My first big science story for National Geographic was on radiation—undertaken in part because of the Chernobyl accident. The story was successful, and a few years later, in 1992, the director of photography asked me to photograph a story on viruses. He wanted me to give viruses the same approach I had used on radiation, finding ways to humanize the science. However, at that point I was five months pregnant with my second child. I told him that was impossible. His response made it difficult to refuse, as he suggested that if I turned down the viruses assignment, it might be hard to assign me to future stories. He finally agreed that I could wait until my baby was born before visiting the most dangerous areas. In the end, I was glad to have this assignment as it started me on a journey of looking at issues about global health and the environment. The AIDS epidemic was becoming a major health crisis. With many global health stories I’ve photographed, I show not only the impact of the issues, but also what is being done to deal with them. In San Francisco, members of a gay men’s group conducted a workshop to explore intimacy without exchanging body fluids—a technique to cope with the possibility of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS.