Detail from The Fountain of Youth, 1546, by German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (Wikimedia Commons; click for full image).

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Everybody’s getting older. Almost nobody wants to age.

Now there’s a huge industry in “anti-aging.” Eighty billion dollars a year in this country — spent on pills and guidance, anti-aging diets and exercise, hormones and more.

“Age management,” it’s being called. And it’s booming as boomers … well, age. Testosterone sales are through the roof, with growth outstripping Viagra. For five thousand a year, we read, you can be kept tuned up like a race horse.

This hour, On Point: Age management. We’ll look at the real science and new horizons of aging.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

S. Jay Olshansky, professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois – Chicago and author of “The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging.”

Luigi Fontana, associate professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis and director of the division of nutrition and aging at the Italian National Institute of Health.

Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

More links:

“Testosterone Is Sure Looking Virile” — BusinessWeek looks at surging sales of testosterone and reports that “despite legal setbacks and FDA delays, youth-crazed boomers are making it a billion-dollar industry.”

“The Caloric Restriction Experiment” — The New York Times Magazine reports on the NIH-funded clinical trial called Calerie (Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy).

Image from the website of FOX's "More to Love" (fox.com/moretolove).

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Americans are bigger than ever, by a long shot. Heavier. Fatter.

And maybe more culturally torn than ever over fat. A broad swath of the country has just accepted a heavier profile as the way it is. The way we are. In TV’s “More to Love” and plus-size model Glamour shots, heavy is fine.

But the backlash is fierce, too. Jessica Simpson pummeled for a few extra pounds. Fat disdain aplenty. And the health care debate highlighting the cost of obesity in health care budgets out of control.

This hour, On Point: Overweight America — accepted or rejected — and the cost of our pounds.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Kate Dailey, health and lifestyles editor for Newsweek and writer of Newsweek’s blog The Human Condition, where she’s been following the debate over American weight. She edited and wrote for Newsweek’s recent series “The Fat Wars.”

In our studio we’re joined by Lesley Kinzel. She runs the blog Fatshionista, “a heady mixture of social justice, fat-girl memoir, and popular culture.”  She has been engaging in fat activism and social justice politics for over a decade. When not blogging, she works in higher education in the Boston area.

And from Washington we’re joined by Kenneth E. Thorpe, executive director of Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, executive director of the Emory Institute for Advanced Policy Solutions, and chairman of the department of health policy and management at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. His Sept. 10 Newsweek commentary, “We Have the Power to Change Our Weight,” argues that obesity is a health and an economic crisis.

Asia Johnson receives an intranasal H1N1 vaccine, Boston, Oct. 9, 2009. (AP)

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Ordinary flu kills thousands of people a year, but most are over 65 with underlying health problems.

H1N1 “swine flu” is different. Fully a third of those it kills are healthy, robust, often young.

Last week, H1N1 vaccine began its national rollout. The public still has questions.

Pundit Bill Maher told fans, “If u get a swine flu shot ur an idiot.” Medical professionals say you may be an idiot if you don’t.

This Hour, On Point: We’ll we’ll look at the new pandemic, with questions and answers on H1N1 and the swine flu vaccination program unfolding across the country right now.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Maggie Fox, health and science editor at Reuters

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

William Schaffner, professor and chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

 

Some answers on the H1N1 vaccine, at the NY Times.

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“Jose Cuervo, you are a friend of mine.” Do those words bring back memories? Linda Ronstadt and jolly times?

Except, of course, that Jose Cuervo is so often a lousy friend….

Statistics show that women are drinking more than ever, are being stopped for drunk driving more often — and a notorious recent car crash has thrown a spotlight on hidden drinking.

When Mommy cocktail hours are necessary to get through the day, when professional women know they’re crossing a line — help is needed.

This hour, On Point: what’s going on with women and booze.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Guests:

Rachael Brownell, mother of three and a recovering alcoholic. She’s author of “Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore: Getting Through the First Year of Sobriety.” You can read an excerpt here.

Dr. Petros Levounis, director of the Addiction Institute of New York and Chief of Addiction Psychiatry at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York. He’s author of “Sober Siblings: How to Help Your Alcoholic Brother or Sister — and Not Lose Yourself.”

