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School snacks, birthday treats, EpiPens—oh my! Andrea and Marianne sit down with Kristen, a powerhouse allergy mom, who's raising the alarm on nut allergies and fighting for safety standards. Hear how she's arming her son with confidence, pushing for better emergency care, and changing the game for food allergy families. This one's real, raw, and full of action.www.sistertipsters.com**Follow Sister Tipsters on InstagramLooking for more allergy info and ways to help? Start by visiting https://www.redsneakers.org/
EpiPens should be every defibrillator's next-door neighbour so says Fine Gael Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn who explained why to Newstalk Breakfast.
EpiPens should be every defibrillator's next-door neighbour so says Fine Gael Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn who explained why to Newstalk Breakfast.
Betsy and Ali dive into dog drama—raw food debates, car ride chaos, health scares, and how to tell if your pup's in pain. Plus, there's a bee situation (EpiPens out), a Rottweiler waiting for a home, and a nostalgic trip through '80s TV, acid-wash jeans, and other questionable fashion choices. Chaos, canines, and an ode to The Greatest American Hero—what more do you need?
On this episode of Legislative Review: A bill to promote transit-oriented housing and legislation that would propose a bottle deposit fee for recyclable drink containers. And a bill pertaining to Epi Pens in schools.
Life's unexpected challenges can test even the most prepared among us, and as a modern woman, it often feels like you're expected to juggle it all seamlessly. The truth is, no one can predict everything, but resilience comes from building confidence in your ability to adapt and face the unknown. It's about trusting in your strength while allowing yourself the grace to learn along the way. Preparation isn't always having all the answers—it's knowing you can navigate whatever comes your way. Amber Elle is a single mom, homeschooler, and entrepreneur who teaches self-reliance and resilience through her brand. With a background in nursing, Amber has a passion for natural wellness and empowering women and families to become more self-sufficient. Today, Amber talks about the importance of situational awareness, sharing personal experiences and practical tips for cultivating this skill. Join in as young leaders pose inquiries about life, personal development, and beyond! Quotes: “Situational awareness allows us to be safe, be aware of our surroundings, be more understanding of humanity, but also to be more mindful, more grounded, and less anxious.” – Amber Elle “When we zoom out and look at the big picture, we see a lot of kids, the world, vulnerability, and threats. We then feel very responsible for all those tiny little lives.” – Amber Elle “Knowledge is always going to be what gets you to the other side of those trepidation feelings or that hesitation.” – Amber Elle Takeaways: Cultivate situational awareness in your daily life by taking a moment to ground yourself and observe your surroundings before entering vulnerable areas. This can help prevent dangerous situations and promote mindfulness. Establish a code word or safe word with your children to use in case of emergency. Practice using it regularly to ensure they understand its importance and feel empowered to use it when needed. Investigate options for discreetly carrying self-defense tools, such as blades or less-lethal weapons, when engaging in activities with your children where concealment may be challenging (e.g., swimming, hiking). Prioritize medical preparedness by keeping essential first aid supplies, including tourniquets, EpiPens, and Narcan, readily available in your vehicle, bags, and other accessible locations. Conclusion: Embracing your strengths and taking ownership of the future drives meaningful change. By doing so, you improve your life while building a stronger foundation for the next generation. This dedication to growth and action inspires confidence and lasting progress. The choices we make today have a powerful impact on the future.
With the start of a new year, there are a number of new laws taking effect in Illinois. This episode of the Sound of the State takes a look at ten of those laws, ranging from one that fights catalytic converter theft to one which lowers the out-of-pocket cost to Illinois families for life-saving EpiPens, and more.
Plus - Governor Hochul signed a bill into law that will require health insurers to cover EpiPens and caps the amount consumers will be required to pay out of pocket at $100 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nobel Prize in medicine honors American duo for their discovery of microRNA. Supreme Court taking the bench with ghost guns, a capital case and transgender rights on the docket. Florida prepares for massive evacuations as Hurricane Milton takes aim at major metro areas. North Carolina is distributing Benadryl and EpiPens as yellow jackets swarm from Helene flooding. After the deluge, the lies Misinformation and hoaxes about Helene cloud the recovery. Homeowners hit by Hurricane Helene face the grim task of rebuilding without flood insurance. Russian court sentences a 72-year-old American to nearly 7 years in prison for fighting in Ukraine. Projectiles launched from Gaza set off sirens in central Tel Aviv, Israeli military says. A year into the Israel-Hamas war, students say a chill on free speech has reached college classrooms. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli crowds rally across the world on the eve of Oct. 7 anniversary. Born on Oct. 7, Ali's first year has played out against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. Colorado judge who sentenced election denier Tina Peters to prison receives threats. Toilet paper makers say US port strike didn't cause shortages. 4 voters charged with intentionally voting twice in Michigan primary election. Judge denies an order sought by a Black student who was punished over his hair. Pope names 21 new cardinals, significantly increasing the pool who will one day elect his successor. Thousands of Jewish pilgrims come to Ukraine for Rosh Hashana despite official warnings. ‘Joker 2’ stumbles at box office amid poor reviews from audiences and critics. Garth Brooks accused of rape in lawsuit from hair-and-makeup artist. The Sunday sports landscape is highlighted by the NFL and the National League Division Series in Major League Baseball as well as playoff action in the WNBA. —The Associated Press About this program Host Terry Lipshetz is managing editor of the national newsroom for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the former producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate.
AP correspondent Norman Hall reports North Carolina is distributing Benadryl and EpiPens as yellow jackets swarm from Helene flooding.
Broadcast on KSQD, Santa Cruz on 9-26-2024: Dr. Dawn discusses a study on mice whose abdomens were made transparent using tartrazine aka yellow dye #3, explaining the physics behind this phenomenon and potential medical applications. The FDA's approval of an new and cheaper epinephrine nasal spray called Neffy is announced as a more convenient alternative to EpiPens. Hyperaldosteronism, a potentially underdiagnosed condition causing treatment - resistant hypertension in many patients, is explained along with its symptoms and testing methods. A study suggesting that COVID lockdowns may have prematurely aged teenagers' brains is discussed, with notable differences in brain scans of areas affected between boys and girls. Research on racial disparities in unscheduled emergency C-sections among black and white women is examined, considering various factors that might contribute to this difference. Dr. Dawn reviews a meta-analysis on the risks of screening colonoscopies, highlighting higher complication rates than previously thought. The show explores exciting new research on breast milk components and their potential therapeutic applications for various conditions in adult. Recent findings on human aging patterns are presented, revealing two significant aging points in life and discussing how different body systems age at varying rates.
Researchers say 8% of kids and 10% of adults have at least one food allergy. Of those, 86% are allergic to more then one food.Epipens are life savers.However, a new treatment may help block allergic reactions from ever happening.This story was created from a script aired on WISH-TV. Health Spotlight is presented by Community Health Network.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
DISCLAMER >>>>>> The Ditch Lab Coat podcast serves solely for general informational purposes and does not serve as a substitute for professional medical services such as medicine or nursing. It does not establish a doctor/patient relationship, and the use of information from the podcast or linked materials is at the user's own risk. The content does not aim to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and users should promptly seek guidance from healthcare professionals for any medical conditions. >>>>>> The expressed opinions belong solely to the hosts and guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Hospitals, Clinics, Universities, or any other organization associated with the host or guests. Disclosures: Ditch The Lab Coat podcast is produced by (Podkind.co) and is independent of Dr. Bonta's teaching and research roles at McMaster University, Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Queens University. 'Welcome to "Ditch the Lab Coat," where we bring you insightful conversations that peel back the layers of medicine and health. In this episode, Dr. Mark Bonta sits down with Dr. Samira Jeimy, a leading expert in allergies and immunology. Together, we'll dive deep into the complexities of managing allergies in today's world.In this episode, we explore the dangers of relying on inaccurate allergy tests and supplements, the limitations of "may contain" labels, and the critical need for precise allergy management. We'll also examine the disconnect between school allergy policies and allergist recommendations, emphasizing the need for standardized forms and comprehensive staff training.Dr. Jeimy will share practical advice on treating anaphylaxis, from recognizing symptoms to the correct use of EpiPens and the importance of proper positioning during a reaction. We'll also discuss the prevalence of milk allergies, the challenges of reintroducing allergens, and the various risks associated with milk consumption.Lastly, we'll address the broader implications of labeling children as allergic, the effectiveness of nut-free school policies, and the vital need for education and communication in managing allergies in school settings.Join us for an insightful journey into the world of allergies and immunology. Remember, this podcast is here to inform, not replace professional medical advice. So, let's ditch the lab coat and get started!04:04 Summer camps bring challenges and rule flexibility.08:34 Allergists advocate standardized school anaphylaxis protocols.11:07 Practical approaches to reduce anaphylaxis complications.16:11 Correct epiPen placement crucial for immediate effect.18:00 Expired food debated, decisions made to keep.23:09 Adverse effects of milk consumption explored briefly.24:03 Dairy worsens eczema, but avoiding it promotes allergies.27:18 Processing milk alters protein, making it tolerable.31:05 Alarming focus on nut-free schools after tragedy.34:17 Be prepared for allergy symptoms on subway.36:55 Parent's emotional response to children's safety concerns.42:11 Blood tests, oral challenge, and immunotherapy options.43:20 Maintain exposure to build immune tolerance, spectrum conditions.49:31 Engaging discussion on allergies with medical expert.50:39 Correctly administer expired EpiPen to save lives.
