well, i'll be back with more live news at the top of the hour. right now, time for the good doctor. >> reporter: welcome. i'm dr. sanjay gupta, reporting from downtown atlanta, surrounded by what is the largest piece of community folk art anywhere in the world. it's the aids memorial quilt. 200 x 200 feet roughly, just a

small fraction of it. the last time the entire quilt was on display was back in 1996. you know, we don't see the whole quilt that much anymore. for many people, they're led to believe that the aids epidemic is starting to vanish. that isn't the case. june 1981, a set of case reports from the centers for disease control and prevention. five men in los angeles with a rare type of pneumonia. their immune systems ruined. they, quote, did not know each other and had no known contacts. eventually, all five died. since then, more than 25 million people have died of hiv/aids around the world and 33 million people right now are living with this disease. 1 million of them here in this country. one of those men is cleave jones. in many ways he is responsible for this quilt that you see behind me. we're going to be talking to him later in the show. we'll also talk to sharon stone, a celebrity activist who for more than 16 years has become a face and champion for aids

research. let's get started. >> reporter: of course, a lot has changed in 30 years. we now know what causes this disease and we do have medicines to treat it up to a pint. but as people have told me over and over again, don't be fooled. it is 2011, but here at the epicenter of this epidemic in atlanta, in many ways it still feels almost like 1981. for the last 18 years, angel has walked through these doors at the ponce deleen clinic in atlanta. it's the aids clinic. >> we have five main clinics, nine subspecialty clinics, all the aids services organizations are on site here for support. >> reporter: it started as a small infectious disease clinic on the grounds of grady memorial

hospital 25 years ago. when angel was charged with growing a response to the aids epidemic. >> we were operating -- >> every patient you took care of died. >> every patient died. >> what was that like emotionally? >> the fact that these folks are dying does not scare me. the thing that was a challenge was i was told i wouldn't get anyone to work with me. >> reporter: because at that time doctors still didn't know how the disease was spreading. there was a lot of fear. what about other doctors or other nurses in the hospital? how did they treat you? >> i was the aids nurse. most of them didn't. >> reporter: so they wouldn't be around you? >> it was a pretty lonely existence. >> reporter: today they have over 5200 patients, all in advanced stages of the disease. so what is this area where we're standing? >> well, this is treatment and holding. we do infusions through here. our big piece that's tremendously growing are aids-related malignancies. >> this is the infusion center. about 300 patients a month,

about 60 will need hospitalization. she says for the last decade the face of aids at the clinic has shifted dramatically from white gay to young gay african-american men. >> coming in here with advanced disease and t-cells less than 25. they have all of these infections that a lot of the medical community in the united states as well as the population just believes aids is all over in africa. and we're sitting in an endemic here in the southeast that to me looks exactly like 1989. >> reporter: that was the year frederick harris was diagnosed. >> i thought my life was over. you know, because at the time i was a drug user also, and just felt -- because back then they didn't really give you much time with it. >> reporter: the 49-year-old is heterosexu heterosexual. he and his ex-wife, who is also positive, have a 16-year-old daughter. she's negative. harris used to take 20 pills a day. now he takes four and he gets regular three-month checkups at ponce. what is it about this place,

this particular clinic, that's so important for someone like you? >> the nurses and the doctors really seem concerned. they have a lot of programs to help you, you know, with food and housing and all kinds of things. so, you know, this place gives you practically everything that you'll need. >> reporter: angel calls it a medical home. one-stop shopping. her days are filled with rounds and patient care. what is the biggest change since '81 when we first diagnosed this disease in this country? >> the biggest change is this is not an illness that should cause someone to die. >> reporter: harry is a 36-year-old gay man with full-blown aids. he doesn't want his identity revealed because he hasn't told his family. he was diagnosed three years ago at grady. his t-cell count was 120. >> i was kind of scared, well, people donwill see me in a whol different light now that i'm positivement but i had to get my personal feelings out of the way because i knew i needed the

help. >> reporter: harry has a number of health problems so far him the clinic has been a lifeline. >> it makes me feel good that i can open up and talk to my doctor about stuff going on in my life and he's able to offer not only medicine but advice and give comfort. >> reporter: what is the hardest part of this job for you? >> there are 20-year-olds coming in here with advanced endz-stage disease. that's a bis despairing when i know that just shouldn't have to happen. >> reporter: but it is happening. on five floors of this atlanta clinic. angel has witnessed 25 years of suffering, of death, of dying. it's taken its toll. although she hasn't given up hope, she says she doesn't see an end in sight. how long will you do this job? >> i don't know. i'm not certain about that. >> reporter: for now, she's committed to training the next generation of nurses. you are looking it at the aids memorial quilt, panels coming from all over the world, made exclusively by the mourners of people lost to hiv/aids.

