Medicine & Health

Violence prevention expert Deborah Prothrow-Stith. She's encouraged America to look at violence as a public health emergency. Stith says that instead of stitching up bullet wounds and returning people to the streets, we should teach violence prevention. Stith, assistant dean at Harvard School of Public Health, received the World Health Day Award in 1993. Stith co-wrote a book on violence called "Deadly Consequences" (Harper Collins) and a health textbook, "Health Skills for Wellness".

Doctor Marcus Conant. In the early 1980's Dr. Conant was among the first doctors in San Francisco to treat AIDS cases. Now Dr. Conant heads the largest private AIDS medical practice in San Francisco. After his 1985 study on how condoms block transmission of the AIDS virus, condoms became a household word. Dr. Conant is the director of AIDS Clinical Research Center and the co-director of the Kaposi's Sarcoma Clinic at the University of California at San Francisco.

Health care reporter Laurie Kaye Abraham. For her new book, "Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: the Failure of Health Care in Urban America" (U of Chicago), Abraham spent three years with a poor African American family studying the problem of lack of access to medical care. Abraham reveals how difficult it is for a poor family to make sense of Medicaid and Medicare, and the discrimination that blacks face in trying to find health care.

Should you get a flu shot? We hear from Robin Marantz Henig, author of a book about viruses "A Dancing Matrix," and Dr. W. Paul Glezer, epidemiologist at the Influenza Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine.

Professor of Political Economy and Health Policy Marc Roberts. He's written a new book about the health care crisis: "Your Money or Your Life: The Health Care Crisis Explained." (Doubleday). Roberts will talk with Terry about Clinton's health care plan, which the president presented to Congress yesterday. Roberts is on the faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Anne Lamott on her son's first asthma attack.

Dr. David Spiegel, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. His groundbreaking study of breast cancer patients showed that women who had psychosocial intervention lived twice as long, after diagnosis, as those without that intervention. His new book, "Living Beyond Limits" (Times Books) covers current research on mind/body interactions, how to build sustaining support networks, control pain through self-hypnosis and detoxify fears of dying.

Terry talks with molecular geneticist Mary-Claire King. She is one of the scientists who's work is featured in the new PBS series, "The Secret of Life." For the past 17 years, her research has focused on finding the gene responsible for the type of breast cancer that is inherited. She believes she is now close to locating the gene.

Professor Uwe Reinhardt. He is a professor of Political Economy at Princeton University. He is also President of the American Association of Health Services Research. Reinhardt has written widely about reforming the U-S healthcare system in such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. He has argued for a universal plan for years now, saying it will control spiraling costs.

Biomedical ethicist Arthur Caplan. Caplan was on the Presidential task force that helped form the new health care proposal. He is the Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota. He is also a professor of surgery and philosophy there. In addition to numerous books and articles, Caplan writes a syndicated column; his work appears weekly in 40 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.