pharmacologist, and freelance science and medicine writer
Pharmacologist; freelance science and medicine writer, and contributor to Forbes; Director of Science Communications at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and board member of the Henrietta Lacks Foundation
Mental Illness and the Myths about Violence Last week, a second black box was found at the site where a Germanwings AirBus A320 crashed in the French Alps, killing 150 people, including the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz. That and a search of Lubitz's apartment have provided more evidence that he deliberately caused the crash . Since then, news reports have focused on his history of severe depression. But experts on mental illness say it's dangerously misleading to suggest that depression alone was the cause of mass murder. They warn of unnecessary fear -- and a stigma that discourages people from reporting treatable symptoms. Feelings of aggression and hostility do complicate the equation, raising conflicts between privacy and public safety.
Genetic Breakthroughs: Patents and Profits Mapping the human genome began "the biological gold rush of the 21st Century," with companies now owning patents on 4000 human genes. Today, the US Supreme Court is being asked to strike down two patents on BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, genes that helped doctors discover both breast and ovarian cancer. Nobody can do that without paying Myriad Genetics , which isolated the genes. But opponents argue the genes are "products of Nature." We hear about a case with long-term implications for the future of "personalized medicine" designed to serve the needs of each individual patient.
White House budget proposal slashes and burns President Trump's first budget request is considered dead on arrival in Congress — a familiar development in Capitol Hill. We hear what it reveals about the priorities of the new administration. What's likely to die… and what might survive?
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.