Terry Gross

Nearly 15 million Americans have a moderate to severe food allergy. In kids, the rate is on in 13. Kari Nadeau, who studies food allergies at Stanford, in currently testing a technique to desensitize children who have multiple severe allergies to foods like nuts, soy, milk, wheat and shellfish.

In the United States, an orphan disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 patients. These conditions often involve chronic pain or fatigue, and can be controversial and difficult to diagnose. Yet they affect around 30 million Americans. Author Laurie Edwards is one such patient.

The CIA has morphed from a traditional espionage service concerned with stealing the secrets of foreign governments into an organization consumed with hunting down its enemies. New York Times journalist Mark Mazzetti chronicles this transformation in a new book, The Way of the Knife.