The story of the brave young men and women who successfully reversed the tide of an epidemic, demanded the attention of a fearful nation, and stopped AIDS from becoming a death sentence. This improbable group of activists bucked oppression and infiltrated government agencies and the pharmaceutical industry, helping to identify promising new medication and treatments and move them through trials and into drugstores in record time.
21 years after the CDC report that AIDS among African American men was on the rise, comments bring forth the challenges facing the African American community; particularly it's young men. Young people and experts express their feelings on the future: what is needed, their hopefulness or lack of it, and their spirit, dedication and compassion.
By the year 2000, an estimated 4.2 million people in South Africa were infected with HIV. State of Denial puts a human face behind the numbers by introducing us to a cross-section of South Africans involved with the AIDS epidemic. It shows how they must fight not only the disease but the greed of the drug cartels and the incomprehensible inactivity of their own government in order to get treatment.