More than 500,000 people have died from Aids-related illnesses in the US in the last 27 years - but has Aids really changed the country?

The actor Paul Michael Glaser, who presents a Radio 2 documentary on the subject on Tuesday, has no doubt it has had a tremendous impact at a personal level.

Best known as Starsky in the long-running television show"Starsky & Hutch," Glaser said:"Aids had a huge impact on my life and on hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans."

Glaser's own wife, Elizabeth contracted the HIV, which causes Aids, from a blood tranfusion in 1981 - the year Aids was first reported in the US.