Skip to main content

A First Class Medical Mystery.

Neurologist William Langston. His work plunged him into a medical mystery, and a hot political controversy about the ethics of medicine. In 1982 Langston was called in to examine a number of "frozen" patients, young men and women in the San Francisco Bay Area who suddenly could neither move or speak, though conscious. Langston recognized the signs of Parkinson's disease, and determined that these patients had all used the same batch of tainted heroin. Langston prescribed L-dopa, a treatment for Parkinson's which only provided short-term relief. Then he prescribed a daring new medical procedure: fetal-tissue transplant, and his patients recovered. Langston's new book (co-written by Jon Palfreman) is The Case of the Frozen Addicts: How the solution of an extraordinary medical mystery spawned a revolution in the understanding and treatment of Parkinson's disease (Pantheon).

22:17

Other segments from the episode on August 23, 1995

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, August 23, 1995: Interview with William Langston; Interview with Elaine Tyler May; Review of Herbie Nichols' and Buell Neidlinger's albums "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love" and …

Transcript

Transcript currently not available.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.

You May Also like

Did you know you can create a shareable playlist?

Advertisement

Recently on Fresh Air Available to Play on NPR

52:30

Daughter of Warhol star looks back on a bohemian childhood in the Chelsea Hotel

Alexandra Auder's mother, Viva, was one of Andy Warhol's muses. Growing up in Warhol's orbit meant Auder's childhood was an unusual one. For several years, Viva, Auder and Auder's younger half-sister, Gaby Hoffmann, lived in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan. It was was famous for having been home to Leonard Cohen, Dylan Thomas, Virgil Thomson, and Bob Dylan, among others.

43:04

This fake 'Jury Duty' really put James Marsden's improv chops on trial

In the series Jury Duty, a solar contractor named Ronald Gladden has agreed to participate in what he believes is a documentary about the experience of being a juror--but what Ronald doesn't know is that the whole thing is fake.

There are more than 22,000 Fresh Air segments.

Let us help you find exactly what you want to hear.
Just play me something
Your Queue

Would you like to make a playlist based on your queue?

Generate & Share View/Edit Your Queue