Social Medicine

Over the next five years, millions of more Americans are expected to take Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are rapidly being recognized as the miracle drugs of this century. If you’re not on them, you’ll probably know someone who is. What are the implications of the widespread use of these drugs, both on our bodies and our society? In this show, you’ll meet people across America who are either taking the jab or thinking about it, and the shocking intentional and unintentional results they are seeing.

ADHD may be the defining diagnosis of our time. According to the latest data, more than 10 percent of American children (that’s 7.1 million kids) have been diagnosed with ADHD. And the number of stimulant prescriptions for adults in their 30s has shot up nearly threefold since 2012. In recent years, this explosion in demand has combined with other factors to create a widespread stimulant shortage in the US. In the second installment of Backfired, cohosts Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes look at the unintended consequences of the ADHD industry, and trace the surprising path that brought us here.

While many Westerners still think of yoga as an invigorating series of postures and breathing exercises, these physical practices are only part of a vast and ancient spiritual science. For more than three millennia, yoga sages systematically explored the essential questions of our human existence: What are the root causes of suffering, and how can we achieve freedom and happiness? What would it be like to function at the maximum potential of our minds, bodies, and spirits? What is an optimal human life?

In simple and straightforward language, Bhante Gunaratana shares the Buddha's teachings on mindfulness and how we can use these principles to improve our daily lives, deepen our mindfulness, and move closer to our spiritual goals. Based on the classic Satipatthana Sutta, one of the most succinct yet rich explanations of meditation, Bhante's presentation is nonetheless thoroughly modern.

The 1964 murder of a nationally known cancer researcher sets the stage for this gripping exposé of medical professionals enmeshed in covert government operations over the course of three decades. Following a trail of police records, FBI files, cancer statistics, and medical journals, this revealing book presents evidence of a web of medical secret-keeping that began with the handling of evidence in the JFK assassination and continued apace....

With eloquent simplicity, one of the world's last Native American medicine men demonstrates how traditional tribal wisdom can help us maintain spiritual and physical health in today's world.

A farm kid at heart, and a Nlaka'pamux woman of mixed ancestry, Dr. Jennifer Grenz always felt a deep connection to the land. Which is why, after nearly two decades of working as a restoration ecologist in the Pacific Northwest, she became frustrated that she and her colleagues weren't making the meaningful change needed for plant, animal and human communities to adapt to a warming climate. She began to question the central conceit of restoration ecology: that somehow, we must return the natural world to an untouched, pristine state, placing humans in a godlike role.

Presenting a wide scope of problems caused by B12 deficiency, this comprehensive guide provides up-to-date medical information about symptoms, testing, diagnosis, and treatment. Could it Be B12? outlines how physicians frequently misdiagnose B12 deficiency as Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, neurodevelopmental disorder, Parkinson's disease, depression, or other mental illnesses. Now in the second edition, this resource has been thoroughly updated with the latest research, diagnostic tests, treatment options, case studies, and testimonials.

Freedom from suffering is not only possible, but the means for achieving it are immediately within our grasp - literally as close to us as our own breath. This is the 2,500-year-old good news contained in the Anapanasati Sutra, the Buddha's teaching on cultivating both tranquility and deep insight through full awareness of breathing. In this book, Larry Rosenberg brings this timeless meditation method to life.

This book is an invitation to awaken the healing power of mind through inspiring images and sounds, mindful movements, positive perceptions, soothing feelings, trusting confidence, and the realization of openness. The healing principle on which these exercises are based is the universal nature and omnipresent power envisioned in Mahayana Buddhism. Yet for healing, we don't have to be believers in any particular faith.

Health Secrets from the Great Gurus brings to you effective ways for building a healthy lifestyle, polishing your mind, nurturing your spirit and cultivating a persona that you are proud of. With insights from well-known best-selling gurus from across the globe, this book will make holistic living easier and achievable!

National polls show that Americans are increasingly concerned about vaccine safety and the right to make individual, informed choices together with their healthcare practitioners. Vaccine Epidemic focuses on the searing debate surrounding individual and parental vaccination choice in the United States. Featuring more than 20 experts from the fields of ethics, law, science, medicine, business, and history, Vaccine Epidemic urgently calls for reform.

In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year. In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story.

The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.

In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.

A definitive history of mescaline that explores its mind-altering effects across cultures, from ancient America to Western modernity. Mescaline became a popular sensation in the mid-20th century through Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, after which the word "psychedelic" was coined to describe it. Its story, however, extends deep into prehistory: The earliest Andean cultures depicted mescaline-containing cacti in their temples.

For many of the 40 million Americans who undergo anesthesia each year, it is a source of great fear and fascination. In Counting Backwards, Dr. Henry Jay Przybylo - an anesthesiologist with more than 30 years of experience - has written an unforgettable account of the routine procedure's daily dramas and fundamental mysteries. Przybylo has administered anesthesia more than 30,000 times in his career - erasing consciousness, denying memory, and immobilizing the body before reversing all of these effects.

From New York Times best-selling author Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., comes a science-based call for the immediate removal of the dangerous mercury-containing preservative Thimerosal from vaccines. Over a decade ago, following a sharp rise in developmental disorders such as autism and ADHD, the mercury-containing preservative Thimerosal was widely believed to have been eliminated from vaccine supplies in the United States and abroad.

The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".

Today, we are told that medical interventions increased our lifespan and single-handedly prevented masses of deaths. But is this really true? Dissolving Illusions details facts and figures from long-overlooked medical journals, books, newspapers, and other sources. Using myth-shattering information, this book shows that vaccines, antibiotics, and other medical interventions are not responsible for the increase in lifespan and the decline in mortality from infectious diseases.