In episode 78 of Therapy in the Great Outdoors, Nicole Roma Thurrell, WEMT, CTRS is back for the 2nd in our 3-part series on first aid for nature-based therapists. Nicole shares valuable personal anecdotes and real-life examples, highlighting the importance of comprehensive first aid training, especially in dynamic outdoor environments. You'll learn the "big 3" of assessing life-threatening situations: Breathing, Bleeding, & Shock. You'll also learn about practical tools like EpiPens and hemostatic agents, and get tips on maintaining their effectiveness despite environmental challenges. Join us to equip yourself with the knowledge to keep your outdoor therapy sessions safe and enriching for the children you serve. 00:00 Introduction to Nature-Based Pediatric Therapy 01:00 First Aid Series Overview 02:07 Critical First Aid Skills for Therapists 03:03 Personal Anecdotes and Real-Life Examples 04:57 Principles of First Aid Assessment 08:23 Recognizing and Managing Shock 15:21 Bleeding Control Techniques 20:37 Understanding Blood Thinning Medications 21:11 Importance of First Aid Training 21:47 Choosing the Right First Aid Class 22:57 Handling Anaphylactic Shock 24:59 Obtaining and Using EpiPens 32:22 Critical First Aid Essentials 33:41 WildMed Training Courses and Discounts 37:25 Conclusion and Free Research List For more information, visit Institute for Wild Med and get 20% any of their courses with the discount code TGO20 exclusively for our TGO podcast listeners!
In 1990, Life magazine named Edward Bernays on its list of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century. Yet few Americans have ever heard of Bernays. He was an early innovator in the field of public relations who pioneered techniques of mass manipulation that, among many things, altered the consumer habits of Americans and even toppled a Central American government. This final episode of Season 1 examines how Bernays helped create the progressive deference to experts in government, which also created a larger culture of experts affecting — and often manipulating — all areas of our life. Sponsors Jase Wouldn't it be nice if you lived in a country where you didn't have to constantly worry that your government is lying to you? A country where you could take it for granted that those in charge weren't making decisions based on what they think is in your best interest — and not what you think is? History shows us, unfortunately, that the more bloated a government gets, the more this happens. I don't know about you, but I make it a point to make critical decisions for myself and my family, and you should too. You should get a Jase case. It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five lifesaving antibiotics for emergency use. All you have to do is fill out a simple form online, and you'll have it in case you need it. There are add-on options too, like EpiPens and ivermectin. Jase Medical encourages you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to https://jasemedical.com and enter code BECK at checkout for a discount on your order. Relief Factor It's enough of a struggle just to live our lives and try to keep tyranny at bay day after day without also having to deal with pain on a regular basis. And yet, our bodies don't really give us much of a choice. The biggest cause of our pain is inflammation in our joints; I know, because I used to get it so badly in my hands, I couldn't even always button my shirt in the morning — let alone do so many of the things I love to do, like painting or writing letters by hand. Thank God, I found out about Relief Factor and eventually gave it a try. I got my life back, and you could get your life back too. There's only one way to know. If you're living with aches and pains, see for yourself how Relief Factor — a daily, drug-free supplement — could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who've turned to Relief Factor, and you could start feeling better in three weeks or fewer. Visit https://www.relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF and save on your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Liberal bias in mainstream news media coverage is a generally accepted reality in the U.S. Over the past few decades, even academic research confirms this reality. But how did progressivism come to dominate the media, and how did this become the accepted norm? This episode traces the history of media bias from the first progressive star journalists who flexed their newfound power in the Theodore Roosevelt White House to the pivotal Vietnam-Watergate years, when journalists believed they were saving America from itself, through to the modern era where activist journalism too often makes the truth expendable. Sponsors Relief Factor It's enough of a struggle just to live our lives and try to keep tyranny at bay day after day without also having to deal with pain on a regular basis. And yet, our bodies don't really give us much of a choice. The biggest cause of our pain is inflammation in our joints; I know, because I used to get it so badly in my hands, I couldn't even always button my shirt in the morning — let alone do so many of the things I love to do, like painting or writing letters by hand. Thank God, I found out about Relief Factor and eventually gave it a try. I got my life back, and you could get your life back too. There's only one way to know. If you're living with aches and pains, see for yourself how Relief Factor — a daily, drug-free supplement — could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who've turned to Relief