Sarah Allen Benton, a recovering alcoholic and author of “Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic.” She is a mental health counselor at Emmanuel College in Boston.

Students ride their bikes outside a closed elementary school in Fountain Valley, Calif., in May. The school was closed for swine-flu sanitizing. (AP)

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The H1N1 virus — “swine flu” — just won’t quit. This summer, it’s sickened people all over the place: kids at camp, Senate pages in Washington, Navy crewmembers aboard ships.

The world death toll is 1,100 and rising. This fall U.S. officials fear a second surge – with as many as 40 percent of Americans sickened.

The race is on to produce the 150 million doses experts say are needed. And they’re wrestling with thorny questions, again, about closing schools — and just how big a threat the virus really is.

This hour, On Point: Gearing up for swine flu’s fall comeback, from Washington to your home town.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation.

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Spencer Hsu, a reporter for The Washington Post who’s been following the government’s preparations for the fall flu season.

From Nashville we’re joined by Dr. William Schaffner, professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and chair of its Department of Prentative Medicine. He’s an expert on the use of vaccines in both pediatric and adult populations.

And from Baltimore we’re joined by Dr. Eric Toner, senior associate with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Biosecurity. He’s a physician trained in internal and emergency medicine and an expert on pandemic influenza response and hospital preparedness.

More links:

“Inside the Fight Against a Flu Pandemic” — Time magazine’s Michael Scherer reports on the preparations and debates going on now as the government readies for a new outbreak. And Time’s Bryan Walsh looks at “five burning questions” remaining to be answered about swine flu, including how deadly the H1N1 virus really is.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers up-to-date information on the swine flu, including questions and answers on symptoms, treatment, and prevention.

(AP Photo)

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Modern humans love to alter their skin. We bronze, we lighten, we pierce, we tattoo. Above all, for years, in the American culture, in summer, we have tanned.

In the country’s 21st century racial rainbow, skin color is – more than ever – all over the map, and proudly so. We have black, we have white, and everything in between – including in the White House.

And still, tanning is a cultural phenom. But these days, the sun may have little to do with it. A whole lot of tans these days come from a bottle, a lotion, a spray.

This hour, On Point: the new anthropology of skin and tanning.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Nina Jablonski is the head of the Department of Anthropology at Penn State University. Her most recent book is “Skin: A Natural History” (2008).

Jane Brody writes the Personal Health column for The New York Times. Her books include “Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond” (2009), and “Jane Brody’s Good Food Book” (1985).

Carmindy is an on-screen makeup artist for the TLC show “What Not to Wear.” She is the author of “Get Positively Beautiful: The Ultimate Guide to Looking and Feeling Beautiful” (2008).

A plastic 55 gallon barrel is seen among piles of driftwood and mud along the Potomac River in Cropley, Md., Feb. 8, 2006. (AP)

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For years now, the stories have been piling up. Frogs and salamanders with extra legs. “Intersex fish,” neither male or female. Eighty percent of male smallmouth bass in the Potomac producing eggs.

And the apparent culprit: chemicals in the water — endocrine disruptors — that are also in our water and everyday household items.

Now scientists are tracking large increases in genital deformities in newborn boys, early-onset puberty in girls, obesity and diabetes in animals and humans, and warning that these, too, could have a chemical cause.

This hour, On Point: Danger in the water — endocrine disruptors, and their long reach.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Amherst, Mass., is R. Thomas Zoeller, professor and chair of biology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is one of the authors a 50-page scientific statement by the Endocrine Society, “Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals,” which was cited by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in his column for Sunday, June 28. (Also see Kristof’s followup blog post on the topic.)

Joining us from Washington is Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and epidemiologist. She is a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 1993 she was appointed by President Clinton to serve as Assistant Administrator for the EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, where she served for five years.

A child seeking medical treatment waits to be attended at the makeshift waiting area set up at the entrance to the Naval hospital in Mexico City, Thursday April 30, 2009. (AP)

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It’s been the week that “swine flu” became “H1N1” and very nearly, says the WHO, a pandemic. Masks, Mexico and hog farms in the news. A small world and a quick spread.

