Medicine & Health

Dr. Mark Feinberg is the director of the Virology Research Laboratory at San Francisco General Hospital and the Associate Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research. He just returned from the 10th International Conference on AIDS in Japan. For the past ten years, Feinberg has been studying how the HIV virus causes AIDS; recently he has focused on people who have had the HIV virus for many years, but have not yet shown AIDS symptoms.

Last week, a cholera epidemic broke out in Rwanda, and the country now has limited medical facilities and few physicians. Dr. John Sundin worked during May and June at the Red Cross hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. He'll talk about the cholera epidemic, and about his experiences working as the only surgeon in Kigali.

Dr. Fred Sheftell is founder and co-director, respectively, of the New England Center for Headache and National President for the American Council on Headache Education. He argues that chronic headache sufferers have faced stigma, often thought to have brought their condition on themselves. He says, “Unlike the pain of ulcers or colitis, the pain caused by a headache has no easily visible source. This relects more on the state of medical knowledge than on the reality of the condition.”

Journalist Christopher Joyce has just written a book, "Earthly Goods," about searching for medicinal plants in rain forests. He'll talk about the history of seeking treatments in nature and the recent attempt of pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, and anthropologists, to preserve the rain forests while they search for cures to disease.

Authority on complementary cancer treatments Michael Lerner. His book is called "Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer" (The MIT Press).

Dr. Stuart Levy is a professor at Tufts University Medical School, and has just written a book, "The Antibiotic Paradox: How Miracle Drugs Are Destroying the Miracle," (Plenum). This book looks at the threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are resulting from over-prescription of antibiotics. Dr. Levy is recognized internationally as an expert on resistance and as a critic of the widespread misuse of antibiotics. He is also president of the International Alliance for Prudent Use of Antibiotics.

Pennsylvania Governor Robert P. Casey. June 14th will be the first anniversary of his "return from the dead." Last year when he was close to death from a fatal liver disease that was destroying his heart, Casey received a heart and liver transplant. The donor was a young African American man who was savagely beaten by drug dealers. Casey talks about his second chance at life. And he discusses his views--pre and post-surgery--on political issues of life and death such as abortion and the death penalty.

Author and physician Abraham Verghese. An Indian raised in Ethopia, Abraham Verghese arrived in the United States in 1980 as a rookie doctor. Upon completing an internship in infectious diseases, Dr. Verghese accepted a position in the rural, Appalachian town of Johnson City, Tennessee. The year was 1985 and AIDS had begun to ravage large metropolitan areas. Within the year, Dr. Verghese was treating his first case of AIDS in this rural outpost.

Physician and author Kenneth Iserson, M.D. Iserson wanted to promote organ and tissue donation. So he wrote a book about what happens to dead bodies. It's called "Death to Dust" (Galen Press). Iserson believes that death is the pornography of our culture. He says that after-death activities are shrouded in secrecy. His book explores the mundane--burial choices and advance directives--and the arcane--head shrinking, cannibalism and cryonic preservation.

Pharmacologist Dr. Avram Goldstein. He set up some of the first methadone clinics to treat heroin addiction in California, and has a new book "Addiction: From Biology to Drug Policy" (Freeman). Goldstein argues that addictions are diseases, and must be considered a public health problem. A study released last month may back him up: 500,000 American deaths a year are attributed to cigarette, alcohol and drug use.