Drugs

The organization known as MS-13 -- often in the headlines, especially since they've been repeatedly referred to by President Trump -- is thought to have approximately ten thousand members located in dozens of states across the US, and it's routinely linked to thousands of murders each year in this country and abroad. But MS-13 is also widely misunderstood, as we learn on today's ST.

(Note: This interview first aired back in May.) Our guest is Eric Eyre, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from the smallest newspaper ever to win that prize for investigative reporting. His book, based on the work that won him that prize, details his investigation into the corporate greed that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns at the outset of America's opioid crisis. "Death in Mud Lick" tells the riveting and shameful story of a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, which distributed 12 million opioid pills in three years to a town of 382 people.

Families who lost loved ones to opioid drug overdoses rallied outside the Tulsa County Courthouse on Thursday.

They want drug dealers to be prosecuted in more cases. Organizer Diane Searle read more than three dozen victims’ names, including her own daughter’s. Jillian Searle developed an opioid addiction after a dental procedure and died in 2018.

The man who sold Jillian drugs, Taylor Rogers, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last October and was sentenced to 40 years in Department of Corrections custody.

Our guest is Pam Fessler, an award-winning correspondent with NPR News who mainly covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues. She joins us to discuss her new book, "Carville's Cure," which is tells the fascinating and little-known story of the only leprosy colony in the continental United States. This facility, located in remote Carville, Louisiana, somehow became -- over the course of the 20th century -- much more of a refuge than a prison.

Our guest is Dr. Vinayak K. Prasad, a practicing hematologist-oncologist and internal medicine physician based in San Francisco. He joins us to discuss his important new book, "Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer." This work explains how hype, money, and bias can -- and often do -- mislead the public into thinking that many worthless or unproven cancer treatments are effective. As noted by Dr. David P.

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Mikkael Sekeres, a leading cancer specialist who writes regularly for The New York Times. He tells us about his new book, "When Blood Breaks Down: Life Lessons from Leukemia." This work carefully examines leukemia in its different forms as well as the development of drugs to treat it.

Our guest is Eric Eyre, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from the smallest newspaper ever to win that prize for investigative reporting. His new book, based on the work that won him that prize, details his investigation into the corporate greed that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns at the outset of America's opioid crisis. "Death in Mud Lick" tells the riveting and shameful story of a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, which distributed 12 million opioid pills in three years to a town of 382 people.

(Note: This program originally aired back in the fall.) Our guest is Dr. Sarah E. Hill, a professor at TCU in Ft. Worth, Texas. She's seen as an authority on evolutionary approaches to psychology and health, and her new book, which she tells us about, is "This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences." As was noted of this work by Dr.

(Note: This show first aired back in July.) Our guest is Carla Rachel Sameth, a writer who teaches at the LA Writing Project (at California State University Los Angeles) and at Southern New Hampshire University. She joins us to discuss her new book, "One Day on the Gold Line: A Memoir in Essays." As Sue William Silverman, author of "The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew," has noted of Sameth's book: "Race, class, drugs, sexuality, otherness.... Twenty-first century American hot-button issues are on full display in this brave, gritty, unflinching memoir.

Our guest is Dr. Sarah E. Hill, a professor at TCU in Ft. Worth, Texas. She's seen as an authority on evolutionary approaches to psychology and health, and her new book, which she tells us about, is "This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences." As was noted of this work by Dr. Jolene Brighten (author of "Beyond the Pill"): "[This book] validates what generations of women have suspected since the introduction of the pill--birth control is doing a whole lot more in our bodies than simply preventing pregnancy.

Our guest is Carla Rachel Sameth, a writer who teaches at the LA Writing Project (at California State University Los Angeles) and at Southern New Hampshire University. She joins us to discuss her new book, "One Day on the Gold Line: A Memoir in Essays." As Sue William Silverman, author of "The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew," has noted of Sameth's book: "Race, class, drugs, sexuality, otherness.... Twenty-first century American hot-button issues are on full display in this brave, gritty, unflinching memoir.

Our guest is Matt McCarthy, MD, a bestselling author, assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell, and staff physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where he also serves on the Ethics Committee. He joins ST Medical Monday to discuss his new book, "Superbugs: The Race to Stop an Epidemic." As was noted of this book by Kirkus Reviews: "A riveting insider's look at the race to find a cure for antibiotic-resistant infections, one of the most pressing challenges in modern medicine....

(Note: This interview originally aired in March.) If you follow the world of sports and fitness, you might know that "recovery" has become quite the buzzword. On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we're exploring the hype as well as the science behind various recovery products -- such as power bars, energy shakes, foam rollers, electrical muscle stimulators, etc. Our guest is the noted science writer Christie Aschwanden, whose new book is "Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery."

(Note: This installment of ST Medical Monday originally aired last summer.) It's taken a while for this particular truth to sink in, but America finally seems to be waking up to it: People with mental illness don't need to be locked up -- they need to be treated. On this edition of our show, we speak with journalist Alisa Roth, whose book, "Insane," is a well-regarded and alarming exposé of the mental health crisis now facing our courts, jails, and prisons. As was noted  of this book by The New York Times Book Review: "Chilling....

Our guest is Mitchell S. Jackson, whose new book is an autobiographical collection of essays called "Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family." As was noted by The Boston Globe, it's a "vibrant memoir of race, violence, family, and manhood.... Jackson recognizes there is too much for one conventional form, and his various storytelling methods imbue the book with an unpredictable dexterity. It is sharp and unshrinking in depictions of his life, his relatives (blood kin and otherwise), and his Pacific Northwest hometown, which serves as both inescapable character and villain....

