President Obama calls for a bipartisan health care summit. Using opioids or alternatives to treat pain. Tom Ricks shares his experiences reporting on the war in Iraq. And how our personality type influences who we love.
Obama's health care summit
President Obama has called for a bipartisan, televised health care summit later this month in an effort to keep health care reform alive. Republicans say they’ll attend, but want to scrap the bills passed by the House and the Senate late last year and start over from scratch. The Democrats are still struggling to iron out the differences between those two bills, and some are growing frustrated with what they believe is a White House that wants to back away from health care and focus on the economy. Is Obama living up to his promise to conduct the health care debate before the public? Does a televised discussion of health care offer the only chance to bring about reform? Or is the summit simply a chance for Obama and the Democrats to paint the Republicans as partisan obstructionists?
Guests:
Peter Nicholas, LA Times reporter in the Washington Bureau
Congressman Michael C. Burgess, MD, 26th District of Texas, Ft. Worth, Chairman of the Congressional Healthcare Caucus
Treating pain: opioids vs. alternatives
Opiates are drugs derived from the natural resin of the opium poppy, but the name usually is synonymous with opioids, which refer to chemicals that bind to opioid receptors in the central nervous system, mitigating pain. When dealing with serious and chronic pain, they are often the most powerful tools available. However, the side effects are well known—dependence, addiction, and sedation. What are researchers doing to minimize these side-effects? What can be done to minimize the misuse of opioids? And what alternate therapies can make their use unnecessary?
Guests
Dr. Roger Chou, Director of the American Pain Society Clinical Practice Guidelines Program at Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
Dr. Rick Chavez, an addiction and pain specialist and an assistant clinical professor of medicine. He also consults to the medical board of California and DEA on opiad misuse.
The American military adventure in Iraq
Larry talks with The Washington Post's former special military correspondent Tom Ricks about his book "The Gamble," which has been recently updated to fully document the inside story of the Iraq war since late 2005. Based on unprecedented access to the military's entire chain of command, Ricks examines the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.
Guest:
Thomas E. Ricks, author of "The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq" (Penguin). Ricks is also the author of "Fiasco", "Making the Corps", and "A Soldier's Story".
Love: What's science got to do with it?
Just in time for Valentine’s day, anthropology professor and human behavior expert Helen Fisher talks with Larry about how scientific research can help lonely hearts connect. In her latest book, “Why Him? Why Her?” Fisher delves into four dominant personality types, which she says not only guide who we are, but who we love. What can science teach us about romantic chemistry? And can this knowledge make the game of love any easier?
Guest:
Helen Fisher, PhD, author of "Why Him? Why Her? How to Find and Keep Lasting Love" (Holt Paperbacks). Fisher is also research professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, and the author of four books, including, "The First Sex" and "Anatomy of Love". She also is the Scientific Adviser to Chemistry.com