Cancer is the word no one wants to hear, but ignorance can mean death. This hour on To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll break the silence on prostate cancer. Also a chemist solves the riddle of taxol, the once-rare anti-cancer drug.
Michael Korda was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1994. He's turned his experience with the disease into a book: "Man to Man: Surviving Prostate Cancer." Korda tells Judith Strasser that men can learn a lot from the way women have handled breast cancer and that letting embarrassment keep them away from treatment is the worst thing they can do.SEGMENT 2:
Frederica Perera explains to Jim Fleming how the new field of molecular biology tracks the physical effects of pollutants in specific populations. Perera is associate director of the Columbia-Presbyterian Cancer Center in New York. Also, organic chemist Kip Guy tells Judith Strasser about the development of synthesized taxol, an anti-cancer drug derived naturally from endangered old growth yew trees in the Pacific Northwest. He explains why taxol is an interesting substance to chemists. Guy (and co-author K.C. Nicolaou) wrote about taxol in the June '96 issue of Scientific American.SEGMENT 3:
Poet Donald Hall, himself a cancer survivor, shared a long and happy marriage with poet Jane Kenyon, who died of leukemia in 1995. Hall talks with Judith Strasser about the marriage, his and Jane's illnesses and how cancer affected their work. Hall also reads some of Jane's poetry and his own.Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 96-07-21-B.
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