Health & Medicine

A discussion about what it's like to test positive for the HIV antibody but not have AIDS. The panel includes members of the New York City group Body Positive, a support group that counsels people who have tested positive for the antibody.

Actor Ray Sharkey. He starred last season in the television series "Wiseguy." His feature film credits include a fast-talking rock promoter in "The Idolmaker," a romantic dreamer in "Love and Money," and a sadistic killer in "Who'll Stop the Rain." Sharkey won the Golden Globe award as best actor in 1982 for his performance in "The Idolmaker."

Critic-at-large Laurie Stone reviews the film Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.

Comedian Richard Belzer. After struggling through a poor and difficult childhood and a rough decade trying to make it as a comic, he is now performing in comedy clubs from coast to coast. He is also appearing in movies, and starring in comedy specials on cable TV.

Fresh Air's Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone, whose writing on contemporary culture appears regularly in The Village Voice.

Poet, essayist and short story writer Tess Gallagher. A collection of her new and earlier poetry has just been published. It's titled Amplitude: New and Selected Poems.

Language Commentator Geoffrey Nunberg discusses whether it's possible, or even desirable, to eliminate gender bias in language.

Charles Rosenberg. He's written a book on the history of American hospitals titled The Care of Strangers: The Rise of America's Hospital System. Rosenberg is a professor in the History and Sociology of Science department at the University of Pennsylvania.

Film Critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Less Than Zero," the adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis.

Randy Shilts, author of And the Band Played On - Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, a controversial book that reveals the identity of the first person to the bring AIDS to the United States. The book also raises questions about the government's response to the crisis.

Ellen Pfeifer, music critic for The Boston Herald, reviews the brief career of cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, who died on Monday from the effects of multiple sclerosis. Her playing was a described as a mixture of elegance and ferocity. When the disease struck at the age of 26, it cut short one of the most promising solo careers in all classical music.

James Conaway, author of The Kingdom in the Country, which looks at the wide expanse of public lands in the West and how the myths of the west - cowboys, gunslingers, gold miners - are enduring.

Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone looks at the new sexism as typified in the female leads in the films "Fatal Attraction," "The Big Easy" and "Baby Boom," three of the most successful fall films.

Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone will discuss the interaction between women and hairy monsters as seen in the new television shows "Werewolf," and "Beauty and the Beast."

Mamie Van Doren, one of Hollywood's blond bombshells in the fifties and sixties. She starred in the cult classics "Untamed Youth," "High School Confidential," and "Born Reckless." She's written a kiss-and-tell memoir called Playing the Field.

Rock historian Ed Ward will profile the career of Esquerita, a gay, black piano player whose flamboyant style (and hairdoo) was an inspiration to Little Richard.

Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, a star player for the Dallas Cowboys throughout the 70s. He fell victim to a cocaine addiction and was one of the first professional athletes to admit to his problem.

Dr. Allan Brandt, a researcher in the history of science and medicine will discuss the social history of sexually transmitted diseases such as VD and AIDS.

Writer Jay Stevens has a new book about the creation of LSD in the 1940s, research into its therapeutic and weaponized potential in the 1950s, and its role in the 1960s counterculture--fueled in part by the influence of people like Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and Aldous Huxley.

Singer Dion, from Dion and the Belmonts, is making a comeback singing Christian songs. He joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to talk about his early career, growing older, and getting sober.