• Improving Addiction Care

    Original broadcast date: April 12, 2009 What comes to mind when you read about or discuss stories about people who have addictions? Is addiction a chronic disease that requires more of an effort on the part of government to fund programs to help these individuals? In a policy paper, Stepping Forward: Improving Addiction Care in…

  • MS Walk

    Original broadcast date: April 12, 2009 The Ottawa Chapter of the MS Society will be in studio to discuss why you should participate in this month’s walk for MS to be held on April 26th in Ottawa.. We will discuss the progress being made to control this disease. Mark Lloyd, chair of the MS Walk…

  • Lifestyle choices and stroke risk

    Original broadcast date: April 5, 2009 To what extent do our lifestyle choices influence our stroke risk? This question was asked in a study recently published in the British Medical Journal. Dr. Phyo Myint, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Ageing and Stroke Medicine at the University of East Anglia and Consultant Physician in Care of the…

  • A plea for clear language on vaccine safety

    In an editorial by Dr. Noni MacDonald and the Globe and Mail’s Andre Picard entitled “A plea for clear language on vaccine safety”, a case is made for plain English and more direct language when discussing and interpreting research findings and clinical recommendations. As outlined in his book “Bad Science” in a recent interview on…

  • Bad Science

    Original broadcast date: March 29, 2009 If there is one quote that epitomizes the plethora of ideas expressed in physician and Guardian columnist Dr. Ben Goldacre’s book bad science, it is this from paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, Steven Jay Gould: “ When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their…

  • Barcode of Life

    Original broadcast date: March 22, 2009 Are you getting what you ordered when dining in a restaurant that serves seafood? This is important on many levels, from honest business practices to endangered or protected species preservation to managing allergy risks. How can inspectors, and by extension the public, learn about the true source of their…

  • Chronic Kidney Disease Update

    Original broadcast date: March 22, 2009 Many people have heard the message that high blood pressure and diabetes can lead to heart disease and stroke. It is one of the first associations that come to mind. There is another organ that can be severely affected whose functional decline can be gradual and unnoticed. As with…

  • Stem Cell Research: Cancer vs normal cells

    Original broadcast date: March 15, 2009 Although stem cell research is a common topic in the news, the issue is more in the forefront recently now that US President Obama plans to reverse restrictions placed on embryonic stem cell research enacted by the Bush administration. Two recent studies from McMaster University have added to this…

  • Nanosubmarines designed to kill cancer cells

    Original broadcast date: March 8, 2009 Through much of medical history, the approach to treating disease has been akin to using a blunt instrument to carpet bomb an area. The side effects that many treatments create is testament to the fact more than the region of the body we wish to target is being affected.…