WYPR: Midday with Dan Rodricks Podcast

Health officials says 2012 could be one of the worst years on record for West Nile virus in the U.S. All but two states have reported cases of the disease, including 47 deaths, to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How worried should we be about West Nile? Midday’s doctor-in-residence John Cmar delves into the world of infectious disease with this story and others like it. Also, with flu season approaching, a review of what you need to know about getting vaccinated.

Medicare reform has become a central issue in the presidential campaign with both candidates vying for the senior vote. The Romney team accuses President Obama of gutting Medicare to pay for Obamacare while the President says he’s strengthening the program. The future of Medicare, and the facts about how the Affordable Health Care Act will change it, with Jonathan Weiner and Brad Herring, professors in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Award-winning chefs and restaurateurs Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf on food, wine, travel, and tips for entertaining.

Perspectives on news and trends, interviews with newsmakers and authors, quick takes on some of the week's most interesting regional stories with the Maryland journalists who covered them.

Our legal affairs show with Baltimore attorneys and law professors, and husband and wife, Jim Astrachan and Julie Rubin. This week: Big Tobacco lawyers take on agribusiness and the food industry. Original airdate 08/23/12

In 2008, 100 college and university presidents signed a petition to have the national drinking age lowered to 18 in an attempt to better control the underage drinking on their campuses. Met with resistance from groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the idea has gained little traction since then. Meanwhile, in the first two weeks of the new semester, 28 University of Maryland students were hospitalized due to alcohol poisoning. A look at binge drinking on college campuses, how drinking habits of young people in the U.S. compares with those in other countries, and how lowering the drinking age might help curb excessive drinking. With Barrett Seaman, the author of Binge: Campus Life in an Age of Disconnection and Excess and president of Choose Responsibility; and David Jernigan, associate professor and director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, John’s Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Pamela Peeke, author of "The Hunger Fix: The Three Stage Detox and Recovery Plan for Overeating And Food Addiction," explains the science behind overeating, and dietition and diabetes expert Angela Ginn Meadow talks about the obesity epidemic and the recent New York City soda ban.

With the end to the American surge in Afghanistan, the 33,000 additional troops sent to the war-torn country two years ago by President Obama have returned home. This still leaves 68,000 troops there, with no foreseeable resolution in sight, and little attention paid by American politicians and the public to that area of the world. This hour, NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman on the end and the effect of the surge, the recent increase in insider (the so-called “green on blue”) attacks, what’s next and why the topic is rarely discussed by candidates.

An analysis of the complex brain chemicals behind lust and love, with neuroscientist Larry Young and journalist Brian Alexander. Why love makes us do crazy things, what makes two people decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, and other mysteries of the heart (and brain.) Young and Alexander are the authors of “ The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction.”

Romney and Obama and foreign policy, a discussion with three of the top college-based political scientists in Maryland: Melissa Deckman of Washington College, Herb Smith of McDaniel College and Max Hilaire of Morgan State University.

Dr. Marty Makary, surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, says if medical error were a disease, it would be the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. Dangerous doctors, unnecessary procedures, surgical slips and other medical mistakes injure or kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Meanwhile, hospitals and doctors are not required to make their patient-outcome statistics public. Makary, associate professor of health policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that it’s time for the public to start demanding transparency from medical care providers. Makary is the author of "Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care.”

Coolstandings.com says Orioles have a 90.2 percent chance of making the playoffs, but just 28.5 of winning the AL East. The Baltimore Sun's Eduardo Encina joins Dan to talk about the Birds. Also joining us; author Tim Wendel, WYPR commentator Milton Kent and baseball freak Paul Sullivan.

Jeffrey Toobin, staff writer for The New Yorker and senior legal analyst for CNN, visits Midday to discuss his latest book, “The Oath,” about the relationship between the Supreme Court of John Roberts and the White House of Barack Obama.

On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and with the highly-anticipated December release of Peter Jackson’s film based on the novel, Washington College English professor Corey Olsen considers the original text and why the tale has endured and appeals to so many people.

Environmental reporter Rona Kobell, staff writer for the Bay Journal, returns for an update on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for natural gas in Maryland. A Montgomery County delegate wants the state to prohibit fracking until it can be done without harming drinking water. Plus, the case of Lake Bonnie in Caroline County; it became so polluted with sewage that the owner of the land filed suit against the Maryland Department of the Environment. And, how a company called Ecotone is helping to restore forests and wetlands in Maryland.