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AirTalk

AirTalk for August 18, 2015

LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 27:  In this photo illustration, a man smokes an E-Cigarette at the V-Revolution E-Cigarette shop in Covent Garden on August 27, 2014 in London, England. The Department of Health have ruled out the outlawing of 'e-cigs' in enclosed spaces in England, despite calls by WHO, The World Health Organisation to do so. WHO have recommended a ban on indoor smoking of e-cigs as part of tougher regulation of products dangerous to children.  (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 27: In this photo illustration, a man smokes an E-Cigarette at the V-Revolution E-Cigarette shop in Covent Garden on August 27, 2014 in London, England. The Department of Health have ruled out the outlawing of 'e-cigs' in enclosed spaces in England, despite calls by WHO, The World Health Organisation to do so. WHO have recommended a ban on indoor smoking of e-cigs as part of tougher regulation of products dangerous to children. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
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Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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Listen 1:34:05
According to a new study, kids who vape are 4x more likely to smoke tobacco. Also, for the third time since 2010, a little pink pill that purports to increases sexual desire in women is up for approval from the FDA. Then, in “We Believe the Children,” writer Richard Beck examines the various forces at work in the McMartin preschool trial that helped fanned the hysteria of child sexual abuse across the country.
According to a new study, kids who vape are 4x more likely to smoke tobacco. Also, for the third time since 2010, a little pink pill that purports to increases sexual desire in women is up for approval from the FDA. Then, in “We Believe the Children,” writer Richard Beck examines the various forces at work in the McMartin preschool trial that helped fanned the hysteria of child sexual abuse across the country.

According to a new study, kids who vape are 4x more likely to smoke tobacco. Also, for the third time since 2010, a little pink pill that purports to increases sexual desire in women is up for approval from the FDA. Then, in “We Believe the Children,” writer Richard Beck examines the various forces at work in the McMartin preschool trial that helped fanned the hysteria of child sexual abuse across the country.

Kids who vape 4x more likely to smoke tobacco, according to new JAMA study

Listen 24:07
Kids who vape 4x more likely to smoke tobacco, according to new JAMA study

The state legislature will reconsider a bill Wednesday that would regulate e-cigarettes the same as tobacco, one day after a new study was released that shows 14-year-olds who've tried e-cigarettes are four times more likely to try other tobacco products.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Tuesday, finds teenagers who have used e-cigarettes are more likely to at least sample tobacco cigarettes, cigars or hookahs, said co-author Adam Leventhal, associate professor and director of the USC Health, Emotion, & Addiction Laboratory at the Keck School of Medicine.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY

Guests:

Dr. Jonathan Samet, chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and director of the USC Institute for Global Health. He’s a pulmonary physician and epidemiologist

Gregory Conley, President of the American Vaping Association, an industry group based in New Jersey

Third time’s the charm? Female sexual desire pill gets another shot at FDA approval

Listen 12:10
Third time’s the charm? Female sexual desire pill gets another shot at FDA approval

For the third time since 2010, a little pink pill that purports to increases sexual desire in women is up for approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA will make its ruling Tuesday as to whether the drug ‘flibanserin’ will be approved for sale in the U.S. Often (incorrectly) referrred to as ‘female Viagra,’ flibanserin has been a topic of controversy since it first became public. Health professionals are divided on the drug’s potential effectiveness and the severity of its side effects.

Guests:

Dr. Walid Gellad, associate professor of medicine and co-director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Gellad voted to approve flibanserin when he sat on an FDA advisory panel reviewing the drug back in June

Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at the Georgetown University Medical Center and director of PharmedOut, a program that studies pharmaceutical industry marketing

Offshore oil industry says Arctic drilling will be safe with 2015 technology

Listen 11:19
Offshore oil industry says Arctic drilling will be safe with 2015 technology

When the federal government yesterday approved oil-drilling operations off the coast of Alaska's northwest shores by Royal Dutch Shell, two disasters dogged the news: the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill and the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill.

Since those massive spills, the oil industry says it has made huge strides in safety - including in subsea well control and oil spill response. Still, environmental groups such as the Sierra Club say if a spill got out of hand in Arctic seas, it could harm threatened whales, ice seals, walrus and other species.

Why did the federal government decide to green light the permits? How has technology changed to prevent blowouts of deep-sea oil wells? Will the Senate approve the permitting for Shell? What are your thoughts about the risks of offshore drilling compared to other fossil fuel production?

Guests:

Dan Kish, Senior Vice President of Policy, Institute for Energy Research - a think tank that advocates for free-market energy policy

Michael Brune, Executive Director, The Sierra Club - an advocacy organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and the environment

Expert panel report leaves California’s desalination future in limbo

Listen 22:37
Expert panel report leaves California’s desalination future in limbo

The fate of a water desalination plant proposed by Poseidon Water in Huntington Beach remains uncertain after a panel of experts has concluded that it would be too expensive to build it using intake pipes under the sea floor.

That was the approach favored by the California Coastal Commission, whose approval is needed to begin construction. The impasse creates an uncertain future for the proposed Huntington Beach desalination plant.

Read the full story here

Phase 2 Report: Feasibility of Subsurface Intake Designs for the Proposed Poseidon Water Desalination Facility at Huntington Beach, California

Guests:

Robert Sulnick, Executive Director of Orange County Water Independence Sustainability & Efficiency (OC WISE), which supports the development of all forms of new water for Orange County; he consults for Poseidon Water, which is a member of the OC Wise coalition

Ray Hiemstra, associate director of programs at the O.C. Coastkeeper, an environmental group

3 decades after the McMartin preschool trial, a look at what went wrong

Listen 23:50
3 decades after the McMartin preschool trial, a look at what went wrong

They were accusations that shocked the nation and led to the longest criminal trial in the history of the U.S.

Members of the family that operated the Manhattan Beach-based McMartin preschool, plus teachers at the daycare, were accused of sexually abusing a number of students and subjecting them to satanic rituals.

The 2.5-year-long trial produced no conviction.

In “We Believe the Children,” writer Richard Beck lays bare the various forces at work – from overzealous investigators to well-intended psychologists to a media caught up in the heinousness of the allegations  – that helped fan the hysteria of child sexual abuse across the country.

Guests:

Richard Beck, author, “We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s” (PublicAffairs, 2015). He is an editor at the literary journal, n+1

Kevin Cody, publisher of the community paper Easy Reader News, serving Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo and Palos Verdes. Cody reported on the entire McMartin trial for the paper