Prescription opioid overdoses cost hospitals $1.4 billion in 2010, according to a new study. Also, Sheila Kuehl talks about her run for the LA County Board of Supervisors. Then author Gerard Russell shares his experiences living with seven ancient tribes in his latest book.
Emergency rooms suffer toll of painkiller addiction
According to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, prescription opioid overdoses cost hospitals $1.4 billion in healthcare costs in 2010. Between 1999 and 2011, the number of deaths associated with opioids quadrupled, and painkiller overdoses overtook traffic fatalities as a leading cause of death in 2009. As doctors have steadily increased their prescriptions of drugs such as Vicodin, Oxycontin, methadone, and morphine, patients in need of strong painkillers have become particularly at-risk to overdose.
Because opioids are highly addictive and typically lead to tolerance of the drug, some patients are inclined to abuse the drug or seek it out from multiple doctors. Physicians have come under fire for over-prescribing opioids, in part because nearly half of the overdoses occurred on drugs for which patients had prescriptions. Among other changes, California’s Proposition 46 would mandate that doctors check CURES, California’s prescription drug monitoring program, before they could prescribe certain drugs to patients. Yet one statistic from the study gives context to how effective the healthcare system is at treating opioid overdoses: the fatality rate for these overdoses in emergency rooms lay under 2%. As overdoses rise, new drugs that reverse an overdose such as Naloxone are entering the market.
What role do doctors have in prescribing opioid painkillers? Where is the balance between treating pain and dealing with drug addiction?
Guest:
Michael A. Yokell, Lead researcher, "Prescription opioids involved in most overdoses seen in emergency departments" published in latest JAMA Internal Medicine journal; Fourth-year Medical School student, Stanford University
Dr. Sean Nordt, M.D., Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine; Medical Toxicologist
Countdown to mid-term elections: Update on hot contests and polling
The sour mood of voters in the final stretch of the 2014 campaign could boost Republican turnout and upend the U.S. Senate. Today's CNN/ORC poll results suggest seven in 10 Americans are angry over the direction the country is headed. Thirty percent of respondents say they are "very angry" over it - a number that matches 2010 when the GOP took control of the House.
However, specific data on hotly contested senate races give hope to Democrats. In Georgia and Louisiana, the Democrat hopeful hold leads, albeit slim ones. Voter turnout becomes a key question. ABC News reports: "The share saying they’re certain to vote (or already voted), 65 percent, likewise is down, from 71 percent in 2010 and 76 percent in 2006."
Which contests are on your radar? What would an entirely Republican-controlled Congress mean for President Obama?
You can visit the KPCC 2014 Election Voter Guide to get your free, personalized ballot cheat sheet.
Guest:
Carolyn Lochhead, Washington Correspondent, San Francisco Chronicle
Chris Moody, Senior Digital Correspondent for CNN’s Politics Team (a new position for Chris, formerly the politics reporter for Yahoo! News)
Why California leads the nation in bike deaths
The number of bicyclists killed in crashes with cars has increased 16 percent in the past couple of years. Nationally, 722 cyclists died in those kinds of accidents in 2012. California leads the way with 123 of those. That doesn't include cyclist deaths from crashes where no car was involved. That’s all according to a new report issued by the Governors Highway Safety Association. Many deaths were related to alcohol consumption and a lack of a helmet.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll look at what other factors specifically in Los Angeles contribute the high number of deaths and talk about how could they be prevented. Will the new 3-foot law decrease the number of deaths?
Guests:
Allan Williams, author of the Governors Highway Safety Association study, “Spotlight on Highway Safety: Bicyclist Safety”
Gary Brustin, attorney that specializes in bicycle accidents. He has offices in San Jose and Santa Monica and has worked on over 1,000 cases.
On the Campaign Trail: Sheila Kuehl eyes coveted LA County Board of Supervisors seat
Sheila Kuehl should be a familiar name in California politics. She served 14 years in the CA Legislature--six in the Assembly and eight in the Senate--before terming out in 2008.
She has notched a couple of "firsts" under her belt, as the first openly gay person to be elected to the state legislature, as well as the first woman to be the Assembly's speaker pro tem. Now, the 73-year-old is running for the 3rd District seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, a job that hasn't been opened in 2 decades. The Supervisor gig is one considered one of the most powerful positions in the city, helping to manage a $25 billion annual budget.
As much influence as it wields, it's not an easy job, with the plethora of problems the county faces. What can Kuehl bring to the job?
Guest:
Sheila Kuehl, candidate for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors 3rd District. She most recently served as a Democratic member of the California State Senate between 2000 and 2008, representing the 23rd district in Los Angeles County and parts of southern Ventura County.
What’s so funny? Lessons from the Laugh Factory’s The Funniest Person In The World contest
Who decides if a joke is funny or not? Who is right when one person thinks a joke is funny but someone else doesn't? Maybe you've cracked a joke in front of your friends that you thought was hilarious but didn't sit well with someone else in the group. Awkward, right?
The The Laugh Factory comedy club just wrapped up finals for The Funniest Person In The World, a comedy competition that pitted comedians from countries around the world against one another to gather the most online votes and be declared the world's funniest person. With the club right here in our backyard it got us thinking: how do we decide what is funny and what isn't, and who gets to decide?
Humor is often seen as a bridge between cultures. Laughter is a language that is spoken around the world, but humor is often considered subjective. Something that you think is really funny might not be funny at all to someone else, or it might even offend him or her. So is there ever a situation or subject that everyone, regardless of who they are or where they're from, will find funny?
What do you think about the subjectivity (or objectivity) of humor? What has your experience been with sharing jokes or humor across cultural or ethnic lines?
Guest:
Jamie Masada, Owner & Founder of The Laugh Factory
Heirs to a Forgotten Kingdom: Inside some of the world's most endangered religions
If you’re keeping up with the headlines, you might notice the Middle East frequently portrayed as a land of religious intolerance. But when former diplomat Gerard Russell began to work closely with several communities across the region, he soon learned that there was much more to it than he could have ever imagined.
In his new book, "Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms," Russell shares his experiences living with seven ancient tribes, each with their own deeply-rooted religion and each on the brink of extinction. Gerard Russell joins Larry Mantle today to discuss his findings after living alongside the Madeans and Ezids of Iraq, the Zoroastrians of Iran, and the Copts of Egypt, to name just a few. He will also explain how increased religious extremism and Western military action is contributing to the rapid dissolution of these faiths.
Guest:
Gerard Russell, author of "Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms" (Basic Books, 2014). He worked for 14 years as a British and United Nations diplomat, and is a Senior Fellow with the New America Foundation’s International Security Program as well as a Senior Associate of the Foreign Policy Centre in London.