Summary: Drawing on documentary and archival footage, 3-D and 2-D animations, and high-tech imaging, this program investigates a variety of virological topics: the nature of pandemics as illustrated by the SARS outbreak in China; genetic sequencing of Spanish influenza from exhumed tissue of a century-old corpse; how animal viruses jump the species barrier; the dissection of live viruses in a biosafety...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: From SARS to the swine flu, viruses that threaten the developed world seem to be growing in ranks. Even as medical science rises to the challenge, our knowledge of viruses is filled with troubling gaps and bewildering realities. Starting on the virus front lines-the rainforests of central Africa-this program unlocks the truth about nature's greatest terror weapons. Viewers learn why HIV is such...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In an escalating war between humans and microbes, catastrophic disease may have the edge. This program studies the ubiquitous threat posed by super viruses and describes scientific efforts to prepare for viral disease epidemics. Documenting the World Health Organization's response to the 2005 Angolan Marburg virus outbreak, the program examines strengths and weaknesses in the WHO...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This engaging program delves into the microscopic milieu that overlays life as human beings know it, illustrating the complex relationship between the microscopic and macroscopic worlds as the human host, with its billions of microbial allies and antagonists, journeys from the birth canal to the decomposition that follows death. Spectacular 3-D computer animation, case study footage, and expert...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: With millions dead of AIDS and millions more infected with HIV, Africa is in danger of becoming little more than a graveyard. In this program, ABC News anchor Ted Koppel and correspondent Dave Marash deliver three successive reports on the AIDS epidemic currently spinning out of control in Zimbabwe. Together they address the hardships of a society composed of mostly the very old and the very...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: When a crypt containing 200 extraordinarily preserved bodies was discovered in 1994 in the Hungarian town of Vac, it caught the interest of a scientist fighting tuberculosis on the other side of the globe. This program presents the fascinating story of Professor Mark Spigelman, an Australian surgeon turned archaeologist who is using ancient DNA to contend with the biggest bacterial killer in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: What did the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 outbreak teach us about how to prepare for future pandemics? This program addresses the issue by traveling to viral hot spots around the world and interviewing high-ranking disease-prevention experts. Viewers learn about the basics of influenza microbiology, the factors that distinguish swine-origin H1N1 from a seasonal virus, its mechanisms for spreading,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: This ABC News program focuses on the good works being done by two remarkable AIDS crusaders who have taken the AIDS pandemic in Africa to heart: singer/songwriter Alicia Keyes and human rights maverick Stephen Lewis. Keyes' position as spokesperson for Keep a Child Alive, a nonprofit organization providing life-saving medicines directly to African children and families with HIV/AIDS, is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As a history of infection and contagion, this program tells a story of clever science and dumb luck, horror and hope. Filmed at locations worldwide, the video traces the battles fought against humanity's oldest foes: diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, syphilis, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, and perhaps the deadliest pandemic of all, AIDS. Health workers and epidemiologists on the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: If influenza were an animal, it would be a chameleon. This program sheds light on the constantly changing virus, exploring medical efforts to track its adaptations, improve flu treatments, and develop a reliable vaccine. Explaining the differences between influenza types A, B, and C, the video describes how the body's immune system reacts to an influenza attack, highlights the importance of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Smallpox has officially been eradicated worldwide—but the destruction of lab cultures in government-sponsored biowar facilities was never monitored. A blend of dramatization and documentary, this program considers the weaponization and deployment of smallpox—or, by extension, any lethal virus—from preexisting stockpiles and by laboratory manufacture from mail order genetic material and online...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Many people in Britain now fear hospitalization almost as much as injury or illness, due to a rising rate of hospital-related staph infections. This program examines the threat posed by MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and assesses the medical establishment's ability to fight it. Two divergent perspectives are featured: from doctors who perform every anti-MRSA procedure...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program contrasts pernicious and benign parasites through four case studies: a flesh-eating organism that nearly causes the facial disfigurement of a young woman; a mysterious malaria attack contracted by an American man who has never traveled to an at-risk locale; a vacationing child who returns home with a boil on her neck containing a very large Tumbu fly maggot; and a woman who...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This excellent brief on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is set in the place where this horrifying illness first came to light: the U.K. Experts representing both the scientific community and the government debate the link between vCJD and bovine spongiform encephalopathy-mad cow disease-as they review the histories of BSE and vCJD, describe the prion hypothesis and the metal-balance mechanism...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although it's the least menacing type of hepatitis, the virus strain known as HAV should not be underestimated. This program focuses on the causes and typical treatments for Hepatitis A and guides viewers through the different levels of danger that the virus poses to victims. Medical experts-including Dr. Harold Margolis, Former Chief of the CDC Hepatitis Branch, Dr. Jay Keystone of the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite the development of vaccines, polio still finds opportunities to thrive. This program outlines the history of humanity's battle with the virus-including its appearance in ancient Egypt and the 20th-century struggle against it championed by FDR. The video also highlights the present-day efforts of health organizations and charitable groups to globally eradicate the disease. Interviews...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: What is it like to live with a life-threatening illness? Can fear, anger, and joy be translated into movement? In this program, journalist Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones's highly acclaimed dance, "Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Ebola, one of the most deadly viruses known to humankind, struck a town in Zaire in January 1995, ultimately causing the agonizing death of 80 percent of its victims-many of them health-care workers. This riveting documentary traces the progress of this outbreak and reports on its aftermath. Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discuss current research, the virus's possible...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In America, many AIDS patients receive as much as
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Avian influenza A (H5N1) has successfully made the leap from poultry to people. Is a human-to-human pandemic inevitable? Using Southeast Asia as a case study, this Wide Angle report looks at the Vietnamese government's efforts to contain the disease while educating its population. In addition, Bill Moyers speaks with Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the National Institutes of Health, about how this lethal...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: According to The American Journal of Medicine, over 70% of Americans have been infected with a genital human papillomavirus, yet few are aware that they have it-or even know what HPV is. This eye-opening program delivers the facts that high school and college students-the primary victims-need to raise their awareness about an incurable sexually transmitted disease. Doctors, professors, peer...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program presents the human body as a complex ecosystem of bacteria, then examines each portion of the body, which bacteria live there, and why. The three major bacterial groups-sphere-shaped cocci, rods, and helical spirochetes and spirilla-are examined. Their behavior when interacting within the body is explored. The life and death of obligate aerobes, facultative anaerobes, and obligate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This straight-talking, down-to-earth program describes in detail how HIV is acquired, how it can be prevented, and the relative risks of a wide range of sexual behaviors. Hosted by a young African-American man and Latina woman, the program addresses HIV and AIDS; condoms-what type to use, how to use them correctly, where to get them, and how to properly carry them; injection drug risks;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006