Factor, and you could start feeling better in three weeks or fewer. Visit https://www.relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF and save on your first order. Jase Wouldn't it be nice if you lived in a country where you didn't have to constantly worry that your government is lying to you? A country where you could take it for granted that those in charge weren't making decisions based on what they think is in your best interest — and not what you think is? History shows us, unfortunately, that the more bloated a government gets, the more this happens. I don't know about you, but I make it a point to make critical decisions for myself and my family, and you should too. You should get a Jase case. It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five lifesaving antibiotics for emergency use. All you have to do is fill out a simple form online, and you'll have it in case you need it. There are add-on options too, like EpiPens and ivermectin. Jase Medical encourages you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to https://jasemedical.com and enter code BECK at checkout for a discount on your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How did the Supreme Court move from its essential job of interpreting the Constitution into the realm of political activism? And why, until recently, has the Supreme Court been so dominated by the Left? This is the story of the transformation of the Supreme Court by three progressive icons: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Louis Brandeis, and Felix Frankfurter. Holmes Jr. blazed the left-wing trail with his radical new vision of an evolving, “living” Constitution. Brandeis and Frankfurter used their positions as Supreme Court justices to run a secret political activist network that influenced decision-making at the highest levels of both Congress and the White House. Sponsors Jase Wouldn't it be nice if you lived in a country where you didn't have to constantly worry that your government is lying to you? A country where you could take it for granted that those in charge weren't making decisions based on what they think is in your best interest — and not what you think is? History shows us, unfortunately, that the more bloated a government gets, the more this happens. I don't know about you, but I make it a point to make critical decisions for myself and my family, and you should too. You should get a Jase case. It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five lifesaving antibiotics for emergency use. All you have to do is fill out a simple form online, and you'll have it in case you need it. There are add-on options too, like EpiPens and ivermectin. Jase Medical encourages you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to https://jasemedical.com and enter code BECK at checkout for a discount on your order. Relief Factor It's enough of a struggle just to live our lives and try to keep tyranny at bay day after day without also having to deal with pain on a regular basis. And yet, our bodies don't really give us much of a choice. The biggest cause of our pain is inflammation in our joints; I know, because I used to get it so badly in my hands, I couldn't even always button my shirt in the morning — let alone do so many of the things I love to do, like painting or writing letters by hand. Thank God, I found out about Relief Factor and eventually gave it a try. I got my life back, and you could get your life back too. There's only one way to know. If you're living with aches and pains, see for yourself how Relief Factor — a daily, drug-free supplement — could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who've turned to Relief Factor, and you could start feeling better in three weeks or fewer. Visit https://www.relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF and save on your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
America's founders knew the success of the new republic depended on having educated, engaged citizens. But they could not have imagined how U.S. public education would morph from emphasizing reading, writing, arithmetic, and biblical values to a progressive-dominated system today with its hyper focus on identity politics and a radical left-wing agenda. How did we get to this point? Progressive education experts, inspired for over a century by their philosopher-king — an early 1900s college professor named John Dewey. Sponsors Jase Wouldn't it be nice if you lived in a country where you didn't have to constantly worry that your government is lying to you? A country where you could take it for granted that those in charge weren't making decisions based on what they think is in your best interest — and not what you think is? History shows us, unfortunately, that the more bloated a government gets, the more this happens. I don't know about you, but I make it a point to make critical decisions for myself and my family, and you should too. You should get a Jase case. It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five lifesaving antibiotics for emergency use. All you have to do is fill out a simple form online, and you'll have it in case you need it. There are add-on options too, like EpiPens and ivermectin. Jase Medical encourages you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to https://jasemedical.com and enter code BECK at checkout for a discount on your order. Relief Factor It's enough of a struggle just to live our lives and try to keep tyranny at bay day after day without also having to deal with pain on a regular basis. And yet, our