Dr James Curran, mostly known for his work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the 1980's, pinpoints several key events and persons linked with the very first years of discoveries on HIV and AIDS.

XIX International AIDS Conference. Interview with Gregg Alton from the Gilead Sciences, Inc. a pharmaceutical company working with health care services, policy makers, etc. to develop effective treatment, treatment as prevention and promoting access to care.

Annual HIV research conference arranged by IHV. Dr Robert Gallo holds a lecture on the history of medical research on human retroviruses. He also talks about the early discoveries of t-cell leukemia in Japanese patients, which led to the discovery of HTLV-1.

The primary focus of this documentary is on the history of how the AIDS epidemic started in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York in 1981. Many different stories are told about people affected or surrounded by HIV and AIDS in the early years of the epidemic.