• Heroin deaths exceeded gun homicides in 2015

  December 18, 2016  

  Last year, more than 30,000 people died from opioid overdoses, which cause almost two-thirds of all overdoses in the U.S., according to data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those data also show that last year, heroin deaths went up 20 percent, exceeding gun homicides. Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, joins Alison Stewart. Continue reading →
  
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  Rate of black lung disease among miners may be 10 times higher than reported

  December 16, 2016  

  Lung disease is a well-known deadly consequence of working in the coal industry. But a new NPR study finds miners are suffering from the most advanced form of the disease at a rate ten times higher than the government has reported. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with NPR’s Howard Berkes about the causes of this late-stage lung disease, possibilities for treatment and why it’s been direly underestimated. Continue reading →
  
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  How safe is super-concentrated marijuana?

  December 15, 2016  

  Now legal in eight states, there are unanswered questions about the impact of recreational marijuana on public health. To maximize potency, pot can be purified for maximum THC, its psychoactive ingredient. But a lack of research and restrictions on these very high concentrations is raising concerns. Special correspondent John Ferrugia of Rocky Mountain PBS reports. Continue reading →
  
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  How the big biomedical bill advances U.S. mental health care

  December 13, 2016  

  Most of the attention around the biomedical bill President Obama signed on Tuesday has focused on faster drug approval and new money for research. But included within the massive piece of legislation are measures for mental health care. William Brangham speaks with Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., about the state of mental health care in the U.S. and what this law attempts to accomplish. Continue reading →
  
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  ‘Repeal and replace’? More like repeal and collapse, warns HHS Secretary Burwell

  December 12, 2016  

  During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” But undoing the law and creating a new one may be more difficult than his campaign rhetoric suggested. Judy Woodruff speaks with President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell about the future of the health care law.