ira byock and barbara coombs lee. thank you both. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, what makes food taste salty or bitter? what makes you want to eat more? scientists are trying to digest the secrets of flavor. hari sreenivasan has this report from minnesota. >> sreenivasan: when people go out to eat at restaurants like this neighborhood bistro in st. paul, they might be mindful of how much they're eating, or how much butter is used, or possibly calories. but most don't focus on a key component of the meal that they all share in common: salt. the center's for disease control say we eat twice as much salt as we should. three recent studies say that too much salt can lead to high blood pressure and heart disease. health officials recommend eating less, but consumers complain about the taste. enter professor devon peterson, an expert in food chemistry and analysis, he has made it his mission to revolutionize the processed food business by creating low salt products that taste good. to help with that goal he created the flavo

. >> barbara coombs lee: what happened to barbara mancini was rare, but the risk of what happened to rvades every bedside of every dying individual. >> cooper: barbara coombs lee is president of compassion and choices, one of the nation's largest advocacy groups on end- of-life issues. she helped write oregon's "death with dignity" act, and believes every state needs a similar law. without it, she argues, doctors still write lethal prescriptions but they do it in secret, without any standards. >> coombs lee: doctors often write prescriptions for life- ending medication for each other, just as they write prescriptions for life-ending medications for their patients with winks and nods. >> cooper: and it shouldn't be done with winks and nods? >> coombs lee: it should be a transparent, open process. that's how you make a practice safe. >> cooper: there are, of course, all sorts of objections- some religious, some moral, and some from doctors themselves. >> ira byock: anything we can do to just make this day a little better for you? >> cooper: dr. ira byock is a dartmouth professor and hea

barbara coombs lee, let me start with you. why do you think the case of brittany maynard is resonating with many people. what's the key to this for you? >> the key is how brittany has made dying real, made the tragedy of decline, the inhumanities that people suffer often before the disease takes their lives. there's a lot of denial on america. americans find it hard to believe they will die. if they will die they find it hard to believe it wouldn't be peaceful like it is in the movies. brittany is bringing that reality home to people. this could be me, it could be my mom, my dad, my daughter, who has a horrible diagnosis. we're all grief stricken. and what this disease will do to her, could do to her before she dies, is too much for her to bear. >> ira brick, do yo ira byock, s the wrong message. >> the institute of medicine says there's truly a public health crises that surrounds the way people are cared for and the way people die. my heart goes out to brittanymaynard. it's a heart-wrenching story but i want to assure people

barbara coombs lee is the president and also joining me philip johnson, a catholic sem nair yan that s terminal brain cancer. barbara, i am going to start with you. there is a lot of controversy about the november 1 date. the "people" magazine quotes her as saying, that is the day she plans to take her own life. she says she never chose a specific date. do you know what she is planning now? >> i think these dates are soft in people's minds. people know that there are certain symptoms that they would exhibit, certain places that they don't want to go that they consider worse than death. they don't know when they might be on the verge of that. they want to live life fully until they are on the verge of that and then they want the control to have a peaceful death and avoid the worse that their disease might have in store for them. it is a very individualized decision. watching her symptoms closely. she wants to cheat her cancer of the worst it would do for her. >> so you said these dates are in your estimation arbitrary. >> i wouldn't say arbitrary. i would say they are soft. people can'