WATCH: ‘Coping with AIDS’ on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in 1985

Reported cases of AIDS hit new highs in 1985, a time when, as Judy Woodruff said, there was “no cure, treatment or preventative vaccine in sight” and misinformation, fear and discrimination abounded when it came to how the disease is transmitted.

On Sept. 4, 1985, the NewsHour devoted most of its program to sober, fact-based conversations about the disease and the social fallout for patients. The show introduced viewers to two people whose lives had been upended: Gar Traynor, a flight attendant from San Francisco who was fired after he told his employer he had AIDS, as well as Ryan White, an Indiana boy with hemophilia who became an icon and namesake for the movement to help HIV/AIDS patients. At the time, White was attending school via telephone because he wasn’t allowed to attend in person.

The show also featured researcher Mathilde Krim, who argued fervently for the rights of people diagnosed with AIDS.

“To segregate patients with clinical symptoms of AIDS does not protect anybody. It causes a lot of heartbreak and injustice,” Krim told Judy Woodruff.

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