NPR Features Researchers, Journalists Speaking about 20th Anniversary of AIDS
To mark the 20th anniversary of the first published report of AIDS, NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Talk of the Nation" yesterday featured interviews and conversations with a number of physicians and journalists involved with the early days of the epidemic. The following is a summary:
- "All Things Considered": The show featured an interview with Dr. Paul Volberding, who served as head of the division of oncology at San Francisco General Hospital in 1981 when the hospital began to see a "sharp increase" in new patients with Kaposi's sarcoma. The show also included a talk with Dr. James Curran, who was head of infectious diseases at the CDC in 1981, and Laurie Garrett, a Newsday reporter who reported on HIV/AIDS for NPR for "most of the 1980s" (Wertheimer, "All Things Considered," NPR, 6/5). To listen to the show, click here and scroll down to the segment.
- "Talk of the Nation": The program includes interviews with Dr. Lawrence Altman, a New York Times science writer who has chronicled the epidemic since it came on the scene in 1981; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and Cornelius Baker, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Clinic, which provides treatment and counseling services to people with HIV (Williams, "Talk of the Nation," NPR, 6/5). To listen to the broadcast, click here.