Miracle Cures

People looking for miracle cures, some from above, others from abroad. A son tries to help his mom in a faraway place defy the laws of medical science. A daughter tries to help her dad by going to a faraway place to defy the laws of the United States of America. Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with Dr. Stephen Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute about a cancer patient of his who spontaneously healed. The patient is now become the unwilling poster-child of miracle healing websites. (5 minutes) Changing The Channeler: This American Life contributor Davy Rothbart goes to Brazil with his deaf mother to try and get her hearing back from a miracle healer called Joao de Deus, or John of God. They had trouble agreeing whether the things they witnessed down there were miracles or not. Davy Rothbart is behind the compendium of things lost and discarded: Found. (37 minutes) The Entities Known As The Food And Drug Administration: Julia Whitty's father's cancer medication cost $47,000 a year if she bought it in the United States. It cost $1,200 a year if she bought it in a foreign country. But buying it there and bringing it here is forbidden by US law. She talks with Ira about the miraculous (and illegal) lengths she went to in order to sneak medication into the US and keep her father alive. She first wrote about her experience in the March/April issue of Mother Jones magazine. (12 minutes)