'Do we have to have the section on risky sex?' That was Mrs Thatcher's initial reaction to a proposed newspaper advertisement in early 1986. In this talk, Mark Dunton examines how the government wrestled with the limits of frankness in a national public education campaign to address the AIDS epidemic. In the 1980s there were no drugs or vaccines available to counter the fatal AIDS illness, and this threat merged with a moral climate of panic, fear, hysteria and homophobia.

Contemporary Specialist Mark Dunton explores all these aspects, drawing on hitherto unexplored governmental files, and focuses on the publicity for the unprecedented health campaign of 1986-87.

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