so many commemorations here. it's tough to think about this, but it they are 6 x 3 in size. the reason for that is because that's the average size of a grave. this particular panel dedicated to rock hudson, a commemoration for him. panels like this, again, i said all over the world in different languages. the man who really came up with this idea for the aids quilt, cleave jones, we'll talk to him about this quilt and his own struggles with hiv/aids. that's next. or, choose aleve and 2 pills for a day free of pain. smart move. ♪

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you may be at increased risk of heart attack and stroke. don't kid yourself. talk to your doctor about your risk and about lipitor. [ female announcer ] wake up to sweetness with honey nut cheerios cereal. kissed with real honey. and the 100% natural whole grain oats can help lower your cholesterol. you are so sweet to me. bee happy. bee healthy. i hope to be the best person that i can be, and i don't know, i just hope to have a good life. >> reporter: that is the panel for ryan white, as you just saw there. everything you just saw was from the 1980s.

welcome back. remember the game trivial pursuit? according to the 1980s edition, 1988, 60% of americans considered aids it to be the number one problem facing america. think about that, the number one problem facing america back in 1988. at that time a man named cleve jones was living in san francisco, watching h his friene one by one. it was then he came up with the idea for this quilt. he left san francisco shortly after that. it was too painful for him. but he returned to the city he loved in the fall of 2010. >> welcome to san francisco. enjoy your stay. >> thank you. >> great to meet you. it's an honor, actually. >> reporter: on the streets of san francisco, cleve jones is often treated like a celebrity. but 30 years ago on these same streets, in the city's castro district, jones and other gay then men were living with the nightmare of a new disease that had no name. >> by 1985, almost everybody i know was dead or dying.

we lost 20,000 people in this town. >> reporter: this deadly disease finally got a name, human immune know deficiency virus, the virus that causes aids. long before the days of any lifesaving drug cocktails. for victims of this disease, chances of survival, slim. >> we cried every day for ten years in this neighborhood. we buried loved ones every week in this neighborhood. >> reporter: cleve was determined to bring attention to what was happening. in 1983, he co-founded the san francisco aids foundation. four years later, he stitched the first panel of the aids quilt in this very building. that panel was for his best friend, marvin feldman. >> we wanted to reveal the humanity behind the statistics. we wanted to show that every single one of these people mattered. >> reporter: in 1985, he was diagnosed with hiv. eight years later, he had full-blown aids. >> i was very sick for a long

time, and i did not think that i would live. we've got a meeting at 4:30. >> reporter: but he survived with the help of antiretro viral drugs he's been on for 17 yeerz. he says he's doing fine and still an activist, currently fighting for the rights of san francisco housekeepers. but he can't forget how the hiv struggle changed him profoundly. >> we went through hell here, and it was a hell that lasted a very long time, took from us some of our best and brightest people. but we endured and we continue. i'm very proud to be part of that. >> reporter: next p up, we're talking to sharon stone, obviously a well-known actress but also a champion and activist for more than 16 years for aids research. we'll sit down and talk to her yu one-on-one, a fascinating discussion. ...and? it helped balance her colon. oh, now that's the best part. i love your work. [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health.

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how are you? what happened to your face? >> i have aids. >> oh, oh, i'm sorry. >> that was from the movie "philadelphia" back in 1993, just a stunning scene. tom hanks incidentally won the oscar for that movie. welcome bashgs, ck, we are in dn atlanta. hollywood was slow to acknowledge the aids epidemic. then elizabeth taylor started speaking out after her close friend rock hudson died of the disease. and now there's sharon stone. >> she kills him. >> reporter: there are some movie moments that are just unforgettable. >> there's no smoking in this building. >> what are you going to do, charge me with smoking? >> sharon stone hit the spotlight with this one, "basic

instinct." today she's pout putting the spotlight on aids. she says her commitment to the fight was inspired by the death of her friend and angting coach roy londed who died of aids in 1993. over the past 16 years, stone has traveled the globe speaking out, and she's helped raise millions of dollars for the american foundation for aids research. when you started, it was a three-year term. you said i'm going to be involved until there's an aids vaccine. >> it started one evening had when elizabeth taylor wouldn't come. after the evening, which i was terrified to fill elizabeth's gigantic high heels, they said, could i do three years. and i was freaked out, and i did three years. and in three years i just thought, i didn't get this done in three years. how could i not get this done in three years? and then suddenly i'm in the 16th year of three years. >> aids vaccine was something that you talked about, though, in terms of a benchmark of

success. >> that i really, really wanted to get to. so we're -- you know, we're human testing. you know, we're trying. what's happened in the meantime is we have come up with great, great medication. people are living longer and hopeful lives. >> did you have a chance to talk to elizabeth taylor about this? >> oh, gosh yeah. >> what was that like? was she a role model for you in terms of this mission? >> yes. she gave so much of herself. she was so brave and so illuminating and so courageous and so thoughtful and so compassionate and had such great spiritual elegance and such dignity and was such a force. >> you know, you think about the stickers about hiv/aids, you hear about races, people raising awareness about this. those things seem to have disappeared in a lot of places. you don't hear about it as much. i always thought it was in some ways people think, there's good medications for this now, if i get infected i will take the

