When the AIDS epidemic hit in the 1980s, it was a scourge unlike any other, one that weakened the body’s defenses and left victims to die an agonizingly slow death. Now, new treatments have made HIV/AIDS a manageable disease, while a cure and vaccine seem like more of a possibility than ever. Host Frank Stasio gets an update on the latest HIV research breakthroughs and considers how a world without AIDS would affect politics, healthcare and the economy with Daniel Halperin, an epidemiologist and medical anthropologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of the new book “Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic, and How the World Can Overcome It" (Penguin/2012); Dr. Myron Cohen, an HIV/AIDS researcher from UNC with many titles including Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Health and Public Health Director at the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases; David Ridley, an assistant professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University; and J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
A World Without Aids?
