Medicine & Health

Journalist Richard Preston is the author of the best seller The Hot Zone, about the ebola virus. His new book, The Demon in the Freezer, is about the smallpox virus and the scientists at the CDC who are working with live smallpox in order to develop a drug that could fight it — should the virus be used in biological warfare. The smallpox virus was eradicated from humans in 1979. Now it can be found — officially — in two high-security freezers: one at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and at Vector Institute in Siberia.

Veteran registered nurses Kim Armstrong and Audrey Ludmer. Armstrong is currently working in obstetrics with high-risk labor and delivery in the Seattle area. Ludmer works in a peri-operative care center for endoscopy patients in the Manhattan area. Both will talk about how the nursing shortage and hospital cutbacks have affected hospital health care.

Investigative reporter Michael Berens writes for the Chicago Tribune. His recent series of articles is about the epidemic of life-threatening infections that occur in America's hospitals. He reports that infection rates are soaring and they are exacerbated by hospital cutbacks and carelessness by doctors and nurses. Deaths caused by hospital germs are now the fourth-leading cause of mortality among Americans, and can largely be prevented. Plus the problem is often kept secret by hospitals and it persists because of a lack of government oversight.

Science writer Douglas Starr. His book, Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce, inspired the upcoming PBS series Red Gold: The Epic Story of Blood. The four-part production premieres June 23, 2002. Starr is co-director of the Knight Center for Science and Medical Journalism at Boston University. Starr has contributed to many publications including Time, Sports Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times and Smithsonian Magazine.

Last fall, Attorney General John Ashcroft challenged the Death with Dignity Act using the Controlled Substances Act. A federal judge blocked enforcement of Ashcrofts order, and is expected to rule on it sometime this month. We talk with palliative care consultant, Dr. Paul Stull, of Astoria, Ore., who opposes physician-assisted suicide.

A retired Oregon physician who has prostate cancer. He has a lethal dose of drugs on hand to use if he chooses to. He wishes to remain anonymous.

Five years ago, Oregon voters passed into law the Death with Dignity Act, legalizing physician-assisted suicide. We talk with oncologist Peter Rasmussen of Salem, Ore., who has prescribed lethal doses of medication for dying patients.

An expert on chemical/biological weapons proliferation and arms control, Dr. Jonathan Tucker. He is Director of the Chemical & Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Tucker is also author of the new book, Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox

Since 1994, Dr. Peter Piot been the director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the executive director of U.N. AIDS, the U.N. agency coordinating the fight against the disease. He also co-discovered the Ebola virus. He's considered the U.N.'s top AIDS official. He says Asian countries need to take AIDS prevention and treatment more seriously, as they are only at the beginning of the epidemic. Countries most affected are Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia. Piot says the HIV/AIDS epidemic has hit India very hard.

Dr. Peter Nathanielsz, author of The Prenatal Prescription, (Harper Collins). Dr Nathanielsz explains what happens to the fetus while in a mother womb. He claims that the environment created in the womb affects a person throughout life, especially in areas of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and mood disorders. Nathanielsz is the director of the Laboratory for Pregnancy and Newborn Research at Cornell University.