drugs. >> i think many things happened. i think a lot of it was just a don't talk about sexuality, was taken out of our awareness. and i think it's important to have a mature, thoughtful conversation about this. it's important to have sexual education that keeps us safe, that i don't -- i'm not advocating youthful sexuality at all, but i do think that young people should be very aware what it means so that you can say yes or no thoughtfully. and protect yourself appropriately. >> you know, this is hard as a parent, more so than a doctor but i have three doctors and they are young, 5, 4 and 2, very young, what age do you think this conversation begins? presumably too young for my daughters, but what age do you think. >> as young people become aware of themselves sexually at all, as they learn about their sexuality, as they learn about

reproduction, they should learn about this just as common sense facts. >> in talking specifically about hiv, as potentially a concern? >> just the way the they learn about reproduction they should learn about safe sex. >> your mother kept a drawer full of condoms in the house. >> yes, by the back door. >> did she have a conversation with you kids about this? >> she did not have a conversation about it. i can say that my parents did not have the thoughtful sexual conversation. i didn't know anything. i wish that someone had had that conversation with me, because i was very, very naive. >> when you think about hiv/aids in this country, june 5th, was around the first time someone was diagnosed with hiv/aids. it's been 30 years. i have stats here, 600,000 people have died over that time, sharon, a million people or so right now living with hiv/aids. >> 1.1 million in the united states, but 33 million

worldwide. >> 30 years after it was first diagnosed in this country when you hear those numbers, what do you think? >> i think that it's a question of not understanding and loving the person next to you. it's separating a person because they're different from you. so interesting now, is it's the gay community that is raising the money and it's the gay community that is turning this around. so these women and these children will be saved by the people that were ostracized in the beginning. >> that is interesting. when you talk about the sense of community, loving your neighbor, is that what it's going to take? you talk about the fact we need a vaccine. you're not going to leave am far in a leadership role until we get a vaccine. sounds like you're talking about a cultural change. >> we are all starting to understand we're a world culture. we're not going to do anything without everyone. we have to have -- understand that we're all in it together.

we have to -- all the women have to get together to make this happen, all races have to get together to make this world work. >> if you had some time with the president now, sounds like you approve so far of the policies towards hiv/aids, what would you tell president obama if you had some time? >> that we have 30 children dying every hour, that half of our people dying of aids are women, that we need to really make people aware that hiv can be transferred man to woman, and we need people to really understand that. we need young ladies to understand that, you know, they can get aids if they're not protected. they have to demand to be protected with safe sex. >> sharon stone, the global chair for the american foundation for aids research. fascinating discussion. remember the term aids babies? something we used to hear about quite a bit. many of those babies have now grown up and some of them are starting families on their own.

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i am here because it's a matter of life and death. i am in a race with the clock. this is not about being a republican or an independent or a democrat. it's about the future for each and every one of us. >> elizabeth glazer was infected with hiv after a blood transfusion and unknowingly passed the virus on to her two children. she and her daughter aerial died from complications of aids. her son jake is alive and doing well. as things stand now about a million people living in the

united states have hiv/aids. about a fifth of them, don't know they have it. it's all the more tragic if one of those people is a pregnant woman. she has about a 25% chance of passing on the virus to her child, just like what happened with elizabeth glazer. also, what happened with lolisa gibson. she became infected from her mother and when she decided to have children of her own she was determined not to let that happen again. lolisa gibson didn't always want to be a mother. >> i wasn't ready for a baby. i was too busy focusing on my career and focusing on changing the world. >> reporter: changing the world by teaching people about hiv. you see at age 17, lolisa learned she had aids. she was watching television when her doctor broke the news to her by phone. >> the tv went black, everything else went black, like nothing else mattered. now it was like wow. i'm going to die. >> reporter: lolisa hadn't done

drugs, had had sex but used a condom. what she didn't know was her mother was hiv positive and had passed the virus on to her. at birth or through her breast milk. she and her mother are now both on medication and in good health. when lolisa met daryl hunt she told him she had hiv and she insisted on safe sex. but one night, the condoms failed and to her surprise, lolisa got pregnant. but unlike her mother, she knew she could protect her unborn child. >> i think the vast majority of infections from mother to child are preventable. there's no reason an hiv infected woman, even though they've had the virus since birth cannot have a child. >> reporter: she stuck with her medication. tested regularly and after a little daryl was born, he took an antiretroviral medication as well. it worked. he's hiv-free, healthy as any little boy you might d.