Health

Goemaere is head of Doctors Without Borders ( Medecins Sans Frontieres) in South Africa and a leading AIDS activist for South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign. He was recently featured on a Frontline report, "AIDS Treatment for Africa: The South African Struggle," that appeared on PBS.

Throughout his life he struggled with a weight problem. Last year he underwent gastric bypass surgery, an operation that reduces the size of the stomach and helps the patient lose weight. Roker lost 100 pounds. He talks about his operation and his new cookbook Al Roker's Hassle-Free Holiday Cookbook.

He's a longtime correspondent on health and science policy for The New York Times. In his new book, Protecting America's Health: the FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation, he chronicles the history of the Food and Drug Administration from its start during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt. Hilts also broke the now-famous story of the Brown and Williamson tobacco industry papers, and is the author of Smoke Screen: The Truth Behind the Tobacco Industry Cover-Up.

Art Caplan is the director of the Center for Bioethics, and chief of the Division of Bioethics, at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. Sherry Glied is the chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Terry Gross speaks with Chris Butler, chief marketing officer for Independence Blue Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania. The insurer is set to raise its rates as much as 50 percent. Butler will give is a sense of the healthcare industry's viewpoint on rising costs and changes in policy.

He is a pioneer in the field of medical-imaging technology. In a new book, From Conception to Birth: a Life Unfolds, he collects images of the fetus in every stage of its development. The three-dimensional color visualizations are culled from a variety of medical-image techniques and then reconfigured on the computer. Tsiaras is also a photojournalist and an artist. His previous book is The Death Rituals of Rural Greece. He is also president and CEO of Anatomical Travelogue, Inc.

Doctors Quentin Young and Marcia Angell of Physicians for a National Health Care Program (PNHP). They advocate a single-payer health insurance plan, in which the government finances health care, but choice of provider remains mostly private. Young is Senior Attending Physician at Michael Reese Hospital and serves as National Coordinator of PNHP. Angell is head of the Physician Working Group and is a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Economist Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine's panel studying ways to improve health care. She supports improving on existing plans such as Medicare and employer coverage. She served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the Department of Health and Human Services from 1977-80 and was the first woman to head a U.S. Public Health Service Agency.

Bruce McEwen is a pioneering expert on the ways in which the brain influences the body. He is the author of ""The End of Stress As We Know It" (with Elizabeth Norton Lasley, published by Joseph Henry Press). The book examines the response of the body to stress, what happens when the body's stress response turns against us, and how to keep that from happening. Dr. McEwen is head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University in New York City.

Journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell has written a new book, The Hungry Gene: The Science of Fat and the Future of Thin. Shell is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and has written for The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, Discover and other publications. She's an associate professor and co-director of Knight Center for Science Journalism at Boston University.