Summary: With the final investigative work of journalist Peter Jennings as its cornerstone, this program studies the frightening rise of AIDS among African-Americans-a trend that has been developing for several years, but which has gone largely unnoticed outside the black community. Jennings' contribution to the program is a candid group discussion he conducted with HIV-positive African-American men in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Science has made leaps and bounds in its assault on AIDS-but do antiretroviral drugs guarantee a long life? Why does the disease still cause widespread suffering in Africa, despite the development of new medicines? Author and actor Stephen Fry investigates, traveling across the U.S., Great Britain, and Uganda as he studies the medical obstacles to an AIDS-free world. Fry highlights good news,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: New and lethal strains of TB are emerging worldwide which cannot be treated by conventional drugs. One estimate puts the number of new MDR TB cases per year as high as 400,000. After 40 years without any research into new drugs, the race is on to find a cure for MDR TB. This program travels between Peru and South Korea as it examines both the current impact of TB super strains in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: A killer flu outbreak isn't just a developing-world nightmare. The influenza virus is so adaptable that the West is as vulnerable as anywhere else. This program outlines the history of influenza and explores current research into what steps, if any, might prevent a future flu pandemic. Viewers are shown how the virus mutates to resist vaccines and has an uncanny ability to jump species...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne infection, which affects some 50 million people annually. It is now endemic in more than 100 countries in Africa, South America, the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific. This program journeys to Thailand to join scientists at the forefront of the fight to contain and eliminate Dengue. Viewers learn about one of the principal challenges...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: A hospital is a place of healing and recovery. So why can the experience provoke feelings of anxiety, confusion, helplessness, and fear? This program will help relieve the stress of hospitalization by familiarizing you with what to expect. Topics include admittance procedures, your typical day in the hospital, interacting with your health care workers, and knowing your rights as a patient. As...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: With each passing month and year, a child's health care needs get more and more complex. But it is possible to address them using close observation, sensitivity, and a proactive approach. This program guides beginning health care workers through the factors involved in toddler, child, and teen medical care. In addition to overviews of how children learn boundaries, develop autonomy, and form...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Thriving in more than 50 developing countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, trachoma is the leading cause of blindness in the world. It is at its worst in rural communities and women are its favorite victims. Trachoma is a bacterium that lurks in stagnant water and, once established in a human host, creates deforming scar tissue in the eye. This program shows how the struggle against the disease...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This year alone, eight million people will become infected with tuberculosis. Like the common cold, TB spreads through the air when sufferers cough, sneeze, spit, or just talk. One needs only to inhale a few germs to catch it. This program tracks the disease, its impact, and the science behind it, from the U.K. to India to Malawi. At the Imperial College in London, Professor Douglas Young is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Every day, 25 million Americans provide care for loved ones. This program, hosted by NewsHour's Ray Suarez, looks at the rich rewards and wisdom that often attend such care, as well as at the hard work that home healthcare entails. Drawing on the direct experience of family members and others, including author Beth Witrogen McLeod-whose book Caregiving, the Spiritual Journey of Love, Loss, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Striking in areas where vaccines tend to be out of reach, the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami produced fears of an immediate cholera epidemic. But one district in southern India showed the world how to defy the odds, clearing contaminated debris and working with UNICEF to distribute clean water, thus keeping cholera at bay without the help of drugs. This film travels to Tamil Nadu where aid workers...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program travels to Cambodia, where 1 in 10 people carry hepatitis B, a major cause of liver cancer. Mothers often transmit the virus to their babies during childbirth, and children can pass the infection to each other through even the most minor cuts and scratches. At London's Hammersmith Hospital, pioneering new surgery makes it possible for patients to survive advanced liver cancer. In...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Over a half-million women in the world get cervical cancer every year, with nearly 80 percent in developing countries. Human papilloma virus (HPV) causes the cancer and is therefore among the worst instigators of female cancer mortality worldwide. A vaccine is now available against the disease, but how effective is it, and can it save lives in poor, remote regions as well as wealthy areas? This...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: At an overwhelmed hospital in Uttar Pradesh, India, young children struggle for their lives. The threat initially appears like the flu or other illnesses, so it often goes misdiagnosed and treated with useless antibiotics until a more experienced doctor sees the patient. By then, it is often too late to prevent either death or severe brain damage. The film provides a glimpse of India's 2005...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: It is estimated that every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria. Medicines continue to be the main tool in fighting it-but, with growing resistance to existing drugs, there is an urgent need to discover new ones and distribute them at affordable prices in poor, disease-endemic countries. The major obstacle to the discovery of new anti-malarials is the lack of global investment in drug research...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Among new HIV cases, heterosexual patients are the majority-and high-risk behavior appears to be on the rise in many young demographic groups. What does this tell us about evolving attitudes towards AIDS? How do factors such as immigration, cultural tradition, economic disparity, and government inaction come into play? Writer and actor Stephen Fry pushes for answers, infusing this program with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: When polio vaccines were first developed, many experts thought the disease would be fully eradicated within decades. Tragically, as this film shows, it has survived in places like Afghanistan and northern Nigeria. These locations are now acting as disease reservoirs, with children the hardest-hit demographic and with travelers re-infecting other countries once thought invulnerable....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
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Summary: Despite its amorous nickname, the vinchuca, or kissing bug, actually gives its sleeping victims a malevolent bite sucking blood and transmitting a microscopic parasite called Tripanisoma cruzi. The microbe, in turn, produces Chagas disease, which currently afflicts 16 million people in South America and will kill a quarter of them in middle age. This program travels into the mountain villages...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: There are an estimated eleven million people in the U.S. who suffer from eating disorders, and thousands of these die each year from acute anorexia. In this program, ABC News correspondent Lynn Sherr visits the Montreux Counseling Center in Victoria, British Columbia, where Peggy Claude-Pierre offers hope, a voice of comfort and reason, and a highly successful alternative treatment plan for...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Among the research and funding experts of the global health community, the "Big Three" diseases are AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. As urgent as it is to fight these illnesses, many others also need attention and aren't getting it. These "forgotten diseases" include elephantiasis (or lymphatic filariasis), bilharzia (or schistosomiasis), and river blindness (or onchocerciasis), among others....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: More and more drug-resistant strains of Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria (Hib) have emerged in recent years, and the consequences of late or no treatment are devastating. The microbe is estimated to cause at least 3 million cases of serious disease-often meningitis-and up to 700,000 deaths each year among young children. This program examines the tragic problem in Bangladesh, where the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Lymphatic filariasis, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease commonly known as elephantiasis, results in massive swelling of the limbs and genitals, leading to severe disability. Over 40 million people are seriously incapacitated and disfigured by it, with millions more at risk. Now an ambitious campaign is underway to eliminate the disease globally by interrupting its transmission. Two...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Swimming, bathing, washing clothes, and fishing-these are everyday activities that put people in the developing world at risk of catching bilharzia (or schistosomiasis), if the water is infected with eggs of the schistosome worm. Left untreated, the disease can eventually block internal organs such as the liver and intestine, often leading to death. Children are especially at risk, with even a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: No one is ever prepared for a child's death or able to accept it with equanimity, but there are ways to live through this intensely sad experience. This program from The Doctor Is In introduces some people who have felt this pain, and who can offer some suggestions for going through the process. A couple whose three-year-old daughter died suddenly, a teenage girl whose sister died from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008