Provide names of other journalists involved.
n/a
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Jun-11
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
This story looks at how HIV impacted the infectious disease community as a whole, including how it changed the specialty; how it forced doctors to confront their fears and prejudices; how it liberated some medical personnel to “come out”; how it created questions about treating the whole person rather than the disease; and how it impacted the way drugs are tested and approved in the US. The Point/Counterpoint accompanying the story explores whether the US is allocating resources appropriately for effectively managing the disease in all affected communities. I pitched the idea after an interview with Paul Volberding, MD where he’d mentioned that it was the worst epidemic in world history. I wasn’t sure if that was true, and so set out to discover if it were, and this story was born. (It does seem he was right.)
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
I used journals such as JAMA and Am J Pub Health for data on physicians who preferred not to treat HIV patients if they could avoid it; found information about the future of HIV treatment in the Ann Intern Med; used data from documents from the FDA, CDC, and DHHS; read many articles from the 1980’s such as those in Time magazine and the NYT, to get a feel for how the epidemic was viewed by the general public; read Shilts’s And the Band Played On; viewed a PBS Frontline series on AIDS; and viewed a video presentation sent to me upon my request by Paul Volberding, MD titled, “Life Before the Life Boat.”
Explain types of human sources used.
I mostly relied on interviews with medical personnel who had been in San Francisco and NYC treating the first HIV victims in this country, as well as CDC and FDA officials. In the Point/Counterpoint, I interviewed a prominent black activist with HIV, and a US DHHS official who lost his brother to AIDS.
Results:
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Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
There have been no subsequent corrections, clarifications, or challenges to the story.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
I think it’s essential to give yourself adequate time for reading and viewing enough media to get a feel for how the story you’re reporting fits into the larger context. This should happen before you speak to your first source. Try to go beyond a simple timeline of events, instead getting your sources to detail how what the experienced impacted them, including how it made them change the way they see the world and their role in it. The more research you do ahead of time, the more chances you have to frame questions for your sources in ways they might not have considered before. This makes them think fresh thoughts about the subject matter; this, in turn, typically makes them more excited to engage with you, and can lead to ideas and connections neither of you suspected were there.