HIV/AIDS

Daniel Baxter, M.D. has written a new book about his work, "The Least of These My Brethren: A Doctor's Story of Hope and Miracles on an Inner-City AIDS Ward."

Novelist Edmund White has just completed his semi-autobiographical trilogy. The new novel The Farewell Symphony (Knopf) focuses on gay life from the 1960’s to the present. His other books include A Boy’s Own Story,The Beautiful Room is Empty,Genet: A Biography, Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, States of Desire: Travels in Gay America, The Joy of Gay Sex, and Caracole.

Dr. Jerome Groopman. Since the discovery of AIDS, he's treated patients and done extensive cancer and AIDS research. He's written a book titled "The Measure of Our Days: New Beginnings at Life's End" (Viking). It borrows stories from some of his patients in Boston and aims to give support, hope, and comfort to those suffering with life threatening illness. Dr. Groopman is Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and is also a professor of medicine at Harvard.

Dr. Jonathan Mann talks about the state of AIDS across the globe, as well as the speculations about an AIDS vaccine. (Today is World Aids Day.) Mann was the founding director of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS, and has just been named Dean of the School of Public Health at the Allegheny University of Health Sciences in Philadelphia. He also co-edited "AIDS in the World."

New York Times Science Correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg talks about the comeback of the drug Thalidomide. In the 1960s the drug was banned worldwide after it produced a generation of babies with missing and stunted limbs. But it is now showing promise in treating leprosy and several other ailments including AIDS. (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

Jeff Getty is an animal-human transplant recipient who advocates continued research in this field. Getty, who has AIDS, recieved bone marrow from a baboon in an effort to jump-start his immune system. Getty vehemently opposes proposed moratorium on animal-human transplant research.

Dr. Jonathan Mann, the founding director of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS, died this week in the Swiss Air plane crash. Last year, Terry Gross interviewed him about the state of AIDS across the globe, as well as the speculations at that time about a possible AIDS vaccine. He was the Dean of the School of Public Health at Allegheny University of Health Sciences in Philadelphia. This interview was originally aired 12/1/97

Dr. Hoosen Coovadia is a Pediatrician in Durban, South Africa. In his practice, 40 percent of the kids he treats are HIV positive. He'll discuss the rise of HIV in South Africa and other parts of Africa where he has traveled. Coovadia will serve as the Chairman of the next World Aids Conference in the year 2000. He heads the Pediatrics and Child Health Department at the University of Natal Medical School.

Nobel-prize winning biologist, Dr. David Baltimore talks about where we are in the search for an HIV vaccine. He also talks about recent studies and what they've told us about the disease. Baltimore heads the National Institutes of health advisory committee for AIDS Vaccine.

With the recent death of Israeli singer Ofra Haza to AIDS, World music critic Milo Miles reflects on the world musicians who have died of the disease, and the secrecy that surrounded their illnesses.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new novel by Saul Bellow, “Ravelstein”

We talk more about HIV and AIDS in South Africa with journalist Phillip Van Niekerk (fawn-KNEE-kirk). Recently, the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki (TAH-boh mm-BEK-eh) has become very involved in the AIDs policy in his country. Mr. Mbeki is focusing on a medical theory that states that the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, does not cause AIDS. Many leading scientists have criticized MR. Mbeki for wasting his time on what they see as a discredited theory about AIDS. The International AIDS conference is scheduled to be held in South Africa this summer.

Journalist Jon Cohen has just written a book called Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine. (Norton) He is a leading AIDS reporter who covers science and medicine for Science Magazine. Hell talk about the work that is being done to develop the AIDS vaccine, trials, funding issues, and when the future of AIDS prevention.

South African journalist Charlene Smith writes about the spread of AIDS in Southern Africa. In 1999, she was raped, and feared the man who raped her could have given her HIV/AIDS. Smith had a hard time obtaining the drugs that could lessen the potential of her getting HIV. Smith then wrote about her experience and helped spread awareness about rape and HIV in South Africa. Statistics say every 26 seconds, a woman is raped in South Africa— the country with the fastest growing HIV rate.

Since 1994, Dr. Peter Piot been the director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the executive director of U.N. AIDS, the U.N. agency coordinating the fight against the disease. He also co-discovered the Ebola virus. He's considered the U.N.'s top AIDS official. He says Asian countries need to take AIDS prevention and treatment more seriously, as they are only at the beginning of the epidemic. Countries most affected are Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia. Piot says the HIV/AIDS epidemic has hit India very hard.

Ugandan Aids activist Noerine Kaleeba. She works with UNAids, a United Nations organization in Geneva. Shes also on the Ugandan committee on Aids, and founded The Aids Support Organization in Uganda. Kaleeba lost her husband to the disease; four of her siblings are HIV positive as are a number of their children. Kaleeba is also author of the book, We Miss You All: Noerine Kaleeba - Aids in the Family (Women & Aids Support Network).

Journalist Jon Cohen writes for Science Magazine. He just got back from the 14th International AIDS conference where he reported on the AIDS vaccine and anti-HIV drug therapies. His article "Designer Bugs" in the July/August edition of The Atlantic Monthly is about how scientists have the ability to create synthetic viruses in the lab, like mousepox and polio, and the controversies and dangers this presents.

Doctor Elaine Abrams and Doctor Stephen Nicholas are pediatricians who work with babies born with HIV. While many children have died, some have survived into adolescence. Abrams is the director of the Family Care Center at Harlem Hospital Center, and Dr. Nicholas is the director of pediatrics there. They treated the first wave of babies infected with HIV at the height of the epidemic in Harlem in the 1980s. They have studied the effects of the virus on the children's physical and mental health as well as the toll on the community. Some of the children spent years in the hospital.

The United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa talks about the current state of the AIDS crisis there. He recently returned from a tour of Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, where he was investigating links between hunger and AIDS. He is the former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and was the Canadian ambassador to the U.N. from 1984-1988.

TV critic David Bianculli reviews the HBO production of Angels in America.