Summary: Some doctors are wary of prescribing medication for ADD or ADHD, especially when treating young patients-but the majority rely on psychotropic drugs. This program challenges the status quo, supported by a staggering amount of testimony and documentation. Incorporating detailed interviews with psychiatrists, neurologists, and education experts-as well as parents and kids who have suffered...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: This program features profiles of three women who have developed successful careers in medicine and health care: Karine Fortin, a pharmaceutical plant manager overseeing production and factory expansion; Sandra Swanson, a biomedical technologist who maintains and repairs hospital equipment; and Ann Perreault, a prosthetics technician in charge of evaluating and measuring patients. Additional...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: High-dose pain management therapy involving narcotics has placed doctors and patients under scrutiny by federal regulators. Is the Drug Enforcement Administration simply cracking down on criminal overprescription and prescription forgery, or is it unfairly targeting doctors for merely doing their jobs, and punishing people with chronic pain? This ABC News program weighs in on the question...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The human body manufactures its own painkillers to ensure survival when injured. This program shows how opium and its derivatives, heroin and morphine, hijack that natural pain-numbing ability. Illustrating the brain's ability to alter its own chemistry when attacked by drugs, the program depicts the process by which brain receptors become desensitized and thus addicted. Tranquilizers-and the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The word conjures fears of debilitation and hair loss, but today's "chemo" treatments are far more endurable than in past decades. This program explores advances in chemotherapy that have transformed dread into relief for many cancer patients. The video shows how chemo medications are administered and how-unlike past regimens, which forced a high number of patients to quit or delay therapy-new...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Unlike what's seen on TV crime shows, forensic science often requires weeks or months to produce results, and-although it's far from boring-it rarely involves confronting a suspect. This program debunks pop-culture stereotypes and illuminates the real-world chemistry, biology, and physics of criminology. Exploring three main forensic science disciplines-field work, lab analysis, and medical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Consider the following irony: that we live twice as long as our ancient ancestors did, even though our bodies contain all manner of synthetic and sometimes toxic substances-an unpleasant requirement of life in our modern age. This program explores the health impact, wide variety, and alarming ubiquity of manufactured chemicals. Viewers will see how communities around the world-including Inuit...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: On September 30, 2004, pharmaceutical giant Merck voluntarily withdrew its popular painkiller Vioxx after it was linked to increased risks of heart attack and stroke. Was Merck's move driven by genuine concern for patients? Or, given findings from earlier studies, was the recall a self-protective move that came too late? This CNBC investigation takes viewers through the process by which one of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: With unprecedented and exclusive access to current clinical trials, this program appraises the successes and future potential of regenerative medicine. One featured patient is Joy Veron-paralyzed while trying to save her children from a car accident-who has stem cells from her nose transplanted into her back. The film also follows a heart attack victim who has his own bone marrow stem cells...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although Alexander Fleming is usually credited with the discovery of penicillin in 1928, no penicillin-based antibiotic was actually developed for human use until 1938 through the work of Australian pathologist Howard Florey and German biochemist Ernst Chain. This program puts Fleming's contribution in scientific perspective. Live interviews, journal accounts, and archival footage lead the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Given the limits of today's medical technology, a three-year trip to Mars would place astronauts in grave danger. Thus, NASA has divided its attention between outer and inner space, aiming to create self-sufficient nanomedicine by the year 2020. This program studies health care research driven by that goal. With exciting animation sequences and conversations with top-level experts, the video...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The prescription of antibiotics is a medical tightrope-walk. The drugs save lives, but, because of overuse, may soon usher in a new era of super-germs. This program outlines the discoveries of bacteria and penicillin and sheds light on the frightening emergence of multi-resistant, often deadly microbes during the last six decades. Presenting interviews with researchers who are deeply involved...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Around the world, hospitals have become known for something other than healing-in fact, quite the opposite. This program follows the challenges faced by various hospitals, many of them state-of-the-art facilities, that have become hosts to nearly invincible germs. Focusing on the bacteria known as MRSA, the video goes inside French, German, and Dutch hospitals battling the sinister and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Many critics of "Big Pharma" see a pattern of exploitation in the industry's dealings with the developing world. This program identifies new ways for drug manufacturers to operate globally, promoting increased cooperation with local producers of traditional, plant-based medicines. Recognizing that worldwide demand for alternative medicine may create new producer countries, the program visits...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: At the crossroads of chemistry and medicine lie opportunities to eradicate disease. This program guides students through advances in biotechnology and genetic engineering that may lead to long-sought medical treatments and cures. Presenting the 19th-century development of aspirin as the first synthetic imitation of a naturally derived medicinal substance, the video demonstrates large-scale,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The next leader in the fight against cancer may be sitting in third-period Biology right now-but what will inspire his or her first steps into medicine? This video illustrates the awesome potential of a career in the life sciences, guiding students through fields that offer nearly unlimited possibilities for discovery. From the microscopic world of DNA, to the dazzlingly complex behavior of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: What happens when a deadly crime takes place and law enforcement puts all of its scientific resources into action? Can forensic science really solve a murder? This program follows scientists through a dramatized investigation, from the discovery of the crime scene through various stages of evidence analysis to the presentation of findings in court. Instead of Hollywood hype, viewers are given a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Do the world's rainforests contain a cure for cancer and AIDS? This intriguing program travels to Jakarta, Surabaya, and the jungles of Kalimantan to investigate the preparation and use of natural remedies to combat illnesses such as skin fungus, malaria, and even AIDS. But logging continues unabated, even as ethnobiologists from the National Cancer Institute and the Harvard Medical School...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This edition of Science Screen Report shows how the principles of microengineering and nanotechnology are being applied to environmental science, medicine, and engineering. A complete water-testing laboratory on a single microchip is spotlighted, as are grooved bandages that channel the movement and bonding of fibroblasts, speeding up healing and minimizing scarring. Research into the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Once conducted almost entirely on dry land, the hunt for biochemical and pharmaceutical resources is shifting to the world's oceans. This program examines various phases of that research-algae and sponge extraction around the globe, the growing utilization of toxic substances produced by some marine organisms, and the practical application of treatments and cures that are often a dozen years in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: While acknowledging the achievements of the pharmaceutical industry, this program offers an alternative perspective on the production of medicines, emphasizing the use of plants and herbs instead of synthetic compounds. Beginning with a historical overview of plant remedies-including evidence of sophisticated herbalism in ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Arab cultures-the video describes how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the 1940s, an Australian doctor discovered an astonishing treatment for what was then known as manic depression. At a time when electric shock, lobotomy, and Freudian psychotherapy were the only approaches to treating the disorder, lithium changed the way the medical establishment thought about mental illness and neuroscience and initiated the era of psychopharmacology. This program tells...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Surveying the vast biodiversity of the medicinal plant world, this program examines the challenges facing countries rich in such natural resources. The video presents interviews with numerous alternative health experts-including Dr. Jean-Pierre Willem, renowned surgeon, ethnologist, and the last field assistant of Dr. Albert Schweitzer-and documents their knowledge in a wide range of herbal and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Drugs that can cure cardiovascular disease, rather than simply slowing cholesterol buildup, are currently in development. This program examines the history of anti-cholesterol drug production, as well as current biochemical research that might lead to the eradication of heart attacks and strokes. Describing scientific studies of isolated populations-most notably the inhabitants of Limone,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005