In Detroit, Chrysler falls into the arms of bankruptcy and Fiat. In Washington, Supreme Court Justice David Souter dreams of summer in New Hampshire, and decides he’ll retire.

Arlen Specter makes a different change — from Republican to Democrat. And VP Joe Biden rolls out his version of snakes on a plane.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

What’s your top story this week? Do you see Chrysler-Fiat coming back strong? Arlen Specter lining up for Obama? Have H1N1 and Joe Biden scared you off the plane? The subway? Out of your wits? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Michael Gerson, columnist for The Washington Post, former White House advisor and speechwriter for President George W. Bush, and author of “Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America’s Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don’t).”

Also from Washington we’re joined by Margaret Talev, White House correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers.

And from Hanover, N.H., is Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

Residents wear surgical masks as they exit the subway in Mexico City on Monday, April 27, 2009. (AP)

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1976, Fort Dix, New Jersey. An outbreak of swine flu among military recruits. Washington feared a pandemic. Stepped in big. Immunized 40 million Americans. But the flu just disappeared.

2009, in Mexico, New Zealand, New York, Kansas, Texas, the UK, and now Israel, Spain, and more — swine flu is making big headlines again. Spreading. Killing in Mexico. Moving up the WHO pandemic scale, now to Phase 4 of 6.

Will it roar? Or vanish? And could a flu born in warm Mexico spread right through the summer?

This hour, On Point: The science and threat of the swine flu outbreak, 2009.

You can join the conversation. Are you double-washing your hands yet? Have you been traveling — maybe catching, or worried that you’ve caught this new virus? And what questions do you still have, after all the reporting, the calls of alarm and for calm? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Mexico City is Victor Hugo Michel, special affairs reporter for Milenio, one of the biggest national dailies in Mexico.

From San Antonio, we’re joined by Don Finley, medical reporter San Antonio Express-News. He’s covering the swine flu investigation in Guadalupe County.

Joining us from Atlanta is Dr. Joe Bresee, M.D., chief of epidemiology and prevention in the Influenza Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

From Washington we’re joined by Dr. Michael Greger, M.D., director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States. An expert on animal-to-human diseases, he’s author of “Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.”

And from New York we’re joined by Delthia Ricks, health reporter for Newsday and author of “100 Questions & Answers About Influenza.”

More links:

The CDC website offers information on the swine flu, including questions and answers on symptoms, treatment, and prevention.

In this CDC video, Dr. Bresee talks about the swine flu, its symptoms, transmission, and treatment:

Brown University medical student Jeremy Boyd displays his personal digital assistant, or PDA, Friday, Feb. 17, 2006, at Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, R.I. (AP)

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By 2014, President Obama hopes to digitize the health records of every American. And the federal stimulus bill is funneling $19 billion dollars to do just that.

Proponents say electronic medical records will reduce spending. Cut down on repeat medical tests. Reduce errors. Even save lives.

Critics warn not so fast. What about the huge cost to implement such systems? And what about doctor-patient privacy? Do we really want a universal electronic health record database?

We’ll weigh the pros and cons.

This Hour, On Point: your e-health record.

You can join the conversation. What’s your view on computerizing Americans’ medical records? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Ashish Jha, professor of medicine and associate professor of health policy and management at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and a staff physician at the Boston VA and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals. He co-authored a recent article in “The New England Journal of Medicine” called, “Use of Electronic Health Records in U.S. Hospitals.”

Jennifer Brull, family medicine physician in Plainville, Kansas. Her clinic recently converted to an entirely electronic system of medical records.

Deborah Peel, founder and chairman of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation. You can see her group’s position here.

More links:

Dr. Jermome Groopman, a highly respected medical thinker and supporter of President Obama, wrote a tough critique in the Wall Street Journal — “Obama’s $80 Billion Exaggeration” — of the new administration’s e-health record effort.

To hear how President Obama wants to cut health care costs — including through the e-health records push — listen to On Point’s show with hospital consultant Mitchell Seltzer, who has the ear of the White House, and Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly.

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Babies so tiny they can fit in the palm of your hand. Terrified parents. Experimental therapies.

Inside the Neonatal Intensive Care, every day brings new challenges. For babies, parents, and doctors.

