Bonnie Petrie

1 month ago | tpr.org | Bonnie Petrie

Patients have been leaving the United States to try psychedelic therapies to treat their depression, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and substance use disorders. With so many patients finding relief, why do psychedelic therapies mostly remain illegal in the U.S., and how do psychedelics actually work? In part two of a three-part Petrie Dish series, Psychedelics and the Texas Trip, host Bonnie Petrie and reporter Robin Berghaus explore the science and history of psychedelic therapies.

1 month ago | tpr.org | Bonnie Petrie

About half the people who get a kind of mouth cancer called oral squamous cell carcinoma will die from it, and UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry researcher Cara Gonzales, DDS, PhD says that hasn’t changed in 50 years. One reason for that is that people don’t seek treatment until the cancer has spread. “Seeing a dentist is almost a luxury because it's expensive,” Gonzales, an assistant professor of comprehensive dentistry, said.

1 month ago | tpr.org | Bonnie Petrie

In 2005, Rolling Stone and Salon.com published an article called Deadly Immunity. It was by Robert F Kennedy Jr., who is now the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy wrote that the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, was linked to a rise in autism diagnoses. That theory has since been debunked by several studies, but a movement was gathering steam, and now-Secretary Kennedy was one of its leaders.

1 month ago | tpr.org | Bonnie Petrie

Marcus Capone was considering suicide. The U.S. Navy veteran had spent 13 years as a member of SEAL team 6, but it was life after service that was overwhelming to him. Capone had traumatic brain injuries, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and none of the traditional treatments were helping. He tried talk therapy. He tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation. He visited several brain clinics. He tried a variety of antidepressants.

2 months ago | tpr.org | Bonnie Petrie

Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma are cancers that overwhelmingly impact children. They're soft tissue cancers that are thankfully rare because treatment options are limited, according to pediatric cancer researcher Yogesh Gupta, PhD, an associate professor at Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute at UT Health San Antonio. “The drug treatment regimen has not been changed in the last three decades,” Gupta said.