THEGAYUK FEB/MARCH
2014
WATCH
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB The very scary thing about
watching Dallas Buyers Club is always knowing that
this is, sadly, a very true story. Not that we have
anything except unfettered admiration for Ron
Woodroof and his wild unorthodox schemes, but it is
the reminder of the sheer number of countless
deaths that could have been avoided if it hadn't been
for the complicity of the U.S. Food & Drug
Administration Agency (FDA) with the greed of the
pharmaceutical companies that still rankles even
now.
of the rapid explosion of AIDS, the FDA have agreed
to fast-track it without its usual safeguards and
checks.
Woodroof was a
working-class
Texan hedonist
living in a trailer,
hanging out at
rodeos and partying
very hard indeed.
He was also a serial
homophobe. When
he collapses one day
and is rushed to the
ER the doctors
discover he is HIV+
and with such a
minute T cell count,
they tell him that he
has no more than
30 days to live. The
year is 1985 and
there is very little
hope for anyone that
has contracted AIDS.
He checks into Dr.
Vass's rundown
clinic over the
border and it is
there that he first
learns the
enormous potential
harm that
unchecked toxic
drugs such as AZT
cause. At the
supposition that
they may stop the
virus expanding,
they also do such
harm to the body
that they expose the
patient to countless
opportunistic
diseases. Vass's
solution is proteins
and vitamins that will actively improve the general
health of a person with AIDS putting them in a better
position to be able to deal with the virus.
At first he is in total denial and continues his life of
drugs, drink and unprotected sex with hookers until
his body starts to give up. When he finally accepts
the truth, he also sharpens his resolve to beat this
rap. He drags himself to the library and consumes all
the information that is in the public domain at the
time, which is very little. It is however enough to
know that there is about to be a trial of AZT; a new
anti-retroviral drug, the first of its kind; and because
38
Woodroof pleads with the doctors at his local
hospital to be allowed some of this new wonder drug,
but he is rejected on the grounds that he doesn't
qualify, so he seeks out an orderly and bribes him to
steal a supply. When this dries up, the orderly
recommends that he tries a doctor in Mexico who
may be able to help.
When Woodroof learns that none of these are
available in the US, he starts an import business to
supply them to other patients back in Dallas. He
partners with Rayon a trans person with HIV who he
met in a clinic once, as she would be able to
introduce him to people who’d would want to get
their hands on these new drugs.