Nepal, Gospel Music, Tanning, Medication Misuse

Guest: Dr. James Mayfield is the co-founder of CHOICE Humanitarian and professor emeritus of Public Administration and Middle East studies at the University of Utah.  The recovery effort in Nepal has been stymied by the remoteness of many communities in dire need of food and shelters. The mountainous terrain is a formidable barrier. Humanitarian groups also report disorganization and government bureaucracy are preventing resources from reaching those in need.  Utah-based CHOICE Humanitarian has managed to rebuild key structures in some of the more remote villages with remarkable speed, using a network of employees and volunteers already on the ground when the earthquake struck.

Guest: Robert Darden is a professor in the department on Journalism, Public Relations and New Media in Baylor University’s College of Arts & Sciences.  He is director of Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project.  A distinctly American musical legacy is quickly disappearing – gospel on vinyl. Baylor University’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project has embarked on the world’s largest initiative to identify, acquire, digitize and catalogue the music – which will eventually find a permanent home in the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

Guest: Jay Yoo, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Family and Consumer Sciences at Baylor and Vice President of academic affairs for the Texas Family and Consumer Sciences Association.  The quintessential summer activity is also terrible for our skin. We know that. We know tanning causes skin cancer and that nearly half of all cancers are skin-related.  But look at the magazine racks or the TV screen: A golden tan is still a beauty ideal, people are somehow able to pursue with gusto, despite knowing the risks.

Guest: Dr. Anthony Campbell, RPh, D.O., is a Clinical Specialty Consultant with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrated (SAMHSA) and adjunct professor in Howard University’s College of Pharmacy and College of Medicine.  Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of injury deaths in the United States and are responsible for killing more people than car crashes in most states.  At least half of those overdose deaths are related to prescription drugs – a trend that has more than doubled in the last 14 years. This is all from a national injury report released this week by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Guest: Michael Dunn, Ph.D., chair of the department of Nutrition Sciences at Brigham Young University.  The FDA announced this week that food manufacturers have three years to phase all trans fats out of their products. If there’s any microwave popcorn, frozen pizza, pie crust or frosting in your pantry, you’re probably sitting on some of this stuff the FDA now says is so bad it simply can’t be considered safe in food anymore.

Guest: Sebastien Tilmans has a PhD in Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and is the Co-Founder of re.source.  Two-and-a-half billion people in this world lack access to adequate sanitation and about 750 million of them live in cities. The unregulated disposal of human waste creates immense health problems in populated areas. So immense, that a few years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched an entire challenge dedicating to reinventing the toilet and have awarded millions of dollars in grants to people taking on the challenge.