Health

Health care advocate Carol Levine has looked out for the interests of the housebound both at work and at home. For 17 years, she cared for her husband, who had been seriously injured in a car accident. He died recently, and Levine is left coping with a renewed sense of loss.

Suzanne Geffen Mintz, president and co-founder of the National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA), talks with Terry Gross on how to make caregiving easier. Mintz speaks from experience. Her husband has multiple sclerosis.

Investigative reporter Mark Schapiro explains in a new book that toxic chemicals exist in many of the products we handle every day — agents that can cause cancer, genetic damage and birth defects, lacing everything from our gadgets to our toys to our beauty products.

The star of Friends and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is featured in the new film Numb; he plays a screenwriter plagued by feelings of anxiety, detachment and panic. The story is based on an autobiographical script by Harris Goldberg (Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo), who also made his directing debut with the film.

Composer and writer Allen Shawn is the author of the new memoir, Wish I Could Be There. The book documents his many phobias. Shawn is deathly afraid of a lot of things, including heights, water, fields, parking lots and unknown streets.

Country singer Bradley Walker is making his recording debut with Highway of Dreams. Walker's vocal style "harkens back to an earlier generation of vocalists, such as George Jones and bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe." The record's producer is Carl Jackson who worked with Emmylou Harris and Glen Campbell. Walker has performed at the Grand Ole Opry, and sung at leading bluegrass festivals. Born with Muscular Dystrophy, he has been in a wheelchair all his life.

New York Times reporter Alex Kuczynski's new book is Beauty Junkies: Inside our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery. No stranger to "beauty maintenance," Kuczynski has had botox, an eye-lift, and liposuction, but gave it up after a bad experience with lip augmentation.

Journalist Tina Cassidy was inspired to write about cultural birth practices after hearing many accounts of birth experiences. Cassidy is a former reporter for the Boston Globe and writes for other publications including The New York Times Magazine.

Dr. Paul Epstein is a physician in Boston, and the associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. He's created a niche as an eco-physician, exploring the link between increased illness and global warming. Illnesses such as heatstroke, asthma and allergies are the more obvious outcomes of a warmer and more polluted planet, but Epstein says an increase in infectious diseases such as malaria and West Nile virus may also be linked to the greenhouse effect.

Dr. E. Fuller Torrey is a research psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. He has authored many books on the subject of mental illness and is president of the Treatment Advocacy Center, as well as associate director for laboratory research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute.