Rampant: How a City Stopped a Plague

On a warm November afternoon in 1982, a man walked into a Sydney hospital, complaining of simple symptoms – fever, fatigue, sweats. He was from New York. A gardener – young and fit. With a crowded sexual history. And he was gay. The doctors made their diagnosis, the first in Australia: this man had AIDS. He was discharged and vanished into the streets. This is the little known story of how a strange coalition of doctors, nurses, nuns, gays, whores, junkies and politicians pulled off one of the first and boldest defeats of AIDS in the world. Together they broke the law, offended everyone, and saved tens thousands of lives.