UK awareness campaign

In 1987, the UK launches the world's first major government-sponsored national AIDS awareness campaign. The campaign includes a TV advert designed to shock and scare viewers with its bleak warning of spreading infection and death. A leaflet about AIDS is also delivered to every household with the advice: "Anyone can get it, gay or straight, male or female. Already 30,000 people are infected." The adverts shock viewers but successfully lower the number of new HIV infections by a third over three years. It is later revealed that Margaret Thatcher had sought to water down the information in the leaflets, worrying that references to ‘risky sex’ would impact children.