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Amos Lassen wrote on 04/08/2013:

I first heard about “How to Survive a Plague” about a year ago and wrote that this was going to be a film to watch for and I just received word that it is going to be commercially released in September, 2012. The film is the story of two coalitions, ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), and how activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. It is the tale of people who faced death, many HIV-positive young men, became radical and took on this country’s lawmakers and the medical establishment because they wanted to live. With little or no scientific training, they infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped to find and identify new drugs and took them from experimental trials to patients who needed them and did so in record time. David France was granted access to previously unseen film from the 1980’s and 90’s and as we see it, we find ourselves right in the middle of the controversial activity of these people. We hear and see their meetings, cry with them when they fail and cheer with them when they succeed and we watch as they become heroes.

These very same people went to war against the indifference of institutions that held the key to preserving life and they forced the world to pay attention to what they were doing and thereby reduced the number of people dying from AIDS. While this is not a new story, the film takes a new approach and uses a depressing story to show a time in history when hope seemed gone and when death seemed to be the answer.

It was in 1987 when ACT UP came to be in New York City. It was a group of activists within the gay community that was no longer willing to plead and beg for treatment options and the rights of patients. People were dying in large numbers and President Ronald Reagan was did not even use the word “AIDS” until that year. There was no national policy for care and prevention and there were not yet any medications. People were upset and very angry and hospitals and funeral homes did not want to deal with the sick and the dead and Senator Jesse Helms said that we were getting what we asked for.

Anger mounted fiercely when it was realized that there was no cure on the horizon and so the activists became their own advocates and Act Up began to use any means possible to shed light on what was going down. The mayor of New York, Ed Koch (who maybe believe to be the prime example of a man n the closet) and Cardinal O’Connor who opposed the use of condoms were held up to public ridicule and the activists actually wanted to be arrested in order to make their statements. Some went as far as entering medical and scientific research because they were fed up with the disinterest and lack of speed that the pharmaceutical companies took part in. It was not a good time but we can now look back and say how proud we are of those that stood up for our rights and our lives. They wanted to change the policies and they did so by using public pressure and then heading for the board rooms of academic institutions and corporations to let them know that they were here and they were not going to take any more slack.

Using archival videotape that the participants, themselves, narrated, we get to meet and learn about the activists whose lives were actually on the line and who fought hard for the right to continue living. We know they were not all successful in staying alive themselves but what they did was ensure that others would have to face the same death sentence because of the inactivity of others. These are the true heroes and we must always remember them as such. This was our Holocaust and we shall never let it happen again. This film allows us to remember and it is a tribute to those we have lost and to those who fought so we would lose no more. This is a humane film that is beautifully edited and presented while still being a painful reminder when life was just too short for so many. It is “a major addition to the body of work chronicling the AIDS epidemic, this is a passionate account of the hard-won breakthrough in making HIV a manageable condition”.

“France’s film is intensely emotionally affecting. Inspiring yet sobering at the same time, the remarkable archival footage captures an insider’s view of a community essentially under siege, forced to mobilize and fight for survival. There’s a palpable sense of loss here, with the expectation that the vast majority of the young men and women seen in the film are likely now dead – so much so that it comes as a shock when some of the survivors are featured in present-day interviews. This is a must-see for younger generations of gay men as a reminder of the battles that were fought by a now-lost generation of individuals to contain and address the AIDS epidemic in the face of official negligence”.

Then & Now wrote on 03/09/2013:

EPIC! Growing up in the 80s during the start of HIV and AIDS. This documentary brought back so many feelings of hope, love, faith and anger. On top of all of that. I was growing up in the South and in Western North Carolina. Being raised Southern Baptist with all the guilt of my feelings and trying to learn who I was and where I was going. I was feeling so scared, so alone, but some feeling that fight would never reach me. Until a friend sits me down and tells me I'm not alone. I was a young mind trying so hard to gather all the news and information on what the news was call the "gay mans flu" and the "gay mans cancer" See this now in 2013 brings back a huge rush of emotions. This is a MUST SEE & MUST OWN!! It is the beginning of our history and our fight as a community that had all doors slammed shout and how "that" fight opened them. That fight continues for us the HUMAN race on this place we call Earth....we call home...