bodies don't really give us much of a choice. The biggest cause of our pain is inflammation in our joints; I know, because I used to get it so badly in my hands, I couldn't even always button my shirt in the morning — let alone do so many of the things I love to do, like painting or writing letters by hand. Thank God, I found out about Relief Factor and eventually gave it a try. I got my life back, and you could get your life back too. There's only one way to know. If you're living with aches and pains, see for yourself how Relief Factor — a daily, drug-free supplement — could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who've turned to Relief Factor, and you could start feeling better in three weeks or fewer. Visit https://www.relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF and save on your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson suppressed ample evidence of German sabotage of munitions plants and depots on U.S. soil to maintain his re-election campaign slogan: “He kept us out of war!” Once re-elected by a very thin margin, however, Wilson quickly led the nation into World War I, ushering in a breathtaking dictatorship that destroyed First Amendment rights and brought an unprecedented campaign of government censorship and surveillance. Sponsors Relief Factor I hope it's obvious to you by now that when it comes to decisions that directly affect you and the people you love, sometimes it's better not to leave things in the hands of the “experts.” Years ago, when I was dealing with almost daily, horrible pain in my hands, I sought out the advice of a lot of “experts.” And do you know what that got me? Medical bills, and no easing of my burden. That was before I started taking Relief Factor, and things changed for me forever. I got rid of the pain. I got my hope back, my joy back — I basically got my whole life back. And you know what? I'm no “expert,” either, but don't take my word for it even at that. If you're living with aches and pains, see for yourself how Relief Factor — a daily, drug-free supplement — could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who've turned to Relief Factor, and you could start feeling better in three weeks or fewer. Visit https://www.relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF and save on your first order. Jase History teaches us to have at least a little bit of skepticism for what the so-called experts tell us at any given time. In fact, it's best to have as many of the decisions that are made about you and your family in your own hands, and not in theirs. For instance, what about life-saving medications? If there's an emergency and you or a member of your family desperately needs a medication that just isn't available right now, what are you going to do? How do you even prepare for something like that? You should get a Jase case. It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five life-saving antibiotics for emergency use. All you have to do is fill out a simple form online, and you'll have it in case you need it. There are add-on options too, like EpiPens and ivermectin. Jase Medical encourages you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to https://jasemedical.com and enter code Beck at checkout for a discount on your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is the story of Madison Grant, a wealthy conservationist, influential progressive, and one of the fathers of eugenics in the U.S. His 1916 book, “The Passing of the Great Race,” prompted a flattering letter from Adolf Hitler about the book, which Hitler called his “bible.” Progressives regarded eugenics as cutting-edge science, but in the hands of “experts,” this “science” led to unspeakable horrors, the consequences of which are still felt today. Sponsors Jase History teaches us to have at least a little bit of skepticism for what the so-called “experts” tell us at any given time. In fact, it's best to have as many of the decisions that get made about you and your family in your own hands, and not in theirs. For instance, what about life-saving medications? If there's an emergency and you or a member of your family desperately needs a medication that just isn't available right now, what are you going to do? How do you even prepare for something like that? You should get a Jase case. It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five life-saving antibiotics for emergency use. All you have to do is fill out a simple form online, and you'll have it in case you need it. There are add-on options too, like EpiPens and Ivermectin. Jase Medical encourages you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to https://jasemedical.com and enter code “Beck” at checkout for a discount on your order. Relief Factor I hope it's obvious to you by now that when it comes to decisions that directly affect you and the people you love, sometimes it's better not to leave things in the hands of the “experts.” Years ago, when I was dealing with almost daily, horrible pain in my hands, I sought out the advice of a lot of “experts.” And do you know what that got me? Medical bills, and no easing of my burden. That was before I started taking Relief Factor, and things changed for me forever. I got rid of the pain. I got my hope back, my joy back—I basically got my whole life back. And you know what? I'm no “expert,” either, but don't take my word for it even at that. If you're living with aches and pains, see for yourself how Relief Factor—a daily, drug-free supplement—could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who've