For 25 years, Dr. Christine Gleason has been on the front lines of saving premature babies. She’s had the painful conversations, made split second decisions, and been witness to the tiniest miracles and biggest heartbreaks.

Today, she’s sharing these stories of hope and heartbreak in an intimate and powerful new book.

This Hour, On Point: hope and the human spirit in the Neonatal ICU.

You can join the conversation. Do you know first hand of the miracles that happen inside the NICU? Do you know the heartbreak? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Christine Gleason, Chief of Neonatology and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her new book is “Amost Home: Stories of Hope and the Human Spirit in the Neonatal ICU.”

Read an excerpt from “Almost Home.”

Liza Cooper, Director of NICU Family Support at the March of Dimes. You can see more details on the organization’s activities and walkathon here.

Photo: Flickr/Vidiot

Huge studies came out last week on the number-one cancer issue in men’s health. Women wrestle with breast cancer. Men: prostate.

It’s generally slow-growing. It can show up even among twenty-year-olds. And it can be an obsession for men over 50.

But how aggressive should we be in screening and treating? In cutting it out? The upside: it may save your life. The downside risk: incontinence and impotence, and expensive intervention that may not have been necessary.

This hour, On Point: The latest on prostate cancer, and whether the treatment is worse than the disease.

You can join the conversation. Have you been diagnosed with prostate cancer? Have you gone for the full treatment? Or hung back? What do you make of the new studies?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Berlin, Germany, is Dr. Gerald Andriole, chief urologic surgeon at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He led the U.S. study of 77,000 men published on March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine. A European study was also published in the NEJM last week.

Joining us from Cleveland, Ohio, is Dr. Stephen Jones, chairman of the department of regional urology at the Glickman Urological Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.

From Wilmington, N.C., we’re joined by Dr. Nortin Hadler, professor of medicine and microbiology & immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He is author of “Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America.”

Reggie Jackson of Prevention Works, a needle exchange program that focuses on preventing the spread of HIV, talks during an interview in the Trinidad section of Washington on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008. (AP)

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The public health headlines out of Washington, D.C. echoed around the world yesterday.

The HIV/AIDS rate in the U.S. capital is higher than in West Africa. On par with Uganda. At three percent, we learned, the capital’s infection rate now approaches the rate of San Francisco at the height of the AIDS scare. And this when many Americans have come to see HIV/AIDS as a monster that’s been tamed.

What do the new Washington numbers really mean, for the capital and the country? Who’s sick, and why?

This hour, On Point: HIV/AIDS in D.C., and across the nation, now.

You can join the conversation. Did you think the AIDS epidemic was behind us? Is it, in your community? Your state? What’s the meaning of the numbers from the District of Columbia?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Washington Post. His front-page story on Sunday reported on the new HIV/AIDS numbers released by the District yesterday. And today he reports that the reported 3 percent rate is likely too low. He wrote a year-long series on HIV/AIDS in the nation’s capital in 2006, and he’s the screenwriter and co-producer of a forthcoming documentary based on his HIV/AIDS reporting, called “The Other City.”

Also from Washington, we’re joined by Shannon Hader, senior deputy director of the District of Columbia Department of Health, HIV/AIDS Administration, which yesterday released its report (pdf) finding that 3 percent of the District’s residents are living with HIV/AIDS. Previously she led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) work in Zimbabwe, and helped coordinate the 2007 HIV Implementers Meeting in Rwanda, the first worldwide meeting of its kind.

And joining us from New York is Phill Wilson, founder and executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, a group dedicated to ending AIDS in African-American communities. From 1990 to 1993, he served as the AIDS Coordinator for the City of Los Angeles and worked as the director of policy and planning at AIDS Project Los Angeles from 1993 to 1996.

Adderall (Photo by hipsxxhearts, Flickr.com)

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Attention-deficit drugs like Adderall and Ritalin have helped millions of ADHD kids get along. For a new generation, they’ve also fed a black market in college dorms and high-pressure labs, where off-label use by the non-ADHD gets term papers written and lab reports done.

Now, pharmaceutical companies — and some scientists — are saying maybe we should consider “cognitive enhancers,” drugs like these, for the general population.

Some call it “cosmetic neurology,” and say it’s time. Others say it’s a bad, bad idea.

