New Drugs Show Promise for AIDS Patients

Doctor Marcus Conant. In the early 1980's Dr. Conant was among the first doctors in San Francisco to treat AIDS cases. Now Dr. Conant heads the largest private AIDS medical practice in San Francisco. After his 1985 study on how condoms block transmission of the AIDS virus, condoms became a household word. Dr. Conant is the director of AIDS Clinical Research Center and the co-director of the Kaposi's Sarcoma Clinic at the University of California at San Francisco.

Photographer John Dugdale is joined by psychotherapist Robert Levithan to talk about a new class of AIDS fighting drugs. Both men have the AIDS virus; they are being treated with protease inhibitors. The treatment is helping them live normal lives. John Dugdale's photographs are collected in the recent book "Lengthening Shadows Before Nightfall." Robert Levithan conducts workshops called "Outliving AIDS" for those with AIDS who are living longer than expected.

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)