How did our nation's current opioid crisis come about? What steps were -- or were not -- taken as this epidemic was first being recognized? Who should ultimately be held accountable for this widespread tragedy? What policies enabled it, and who has benefitted most from those disastrous policies? On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we feature a "live onstage" interview that host John Schummann recently recorded here in Tulsa with Chris McGreal, a senior writer at The Guardian and former journalist for BBC.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we speak with Dr. Ruth Potee, who is both a Family Physician and an Addiction Medicine Physician based in Greenfield, Mass. She's also the Medical Director for the Franklin County House of Corrections, the Franklin Recovery and Treatment Center, and the Pioneer Valley Regional School District. As such, Dr.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we learn about Physicians for a National Health Program (or PNHP). This collective, per its website, is "a nonprofit research and education organization of 20,000 physicians, medical students, and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance." Our guest is Dr. Ed Weisbart, who heads the Missouri Chapter of PNHP.

Our guest on ST is Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, who grew up in Oklahoma and is now based in the Seattle area. He's a medical marijuana expert who's also a clinical instructor at the University of Washington School of Medicine; his focus is on the use of cannabis in clinical practice, medical research, and education. Dr. Aggarwal holds degrees in medicine, medical geography, chemistry, philosophy, and religious studies. He'll be speaking in support of State Question 788 today (the 8th) here in Tulsa, and then he'll do so tomorrow (the 9th) in Norman, Oklahoma.

Our guest is Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, who joins us to discuss her new book. That well-regarded book, "Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.," is an unflinching memoir of Allen's late cousin as well as a detailed and accessible critique of America's criminal justice system. Per Jennifer Senior in The New York Times: "A compassionate retelling of an abjectly tragic story.... Among the most valuable contributions Allen makes is forcing us to ask: To what end are we locking up our children?

(Note: This interview originally aired in March.) It's often noted that health care in America is changing quickly and dramatically -- and that it is, moreover, in a state of crisis -- but can the same be said for therapy? Our guest is Dr. Enrico Gnaulati, a clinical psychologist based in California.

On this edition of StudioTulsa Medical Monday, a discussion about fighting opioid addiction at the individual, societal, and legal levels. Our guest is the successful OKC-based trial lawyer, Reggie Whitten. He'll be a co-lead counsel for the State of Oklahoma in an upcoming lawsuit against four different Big Pharma firms; that trial is set to begin in May of next year. Whitten's stake in the lawsuit is also quite personal; in 2002, he lost his son, Brandon, to a car accident triggered by Brandon's addiction to prescription drugs.

It's often noted that health care in America is changing quickly and dramatically -- and that it is, moreover, in a state of crisis -- but can the same be said for therapy? Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Enrico Gnaulati, a clinical psychologist based in California.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we offer an interview that stems from three rather alarming facts. One: About 10 percent of Americans are implanted with medical devices (such as pacemakers, artificial hips, cardiac stents, and so on). Two: The overwhelming majority of high-risk implanted devices in the U.S. have never undergone a single clinical trial. And three: Medical interventions have become the third leading cause of death in America. What in the world, you might ask, is going on here?

On this installment of ST Medical Monday, we are discussing World AIDS Day, which arrives on Friday the 1st; we're also talking more generally about how people with AIDS are cared for here in our community. We have two guests -- the first is Kate Neary, the CEO of a local nonprofit known as Tulsa Cares, and the second is Dr. Madhuri Lad, who works in the Department of Internal Medicine at the OSU-Tulsa College of Health Sciences (and who is, moreover, certified in HIV Medicine).

On this edition of StudioTulsa Medical Monday, we're discussing the cover story of the September 2017 issue of Consumer Reports: "Too Many Meds? America's Love Affair With Prescription Medication." Our guest is Lisa Gill, the deputy editor of Consumer Reports' ongoing prescription drug program, Best Buy Drugs. (For those not familiar: Consumer Reports is a non-profit, advertising-free, 80-year-old magazine...and now, website.) Just how hooked on meds are we Americans these days?

(Note: This show originally aired back in February.) Our guest is Sharon Begley, the senior science writer at STAT, which is the life sciences publication of The Boston Globe. She joins us to talk about her new book, "Can't Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions." In an appreciation of this book by Publishers Weekly, we find: "Science journalist Begley demystifies compulsive behavior, exploring its history and manifestations and the many difficulties its sufferers face in finding appropriate diagnoses and treatment.

On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we're joined by Elizabeth Rosenthal, formerly of The New York Times, who tells us about her widely acclaimed new book, "An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back." This volume, which grew out of the "Paying Till It Hurts" series of healthcare columns that she wrote for the Times, was thus praised in a starred in Publishers Weekly: "Rosenthal, a New York Times senior writer and former physician, provocatively analyzes the U.S.

On this edition of ST, a rather "wild ride" of a conversation with Charles Monroe-Kane, a producer and host for the long-running Wisconsin Public Radio program To the Best of Our Knowledge (which is heard locally on Public Radio 89.5 on Sunday mornings). Monroe-Kane has a new book out -- an autobiography that candidly reports on how he grew up with auditory hallucinations and bipolar disorder. It's a detailed yet breathless account that takes the reader from rural Ohio, to the Philippines, to Haiti, to Indiana, to San Francisco, to Alaska, to NYC, to Prague, and so forth.