This hour, On Point: The debate over drugs for the mind.

You can join the conversation. Is it time to loosen up? To think of Adderall and Ritalin the way you might think of an hour of exercise? Or a cup of coffee? A fine way to sharpen up? Or is general use of pills for the mind a bad idea?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Ellen Gibson at BusinessWeek magazine. She recently wrote the article “Mental Pick Me Ups: The Coming Boom.”

From Philadelphia, we’re joined by Martha Farah, professor of psychology and director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. She is co-author of a commentary in the December issue of the journal Nature, “Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy.”

From Garrison, N.Y., is Thomas Murray, president of The Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank. He was formerly the director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University.

And from Washington, we’re joined by Nora Volkow, director of the National Insitute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.

Mark Bittman

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Food writer and home cooking guide Mark Bittman is a hero in many American kitchens. His “How to Cook Everything” has put a lot of meals on a lot of family tables.

Now, Bittman is taking up a bigger cause than dinner: The way Americans eat, he says, is killing themselves and the planet. Too much meat. Too much junk food. Too big a footprint.

Just a little change, he says — vegan ‘til 6pm, ‘til dinner — could save our waistlines, our health, and the planet.

This hour, On Point: A save-the-Earth manifesto — with recipes — from food maven Mark Bittman.

You can join the conversation. Is Mark Bittman already your go-to-guy for recipes? For food advice? Are you ready to follow him onto earth-friendly terrain at the table?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Mark Bittman, food columnist for The New York Times. He writes “The Minimalist” column and the “Bitten” blog. His new book is “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.”

See three of Mark Bittman’s recipes from the book: Breakfast Bread Pudding, Chocolate Semolina Pudding with Raspberry Puree, and Vegetable Pancakes.

San Francisco 49ers' quarterback Steve Young lays motionless on field after suffering a concussion in the game against the Arizona Cardinals on Sept. 27, 1999, in Tempe, Arizona. (AP)

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When the lights are up and the crowd is roaring, it’s all glorious mayhem in the National Football League. The power, the plays, the crunching hits and tackles.

But when the lights go down, the crowds go home, and careers end, it’s often NFL wives left to pick up the battered pieces.

The toughest wounds to deal with: brain damage from repeated poundings and concussion on the football field. Retired players dealing with depression, memory loss, dementia. Big men reduced to helplessness.

This hour, On Point: NFL wives on the long trail of concussion on the field.

You can join the conversation. What do you think when you hear the crack of helmets on the football field? What about the brains, the men inside those helmets — and their wives?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Alan Schwarz, staff sports writer for The New York Times. His 2007 series on concussions and other brain injuries suffered by NFL players and other athletes was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.  His most recent piece, published last week, is “N.F.L. Meeting Irks Wives of Ill Retirees.”

Joining us from Baltimore is Dr. Eleanor Perfetto, wife of Ralph Wenzel, who played guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers and San Diego Chargers from 1966 to 1973. He suffers from dementia and now lives in an assisted-living facility. She is a senior director in health policy issues at Pfizer.

Also with us from Baltimore is Sylvia Mackey, wife of Pro Football Hall-of-Famer John Mackey, who played for the Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers from 1963-1972. He now suffers from fronto-temporal dementia and has been at an assisted-living facility since September. She was a leading figure in the development of the NFL’s “88 Plan,” named after John Mackey’s jersey number, which provides money for the care and treatment of former players with dementia.

From Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Harold Henderson, executive vice president for labor relations for the NFL and chairman of the NFL Management Council Executive Committee. He helped develop the NFL’s 88 Plan.

And in our studio we’re joined by Dr. Robert Stern, associate professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine and co-director of BU’s Alzheimer’s Disease clinical and research program. He is also co-director of BU’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. This September, 16 pro athletes, including six former NFL players, agreed to donate their brains to the center for study after their deaths.

Dr. Nathan Wolfe

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Some of the most punishing pandemic diseases to hit human health come from the wild. A local hunter deep in the rain forest brings down a beast, butchers it, its blood mingling with his own, and a virus is passed.

Enough mingling of the wrong virus over time, and a pandemic is born. Scientists think HIV and then AIDS leached into the human population this way decades ago.

