Medicine & Health

Cancer researcher John Mendelsohn, M.D. is the president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. We will talk about new developments in cancer treatment. Mendelsohn created a new cancer drug, known as C225. The drug shows great promise in treating a number of cancers by halting the growth of cancer cells. There has been an explosion in the number of cancer drugs in recent years.

Biomedical ethicist Arthur Caplan, Ph.D. We talk about the news that human embryos are being grown by researchers doing stem cell research. Previously, the cells were harvested from aborted fetuses. The idea of fetal farming is quite controversial. Proponents cite the enormous potential for finding cures to cancer, Alzheimer and diabetes. Opponents are aghast at the notion of using and destroying human life for the sole purpose of research. Caplan is the Director of the Center for Bioethics and Trustee Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

His new book on depression, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, (Scribner) came out of a 1998 New Yorker article. He draws on personal experience as well as interviews with patients, physicians, philosophers and drug designers.

Dr Barron Lerner writes of how science and culture influenced the battle with breast cancer in the new book, The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America. (Oxford) He writes of how the once-accepted practice of the radical masectomy gave way to lumpectomy and radiation and of how women activists helped alter the way doctors treated their patients and their cancers.

Psychologist Daniel Schacter is the author of the new book The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. The book looks at memory loss and age, arguing that gaps in memory are normal if not necessary to a sharp mind. He's a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

Epidemiologist and one of the world's leading experts on Alzheimer's disease, David Snowdon. In 1986 he began what he calls the "Nun Study," following a group of aging nuns to better understand why some of the sisters were able to age gracefully, retaining their mental faculties, and others were not. He studied 678 nuns who belonged to The School Sisters of Notre Dame. His study was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Cofounder of the New England Center for Headache Dr. Fred Sheftell. He's also Chair of the World Headache Alliance. His book Conquering Headache: An Illustrated Guide to Understanding the Treatment and Control of Headache (Empowering Press, www.bcdecker.com) is now in it's third edition. Sheftell will talk about the new research in migraines. The New England Center for Headache is in Stamford Connecticut.

The topic is circumcision. Author David Gollaher. He is president and CEO of the public policy group, California Healthcare Institute and is the author of Circumcision: A History of the Worlds Most Controversial Surgery.

Dr. Esther Sternberg from the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institutes of Health. In her new book “The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions” she looks at how researchers have uncovered the connection between mind and body.

AIDS researcher Timothy Wright and his brother, criminologist Richard Wright. In 1995, Timothy Wright was in Bolivia conducting AIDS related research. Then during Mardi Gras festivities, Wright was assaulted, robbed, and suffered a severe brain injury. In the years since, his brother, Richard helped Timothy in his recovery. We talk to both brothers about Timothy’s injury and dramatic recovery. The story of Timothy’s recuperation is chronicled in a book written by Helene Wright, Timothy and Richard's mother. Its called Someone Stole Yesterday (Providence House Publishers).