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
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: 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: Of the more than 400,000 Americans living with Crohn's disease, as many as 20 percent were diagnosed as children or teens. Several case studies of young female patients provide a forum for medical experts from the Mayo Clinic and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to share their knowledge of risk factors, symptoms, screening methods, complications, and treatment options, including anti-inflammatory...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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: Why is a cure so elusive? Why has it been so difficult to find a cure or vaccine for AIDS? What makes AIDS so deadly? What is the HIV virus, and how does it devastate the immune system? This eye-opening video explores these questions, providing fascinating insights into the unique qualities of the HIV virus that make AIDS such a relentless killer.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is not only a vast humanitarian tragedy, but also a dire threat to regional stability. This Wide Angle documentary explores the role of Angola's military, the only functioning arm of the state, in a nationwide effort to combat the AIDS pandemic. The program identifies what may be the only benefit of Angola's long civil war-specifically, one of the lowest HIV...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program provides a clinical overview of benign bacteria that commonly colonize the human body and, less commonly, pathogens of both infectious and transient asymptomatic strains. Two dramatized throat examinations demonstrate the diagnosis of Streptococcus pyogenes and infectious mononucleosis. Laboratory analysis of a throat culture and a blood sample is demonstrated. Slide images,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Scientists have identified over 200 viruses, and an estimated 1,000 more may lurk undiscovered throughout the world. This program examines current scientific research on emerging viruses. Live-action microscopy shows the impact of the HIV virus on the human immune system. Sophisticated animation depicting viral life cycles reinforces the concept that the best defense against dangerous viruses...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Quick to spread and develop resistance to medical intervention, new strains of microbes pose a growing threat to global health. How does overuse of antibiotics actually encourage more lethal strains of diseases believed to be conquered? How can the media successfully inform the public without causing panic? And should personal rights be curtailed during epidemics? This Fred Friendly Seminar,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Estimated to infect about one-fifth of the world's population, worm parasites are especially destructive in poor, rural areas of the developing world. This program focuses on the hookworm, the stealthiest and most resilient of the helminth, or worm, varieties. Examining the insidious methods by which hookworm parasites enter the human body, the video shows how they endanger their hosts and what...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Illustrating connections between globalization and the spread of disease, this program uses data-mapping to assess the potential impact of deadly viruses-including the much-feared and adaptable avian influenza. Outbreaks of bird flu in the Netherlands and West Nile virus in New York City illustrate the increasing mobility of exotic pathogens in an era of frequent international travel and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This award-winning program takes an unflinching look at the lives of Kenya's chokoras, children orphaned by AIDS. It features emotionally charged visits to a disease-ravaged Nairobi slum, starkly illustrating the link between poverty, prostitution, and the tragically high level of sexual activity and ignorance among Kenya's street kids. Eschewing any pretense of offering solutions, the program...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: A veritable army of cells is constantly on the alert in our bodies. Its mission is to destroy any foreign cells, viruses, or bacteria that attack the fortress they are protecting, the human body. This program uses stunning imagery to describe the battles our immune system wages inside our bodies, showing how it sets up defenses against viral invasion. It explains how, by means of vaccination,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006