Maggie’s fears on AIDS awareness adverts revealed

Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was concerned that an AIDS awareness campaign in the 1980s would “harm” young teenagers, but was overruled, newly-released files show.

UK Cabinet papers from 1986, released by the National Archives this week, reveal Thatcher repeatedly queried the wording of advertisements and leaflets.

Writing on a memo describing the campaign, Thatcher wrote: “Do we have to have the section on risky sex I should have thought it could do immense harm if young teenagers were to read it ”

The arrival of the disease in Britain in the early 1980s had persuaded ministers that urgent action was needed to prevent the spread of HIV with an unprecedented public education campaign outlining its dangers and how to prevent infection.

The documents show that then health secretary Norman Fowler proposed in February 1986 to publish full-page adverts in national newspapers explaining under the heading “Risky Sex” that unprotected anal intercourse carried one of the highest risks of transmission.

Another document released by archive shows Thatcher’s reservations were put forward by her deputy, Lord Whitelaw, who was chairing a Cabinet sub-committee discussing Fowler’s text the following day.

“As there was no support at all for the doubts I had aired, the committee agreed that the publicity should go ahead next month,” he later told her.

“I remain against certain parts of this advertisement. I think the anxiety on the part of parents and many teenagers who would never be in danger from AIDS exceeds the good it may do... Adverts where every young person will read and hear of practices they never knew about will do harm,” she responded.

At this time, an estimated 7,500 people had been diagnosed with HIV in Britain after the then new disease had crossed the Atlantic.