Opioid Crisis, Textbook Price, Black Women and the Economy

Guest: Jim Ruble, JD, Associate Professor of Pharmacotherapy, University of Utah  The opioid abuse crisis has taken a new legal turn. For years, we’ve seen prosecutors and the families of overdose victims going after doctors who prescribed the opiate painkillers. Now we’re seeing a number of cities and states trying to pin wrongdoing on the manufacturers and distributors of drugs, including OxyContin and Percocet. The most high-profile is a lawsuit filed recently by the state of Ohio, arguing five drug makers knowingly misled doctors and patients about the risk of opioids. There are also pending lawsuits against pharmacies, including Walgreens and Walmart, for failing to keep a proper eye on just how much of these prescription pain killers were flowing into a community.

Guest: John Hilton III, PhD, Primary Researcher in the Open Education Group, Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture, BYU Newly accepted college students are in for a big surprise this fall: although most students anticipate high tuition prices, it is the cost of textbooks that might take an unexpected bite out of their budget. The College Board recommends a budget of just over $1200 a year for books and supplies alone, which could actually make going to college just too expensive for some.  The movement to adopt “Open Education Resources” could mean free, online textbooks.

Guest: Chandra Childers, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, previously a Professor of Sociology at Texas Tech University and University of Washington Black women are more likely to vote than any other minority group, the number of businesses they own nearly tripled in ten years, and they’ve made huge gains in attaining higher education. Yet, black women in the US are underrepresented in government, they make less money than most other groups, and they’re more likely to live in poverty than any other race, ethnicity or gender. Why haven’t the achievements of black women translated into more financial and political success?

Guest: Sam Payne, BYUradio’s The Apple Seed

Guest: Michael Pfarrer, PhD, Associate Professor of Management, University of Georgia  Being frequently successful can make it harder and harder to live up to others’ expectations. Hit a couple of home runs in a game or make the most amazing birthday cake your family’s ever seen and people will be disappointed if you don’t outdo that performance the next time around. And watch out if you decide to try something a little outside your expertise, because it's a long fall off the pedestal. Successful companies face the same problem. The most admired companies get judged the most harshly by investors when they take a business risk.

Guest: Elaine Ostrander, PhD, Distinguished Investigator, National Institutes of Health, Chief of Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Virtually anyone can take a DNA test to confirm where they’re from. These tests have become commonplace ever since scientists at the National Institutes of Health finished mapping the entire human genome. And now they’re turning their attention to man’s best friend. The Dog Genome Project has so far shed light on where certain breeds originated and how they came to be so different from one another. Believe it or not, the Dog Genome Project could also yield important insight for human health.  Learn more by visiting the National Human Genome Research Institute online here.