Climate And Energy Round-Table Update; King/Drew Update; Treating Depression; The End of Castro?
Climate And Energy Round-Table Update
On Monday Governor Schwarzengger and British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, hosted a round-table for government and business leaders to address global warming. Larry talks with Ilsa Setziol, KPCC's environmetal reporter, about what was discussed, and Fabian Nunez, Democratic State Assemblyman representing the 46th district and Speaker of the California Assembly, about related legislation, Assembly Bill 32.
King/Drew Update
A team of inspectors from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services arrived at King/Drew yesterday morning for a review that is expected to last several days. If King/Drew fails inspection, the hospital stands to lose $200 million in federal funding or about half its budget. How will this impact King/Drew? How will this inspection differ from past inspections? And if the hospital fails, what then? Larry talks to LA Times staff writer Charles Ornstein, who shared a Pulitzer price for his coverage of the King/Drew controversy in 2005.
Treating Depression
Treating depression can be quite a puzzle, and a newly published UCLA study suggests medication is just one of many potential pieces. The findings suggest factors such as patient beliefs and expectations, doctor-patient relationships and treatment history may help complete the treatment picture. In this study, all subjects received a placebo for one week prior to receiving antidepressant medication. In some subjects an EEG detected clinical changes in brain activity during the placebo lead-in phase, BEFORE antidepressant treatment had begun. Larry Mantle discusses the implications of the results with the study's lead author, Aimee Hunter, from the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and Dr. Andrew Leuchter Director of the Laboratory of Brain, Behavior, and Pharmacology at UCLA. For more information.
The End of Castro?
Fidel Castro is going in for surgery and he is turning over power, at least for now, to his brother Raul. Cuba-watchers are already speculating that this is the beginning of the end of Castro's five-decade long rule. What would a Castro succession mean to US policy? Larry talks about this long-awaited change with: Tom Gjelten, Correspondent for National Public Radio; Peter Kornbluh, Cuba specialist at the National Security Archives; Mark Falcoff, scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute; Warren Richey, Christian Science Monitor, Correspondent in Miami.