Opioid Crisis, Temple Grandin, Family Access to ICU

Guest: JoAnn Petrie, PhD, Addiction Specialist and Research Associate, Brain Imaging and Behavior Lab, Brigham Young University President Trump has declared the opioid overdose crisis a public health emergency. We now have a checklist to gauge how serious he is about addressing the crisis. The President’s Opioid Commission released its final report late last week with more than 50 recommendations.

Guest: Diego Herrera, Natural Infrastructure Economist, Environmental Defense Fund Louisiana has a Coastal Master Plan to save disappearing wetlands. It comes with a price tag of $50 billion dollars, and area governments are looking for novel ways to raise some of that money, such as finding investors willing to purchase “green bonds.”

Guest: Giora Netzer, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health, University of Maryland A few years ago, Julie Rose was racing to the hospital to visit her father who was gravely ill in the Intensive Care Unit. But on the way, she got a call from a sibling that visiting hours had just ended for the day. She’d missed the window. And, as it turned out, she’d missed the chance to see her father conscious for the last time. He passed the next day. There’s a nationwide movement to loosen visitor restrictions in critical care hospital settings. Advocates for giving a patient’s family open access to the ICU say it improves things for both the patient and the family. Not all intensive care nurses or hospital administrators agree, however.

Guest: Temple Grandin, Author, Professor of Animal Science, Colorado State University The animal scientist Temple Grandin has famously explained autism to the world, from her own experience on the spectrum. In her many books, including Thinking in Pictures, The Autistic Brain, and The Loving Push, she draws on her own autism to inspire parents, educators and other people, like her, who have autism. This year she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Learn more here.

Guest: Rod Gustafson, Parent Previews Are we burned out on comic-book movies yet?

Guest: Julianne Grose, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Brigham Young University Apple and pear orchard growers suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in losses every year because of a disease called fire blight. First oozing cankers develop on the tree branches and leave streaks that darken to look like the branch has been licked by fire.  Infected leaves and blossoms blacken and shrivel, too, like they’ve been burned. The name “fire blight” is apt. Though it’s not caused by extreme heat. It’s actually caused by bacteria and a BYU microbiologist has developed a new way of treating it using viruses that eat bacteria.