Health & Medicine

"The view that drug use is a moral choice is pervasive, pernicious and wrong," writes David Sheff in Clean, a critical look at the nation's approach to drug treatment. Shelf argues that we should not wait for "rock bottom" -- that addiction should be treated promptly, just like any other disease.

Shereen El Feki spent five years traveling across the Arab region asking people about sex: what they do, what they don't, what they think and why. Her ambition was to learn about the intimate lives of people in the Middle East, and how the sexual aspects of their lives reflect larger shifts.

Science journalist Emily Anthes talks about how scientists are engineering mice with tumors and working to create pigs that can grow organs for human transplant and insects that could serve as drones for the military.

From food scientists who study the human palate to maximize consumer bliss, to marketing campaigns that target teens to hook them for life on a brand, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss' new books goes inside the world of processed, packaged foods.

Dr. Sam Parnia researches the experiences of cardiac arrest patient in the time between when their hearts stop and when they are brought back to life. Paranoia thinks of these experiences as actual-death experiences as opposed to near-death experiences.

Every seven years since 1964, the director has caught us up on the lives of 14 everyday people in his acclaimed 7 Up series. Apted was 22 when the series began, and the subjects were 7. In the latest episode -- 56 Up -- the subjects are well into middle age.

The veteran actor recently made his directorial debut with a film about four aging opera singers who stage a concert at their retirement home. Starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay, the film explores friendship, memory and the time that remains.

In his article for The New Yorker, journalist Raffia Khatchadourian tells the story of a secret program that tested nerve gas, LSD and other drugs on 5,000 American soldiers throughout the 1950s and '60s.

The famed neurologist talks to Fresh Air about how grief, trauma, brain injury, medications and neurological disorders can trigger hallucinations — and about his personal experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs in the 1960s.

Counselor Judith Schwarz says that for terminally ill patients who are suffering, prolonging death can seem like a worse fate than death itself. Schwarz is a patient supporter with the nonprofit organization Compassion & Choices

Tig Notaro walked onstage hours after finding out she was diagnosed with cancer, and talked about it in a standup comedy set that Louis C.K. described in a tweet as masterful. Notaro talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the set, titled Tig Notaro: Live.

Louis C.K. decided to offer Tig Notaro: Live exclusively on his website when he saw the comedian perform a set just hours after receiving her cancer diagnosis.

Waging Heavy Peace is about his music, raising two sons with special needs, and his own medical conditions, which have included polio, epilepsy and a brain aneurysm.

Jeffrey Toobin's new book, The Oath, explores how President Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts are at odds over constitutional law. Toobin tells Fresh Air that while Obama likes precedent when it comes to the Supreme Court, Roberts "wants to move the court in a dramatically new direction."

Marco Roth grew up on New York's Upper West Side in the 1980s, where a liberal Jewish culture infused with European tastes was breathing its last gasps. In his memoir, Roth describes how he learned -- years after his father died from AIDS -- that his father was probably gay.

Martin Bayne entered an assisted living facility at 53 after he was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson's disease. Now he writes about long-term care reform. He tells Fresh Air about recording residents' final days and how death is handled "very poorly" in facilities.

In the author's latest novel, The Devil in Silver, a man is mistakenly committed to a mental hospital where a buffalo-headed monster stalks patients at night. LaValle tells Fresh Air why he picked monsters, about his family history of mental illness and how he had his own brush with psychological problems.

Supermodels open up about aging in a youth-obsessed industry in the HBO documentary About Face: The Supermodels Then and Now. "I really insisted that I not be retouched in Playboy," says Carol Alt. "...I'm 49 years old, and that was the point ... I let every bump and flaw show."

HBO's new behind-the-anchor-desk drama follows in the footsteps of Sorkin's hit series The West Wing. "I like writing about heroes that don't wear capes or disguises," he says.

AIDS is the primary killer of African-Americans ages 19 to 44, and the mortality rate is 10 times higher for black Americans than for whites. A new Frontline documentary explores why.