Field biologist Nathan Wolfe is on the hunt for the next viral killers, to stop them before they decimate entire populations. He’s tracking them down in the rainforests of Cameroon, in Malaysia, in China and beyond, and to the blood of hunters who kill wild game.

This hour, On Point: Into Africa, and beyond, with the virus hunters.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Nathan Wolfe joins us from Stanford, California. He is director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, a pandemic warning system which works with more than 100 scientists and staff around the world, including in Cameroon, China, and Malaysia. He is a field biologist and visiting professor of human biology at Stanford University. He has spent more than eight years in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa tracking the movement of viruses.

Joining us from Yaounde, Cameroon, is Matthew LeBreton, ecology coordinator for the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative in Cameroon, where he has been since 2000. He has a staff of roughly 30 that works on multiple sites, collecting blood samples and offering education on how viruses, including HIV, spread.

More Links:

The Global Viral Forecasting Initiative site offers in-depth descriptions of its work in Cameroon, China, Malaysia, Congo, Madagascar, and Laos, including images from the field. At the bottom of this page is a graphic photo of a blood-soaked hunter and his kill.

“Deep in the Rain Forest, Stalking the Next Pandemic” — a recent profile of Nathan Wolfe in The New York Times.

“The Plague Fighters: Stopping the Next Pandemic Before It Begins” — Wired magazine featured this article on Nathan Wolfe’s work, including photos and video.

Millions of Americans are turning to acupuncture, homeopathy and herbal remedies to treat everything from headaches to constipation to cancer. Alternative medicine is a multi-billion dollar global business — offering the promise of natural healing and a comforting antidote to the cold bed-side manner of those white smocked MDs.

But a new book by a pair of skeptics is fueling a raging debate about its value. They say most treatments are unproven and untested — no better than a placebo at best, and potentially crippling at worst.

This hour, On Point: “Trick or Treatment” — the facts about alternative medicine.

-Anthony Brooks, guest host

Guests:

Simon Singh, best-selling author and science journalist. He is co-author of the new book, “Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine.”

Edzard Ernst, M.D., professor of complementary medicine at The University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom, and co-author with Simon Singh of “Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine.” He’s also the author of “The Oxford Handbook of Complementary Medicine.”

James Gordon, M.D., founder and director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine. His new book is “Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression.”

Links:

Read an excerpt from “Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine.”

When actor Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the whole country took notice. When Dr. Thomas Graboys got the news, it was — as for most of the thousands of Americans hit with Parkinson’s every year — a more private affair.

Graboys had been a tip-top doctor. Cardiologist to the stars. Now he was being tipped onto the Parkinson’s path, where tying your shoes is a major challenge.

Tremors. Dementia. Dependence. From power to powerlessness. Now, while he still can, he’s telling that story.

This hour, On Point: The doctor’s own Parkinson’s disease.

- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Dr. Thomas Graboys, He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and dementia. He is professor of medicine at Harvard University, a senior physician at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, president emeritus of the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Nobel Prize-winner and co-author (with Peter Zheutlin) of “Life in the Balance: A Physician’s Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss with Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia”

Vicki Baker-Graboys, CEO of “Su Casa Designs,” an interior decorating firm.

Dr. John Growdon, director of memory and movement disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

It wasn’t until he was 20 that Nicky was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a kind of high-functioning neurological cousin of autism that is being diagnosed in more and more young Americans.

They can be high achievers — many in computer science or engineering. But it’s not an easy life.

Now, Lizzie and Nicky are telling their story.

This hour, On Point: living with Asperger’s Syndrome, up close.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Lizzie Gottlieb, director of “Today’s Man: Adventures of a Young Man with Asperger Syndrome.”

Nicky Gottlieb, Lizzie’s brother, has Asperger’s Syndrome and is the subject of “Today’s Man.”

Lynda Geller, clinical director, Asperger Institute at New York University. She is also a board member at the Asperger Foundation International, where she served as executive director from 2004 to 2006.

Brian Hughes, product engineer and trustee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 2003 he wrote a column for MIT alumni titled “Understanding Our Gifted and Complex Minds: Intelligence, Asperger’s Syndrome, and Learning Disabilities at MIT.”