‘Nova’ Offers Glimpse of Hope in Its Look at ‘Surviving AIDS’

Calm is the breeding ground of complacency. As powerful drug “cocktails” have curbed the AIDS mortality rate, the public has begun to behave as though the crisis is over.

But there’s no cure, no vaccine . . . and no rest for those on the front lines of the epidemic, which so far has killed 500,000 Americans and 11 million people worldwide.

Tonight’s “Nova” presentation on KCET delivers both a wake-up call and a measured message of hope. “Surviving AIDS” looks at one of the most promising directions in AIDS research: the study of people with rare genetic or other conditions that enable them to keep the virus at bay or give them natural immunity. By understanding how their bodies foil the virus, doctors and scientists hope to develop treatments that will assist the much larger number of people who aren’t so fortunate.

Betsey Arledge wrote, directed and produced the one-hour documentary, which is dense with information yet easy to grasp, thanks to articulate subjects and plain-spoken narration.

One of Arledge’s key subjects is Robert Massie, a heterosexual hemophiliac in Massachusetts whose body has somehow held the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, in check for more than 20 years. When contaminated blood infected him with the virus, his body mounted an immediate and decisive attack. Researchers still aren’t sure why, but based on his model, they are developing immediate, aggressive intervention therapies for people newly infected with HIV.

Another subject is Steve Crohn, a gay man in New York whose helper T cells lack one of the docking proteins that enables HIV to invade. This rare genetic condition leaves him immune to the virus’ prevalent strain, and researchers hope to develop a drug or vaccine that would render other people’s cells similarly impervious.

* “Surviving AIDS” airs tonight at 8 on KCET and select other PBS stations. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for younger children).