Occupy Pasadena. Rick Santorum presidential profile. Upping the dose on pain meds. News of the year: what defines 2011?
99 percent to join the Rose Parade
If you’ve ever attended the Rose Parade in person, you’ve seen what happens once the last float floats by and the television cameras are turned off. In a time-honored tradition the public takes to the streets, following the parade route on foot, bicycle, scooter or skateboard.
Usually there are groups of protestors as well, whose number and causes vary from year to year. This year, the after-parade will be stronger by an estimated 250 to several thousand members of Occupy the Rose Parade. The group is planning a series of “floats,” including a gigantic octopus and a blow-up of the Constitution, and is inviting participants to bring signs supporting their messages, including ending corporate influence over politics, stopping foreclosures, giving power back to the 99 percent.
Although some have characterized the parade as symbolic of corporate greed and military grandstanding, the OTRP’s website says their actions “will be completely Peaceful, Nonviolent and Respectful of Pasadena's Iconic tradition.” They will even be providing self-policing with their own "peacekeepers.” Nevertheless, as always when anticipating extra protesters, the Pasadena Police Department plans to beef up their security surrounding the parade.
WEIGH IN:
The Rose Parade is seen by hundreds of thousands of live spectators, and watched by nearly 75 million television viewers worldwide. Will the Occupy movement have its biggest audience ever? Are you planning to join them?
Guests:
Pete Thottam, organizer of Occupy the Rose Parade
Lieutenant Phlunte Riddle, public information officer for Pasadena Police Department
Rick Santorum presidential profile
You know he has a Google problem, but what else do you know about Rick Santorum? Rick Santorum has taken a dogged but a decidedly low key approach to campaigning for the Iowa caucuses. And it appears to be working. In the latest polls Santorum is just behind front runner Romney and current flavor-of-the-month, Ron Paul. So who is Rick Santorum? What’s his background? How have his many controversies affected him? And does he have any chance against Romney, let alone in a national election?
Guest:
Will Bunch, Senior Writer, Philadelphia Daily News
Upping the dose on pain meds
Drug companies are developing a newer, more potent version of the nation’s second most-abused medication. The new pills contain pure hydrocodone – a highly addictive painkiller – in, by some counts, a dose10 times stronger than that in existing drugs such as Vicodin.
If the drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, patients could, for the first time, legally purchase pure hydrocodone, and addiction experts worry it could incite a new wave of prescription drug abuse. Current pain medications combine hydrocodone with nonaddictive painkillers like acetaminophen.
While these drugs are time-released and meant for managing moderate to severe pain, abusers learned that they can gain an intense and immediate high from the drug by simply crushing it. Oxycontin, which contains the nation’s most-abused medication, oxycodone, has since been reformulated in an abuse-deterrent form.
Four drug companies have begun testing the new hydrocodone product on patients. Zogenix in San Diego plans to apply to the FDA early next year to begin marketing its version, called Zohydro -- which is not being made in an abuse-deterrent formula.
Opioids are in important component in managing chronic pain, which affects at least 116 million Americans, according a study released this year by the Institute of Medicine. But does America need another, stronger pain medicine? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that prescription painkiller overdose is the cause of around 15,000 deaths per year – more than heroin and cocaine combined.
WEIGH IN:
Could stronger pain meds lead to greater addiction problems? Are doctors sufficiently educated in how to manage pain while monitoring for potential abuse? What about patients who need prescription opioids to manage chronic pain -- should they have the option of taking Zohydro? Who is really to blame for the “overdose epidemic”?
Guest:
Paul Christo, MD, MBA, Associate Professor and Director of the Multidisciplinary Pain Fellowship, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Rick Chavez, M.D., Medical Director of the Pain Institute, Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
News of the year: what defines 2011?
What’s your pick for the top news story of 2011? Was it the protests that swept the Arab World? The Occupy Wall Street Movement? The race for the Republican presidential nomination?
Was there a defining moment in the fall of Osama Bin Laden, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi or Kim Jong Il? How about the death of Steve Jobs?
What were the lessons from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, or the worldwide economic fallout?
Whose wedding was most tweet-worthy – Kim Kardashian’s or Prince William’s?
Some stories are so big they are missed in typical year end wrap ups, meta issues like the powerful impact of social media on our culture or the effect of global climate change on our planet and its future. Perhaps those are the most important to you.
WEIGH IN:
It’s the year in review, Airtalk style and we need to hear from our listeners: what stories moved you the most? Which events will have the most far flung implications?
Guest:
Roy Peter Clark, Senior Scholar at the Poynter Institute
Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology and Chair of the Ph. D. Program in Communications at Columbia University. Gitlin is at work on a book about the Occupy Wall Street movement to be published early next year by HarperCollins.
Tim Cavanaugh, Managing Editor of Reason.com