patient in a hospital bed]

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wishful thinking.

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As migrant labor increased after colonialism, lots of guys from these regions started traveling

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around the world.

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And when these dudes get around, they tend to get around.

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Many ended up sleeping with women, men, or some of both.

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So in the 1970s, HIV spread across Africa, and then the world. [HIV virus covers Africa on the map, and then the rest of the world]

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Things got even worse when blood banks and medical equipment outside Central Africa were

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infected with the virus.

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By the time HIV was understood, it was already a global pandemic that had infected millions.

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HIV spreads through oral, anal, and vaginal sex, not to mention blood transfusions, unsanitary

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medical equipment, and breast milk.

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And because the world is full of idiots, some idiots in the 1980s were quick to label it [Man with a Dunce cap on holding a stamp]

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a homosexual disease.

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Since homosexuals were discriminated against, response to the virus was slow.

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But the truth is that the virus affects men and women of all sexual orientations as well

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as millions of children.

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The good news is that HIV can now be managed by medical technology. [Medical person talking to a patient and looking positive]

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Condoms, dental dams, and some other barrier methods drastically reduce the spread of HIV.

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And antiviral medication can suppress HIV, allowing infected people to live rich and

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full lives.

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But HIV is still a big problem in Africa for several reasons.

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First, access to contraception and sex ed is kinda hard to come by.

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This is made worse because many organizations refuse to lift a finger to end HIV. [Arm with organization written on it flicks person away]

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Catholic charities, for example, often refuse to provide accurate sex ed or to distribute condoms.

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And then there’s some other seriously sketchy stuff, like what went down in South Africa

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in the 80s.

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Yep, the 80s again.

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The haircuts weren’t the only things that sucked.

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Anyway, in 80s South Africa, communist agents circulated a theory that HIV was created by

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the CIA as a weapon against Africans.

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They convinced people that safe sex and antivirals did diddly-squat to fight the virus. [Man kicks medicine into a bin]

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Then in the 1990s, the South African government also refused to accept that HIV was the cause

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of AIDS.

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So they promoted alternative medicines that just didn’t work.

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Another big issue is that until recently only one company held the patent for HIV antivirals, [Scientist holds up patent certificate]

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and this company sold most of their stock as a baldness treatment in Europe, which left

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few meds for Africans.

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But times are changing, the patent has expired, and sex-ed and antivirals are making headway

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in the war on AIDS.

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Hm…bald Europeans vs. dead Africans?

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Seems like that should’ve been and easier choice. [Scales with 'Bald European' label on one side and 'Dead Africans' label on the other]

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And seeing as we've made it to the end…

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Permission granted to spend the next hour looking at more baby animal pictures. [Students look at picture of duckling]

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