AIDS: Then & Now (The Leonard Lopate Show)

In the final edition of our five-part series AIDS: Then & Now, we look at HIV around the World, and discuss how the virus has transformed lives all over the globe. Plus we’ll look at places where infection rates are changing: either raising or falling. We're joined by: Dr. Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of the HIV Department of the World Health Organization; Dr. Chris Beyrer, Professor, Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Gilles Van Cutsem, Medical Coordinator for Doctors without Borders.

The latest installment of our five-part series AIDS: Then & Now, Dr. Monica Sweeney, Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control at the NYC Health Department, and Susan M. Chambré, Professor of Sociology, Baruch College, CUNY, and author of Fighting for Our Lives: New York’s AIDS Community and the Politics of Disease, discuss how the demographics of HIV have changed in New York City, and how the virus has changed the city’s cultural and political landscape. How do you think HIV/AIDS has changed life in New York?

Over the past two decades, day-to-day live for HIV-positive individuals has changed dramatically—mostly due to a greater understanding of the virus and a powerful drug cocktail. Dr. David Ho, Scientific Director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and one of the developers of the HIV drug cocktail, talks about the science of fighting HIV. We’ll also speak to Jim Lister, a client of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who has lived with HIV since 1989 and to Tyrell, a client of the Ali Forney Center, who has been HIV-positive since 2008. Listen to Leonard's 1987 interview with Brigette Poust, a volunteer with Project Brave, chaplain Timothy Marshall and Dr. Debra Spicehandler, Medical Director of the Spellman Center on day to day caregiving to those with HIV/AIDS:

We continue our five part series AIDS: Then & Now with a look at how ethical issues around the virus have and have not changed over the decades. We’ll talk with Dr. Robert Klitzman, Director of the Ethics and Policy Core of the HIV Center at Columbia University, about why a number of states have statutes criminalizing HIV transmission and the recent court ruling which upholds the ban on gay men donating blood. We continue our five part series on HIV/AIDS with a look at how ethical issues around the virus have and have not changed over the decades. We’ll examine why a number of states that have statutes criminalizing HIV transmission and the recent court ruling which upholds the ban on gay men donating blood. Plus, the ethics of disclosure for HIV+ individuals and enduring questions about just who should pay for treatment. We’ll talk with Dr. Robert Klitzman, Director of the Ethics and Policy Core of the HIV Center at Columbia University Plus, the ethics of disclosure for HIV+ individuals, and enduring questions about who should pay for treatment. Listen to Leonard's 1987 interview on the ethical and political implications of the AIDS crisis with Tom Stoddard of Lambda Legal, Carol Levine of the Hastings Center and AIDS activist Larry Kramer here:

In the last quarter century, research into HIV—the virus that causes AIDS—has come a long way, but not far enough. Dr. Jay A. Levy, Director of the Laboratory for Tumor and AIDS Virus Research at the University of California, San Francisco, and Dr. Robert C. Gallo, Director of the Institute of Human Virology and Division of Basic Science at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, discuss the historical scientific breakthroughs, what the latest research is finding, and how far we have to go before a vaccine or cure for HIV/AIDS is developed. Listen to Leonard's 1987 interview on AIDS research with Dr. George McKinnley of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Sam Waksal, founder and CEO of ImClone Systems and Dr. Paul Nayler of George Washington University here: