Health & Medicine

Journalist Jon Cohen writes for Science Magazine. He just got back from the 14th International AIDS conference where he reported on the AIDS vaccine and anti-HIV drug therapies. His article "Designer Bugs" in the July/August edition of The Atlantic Monthly is about how scientists have the ability to create synthetic viruses in the lab, like mousepox and polio, and the controversies and dangers this presents.

Dr. David Zangen, senior pediatrician, and Dr. Radgonde Amer, an ophthalmologist at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. They are part of the group of Arab and Jewish doctors who work side by side at the hospital treating casualties of the conflict in the Middle East.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Lovely Bones, a debut novel by Alice Sebold.

Writer Michael Pollan. His book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World takes a look at four plants cultivated by humans: the apple, the tulip, potatoes and marijuana. Pollan demonstrates that plants and humans have developed a reciprocal, co-evolutionary relationship: do we plant potatoes, or do potatoes seduce us into planting them? Pollan questions the assumption that we are in charge of our agriculture. The book is now in paperback.

Novelist Carol Shields won a Pulitzer Prize for her best-selling novel, The Stone Diaries. Her books are often about middle-class people leading quiet lives. Her other novels include Larrys Party, which won Britains Orange Prize, The Republic of Love and Swann: A Mystery. She also wrote a biography of Jane Austen as well as plays, poetry and story collections. In 1998 Shields was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is now in a late stage of the disease. Her new novel, Unless (Fourth Estate), was written after her diagnosis.

Ugandan Aids activist Noerine Kaleeba. She works with UNAids, a United Nations organization in Geneva. Shes also on the Ugandan committee on Aids, and founded The Aids Support Organization in Uganda. Kaleeba lost her husband to the disease; four of her siblings are HIV positive as are a number of their children. Kaleeba is also author of the book, We Miss You All: Noerine Kaleeba - Aids in the Family (Women & Aids Support Network).

Surgical resident and staff writer on medicine and science for The New Yorker, Atul Gawande. His new book, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on An Imperfect Science, is based on his experiences and "how messy, uncertain and also surprising medicine turns out to be."

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.

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.

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.

John Powers reviews Solaris, starring George Clooney, directed by Steven Soderbergh.

South African surgeon, journalist and documentary filmmaker Jonathan Kaplan has treated patients in many war torn locations, including Kurdistan, Mozambique, and Eritrea. He writes about his experiences in his new book, The Dressing Station: A Surgeons Chronicle of War and Medicine (Grove Press). He began his medical career in South Africa, where he first cared for patients wounded by political violence.

Chris Giannou, surgeon for the International Committee of the Red Cross. For about 20 years he has been a medic in war torn parts of the world including Burundi, Somalia, and in a Palestinian Refugee Camp. As such he has seen the devastation on human beings from landmines. Giannou is currently leading the Red Cross's campaign for a ban on anti-personnel landmines worldwide, which kill or injure hundreds of civilians each week. Giannou has just returned from six weeks in Afghanistan.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Look at Me by Jennifer Egan (Doubleday), and talks about Jonathan Franzens bestseller The Corrections.

Writer Ken Kesey died Saturday 11/10/01 at the age of 66. Kesey was a leading figure of 60s counterculture. As the organizer of the Merry Pranksters, Kesey did as much as anyone to popularize the use of LSD and other hallucinogens. Kesey also wrote two of the most popular books of the era, Sometimes a Great Notion and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He also the author of Demon Box, Caverns and other books.

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.

Executive director of the USA division of the French medical relief organization Doctors without Borders, Nicolas De Torrente. During August, he was in the Northern Territory of Afghanistan checking on the work of the organization. To do their work, Doctors without Borders had to negotiate with the Taliban. After the attacks, the organization had to evacuate all foreign workers out of the country, leaving their Afhani staff behind. De Torrente was flying to JFK airport on Sept. 11, and his plane was one of the last international planes to land in the U.S.

Dana Wechsler Linden and Mia Wechsler Doron, M.D., authors of the book, Preemies: the Essential Guide for Parents of Premature Babies. Linden and Doron are sisters, both personally interested in providing information to the public about premature babies. Ms. Linden gave birth to premature twins, and is a journalist. She is also a former senior editor at Forbes Magazine. Dr. Doron is a neonatologist at the Newborn Critical Care Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Writer Julie Fenster. She written a new book about the coincidence and circumstance that led to the first use of ether, making surgery painless for the first time. The breakthru day — known as Ether Day — was Oct. 16, 1846. One of the men behind it was a Boston dentist, William Morton, who was also a conman and an opportunist. Fenster tells the story in her new book, Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made it (HarperCollins). Fenster is a columnist for American Heritage and a contributor to the New York Times.

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.