This episode charts the uphill battle medical researchers faced in securing the needed resources and funding to combat the AIDS epidemic. The discovery of the epidemic coincided with the rise of fiscal and social conservatism in national politics with the election of Ronald Reagan. Public health budgets were slashed and there was little sympathy or support to fight a disease affecting gay men. In this episode, medical researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and University of California San Francisco’s KS Clinic reveal how they had to improvise in this context to piece together the crucial resources needed to make headway against the epidemic.

Read the full episode transcript here: https://ucblib.link/OHCPodcastS03E05

Ep 5: The Fight For Resources

The Oral History Center preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. Our podcast, The Berkeley Remix, delves into pressing issues, making our vast archive accessible to scholars and the public. The UC Berkeley Oral History Center, a division of The Bancroft Library, was founded in 1953 and produces carefully researched, audio/video-recorded, and transcribed oral histories and interpretative historical materials for the widest possible use.