turned to Relief Factor and you could start feeling better in 3 weeks or less. Visit https://www.relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF and save on your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode of What's What BR, we are joined by Dr. Bourgoyne, a first-time guest and an expert in allergy and immunology from Ochsner's Baton Rouge. Dr. Bourgoyne discusses a range of topics including the high prevalence of allergies in Louisiana, misconceptions about common allergens, and the importance of exposure to build a resilient immune system. He also explains the role of immunotherapy (allergy shots) in retraining the immune system, the dangers of mold and how to manage it, and the critical need for carrying epinephrine auto-injectors (EpiPen) for severe food allergies. This episode is a comprehensive guide for managing allergies and improving quality of life. 00:00 Introduction to the Episode and Guest 00:32 Understanding Allergies and Immunology 01:26 Seasonal Allergies and Regional Differences 03:38 The Rise of Allergies: Cleanliness and Immune System Changes 05:08 Mosquitoes and Allergic Reactions 16:34 Navigating Food Allergies and Treatments 23:33 The Role of EpiPens in Allergy Management 27:53 Closing Thoughts and Future Discussions
Starting Wednesday, migrants who reach a limit of 30- or 60-day stays can be evicted, with limited opportunities to remain depending on their age. In other news, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing questions after over 2,000 families were unable to secure a seat in the city's 3K program this fall. Meanwhile, New York state lawmakers are proposing a bill that would require large public venues to have EpiPens on hand for treating life-threatening allergic emergencies. Plus, disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein's recently overturned conviction in New York could pave the way for a new state law. WNYC's Sean Carlson speaks with reporters Samantha Max and Jon Campbell to learn more.
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Episode 6 : From "No-Nut" Schools to EpiPens 101: Dr. Magdalena Berger, Clinical Allergist & Immunologist Unpacks Allergy Myths and Gives You The Tools to be an Allergy NinjaDISCLAMER >>>>>> The Ditch Lab Coat podcast serves solely for general informational purposes and does not serve as a substitute for professional medical services such as medicine or nursing. It does not establish a doctor/patient relationship, and the use of information from the podcast or linked materials is at the user's own risk. The content does not aim to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and users should promptly seek guidance from healthcare professionals for any medical conditions. >>>>>> The expressed opinions belong solely to the hosts and guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Hospitals, Clinics, Universities, or any other organization associated with the host or guests. Disclosures: Ditch The Lab Coat podcast is produced by (Podkind.co) and is independent of Dr. Bonta's teaching and research roles at McMaster University, Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Queens University. Welcome back to "Ditch the Labcoat," with me, Dr. Mark Bonta, and today we're diving into the complex world of allergies. Our guest, Dr. Magdalena Berger, brings her expertise on managing allergies in children, clarifies myths about EpiPen usage, and illuminates the murky waters of food allergy protocols. Expect personal tales, life-saving tips on handling anaphylactic shocks, and insights into global allergy trends.Whether you're a concerned parent or just curious about the immune system's quirks, this episode is packed with invaluable knowledge. So tune in as we tackle the science and skepticism of allergies head-on. Let's get started.00:00 Family medicine in crisis, need more providers.03:15 Internal medicine involves diagnosing, treating complex illnesses.06:17 Relevant roles in education discussing allergies and immunology.10:55 Concern over lack of access to allergist.14:46 Confirm food allergies through allergist office challenge.17:17 Clear diagnosis of food reactions requires thorough testing.21:40 Oral immunotherapy for food allergies and tolerance.23:04 Early introduction of allergenic foods needs caution.28:05 Hygiene hypothesis: overactive immune system from cleanliness.30:18 Dairy allergy and anaphylaxis: Can it happen?34:38 Maternal diet impact on baby's allergies summarized.37:49 Specific protein in milk can cause allergies.39:50 Deciding to probe or maintain relationships courteously.43:47 School has EpiPens for kids with allergies.45:28 Risk mitigation for allergies during unsupervised activities.51:34 Check expiration date, clear liquid means good.54:36 Podcast covers allergy; impact on parents.57:42 Ensure good working order, anticipate potential situations.59:05 Exciting updates and feedback for digital lab.
Rachel and Desi of Hollywood Crime Scene are back to discuss Love is Blind season 6 episodes 1-9!Find my socials, Patreon and more here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Let's celebrate the first drop of Love Is Blind season 6 episodes with a mega-recap of episodes 2-6! Episodes 7-9 recap coming ASAP! If you are a neurodivergent person whose special interest is human nature and communication, Love Is Blind is for YOU. It is the X Games of people watching and we're going to break down every episode and use it as a guide to understand human behavior and psychology like we are the aliens we grew up thinking we were. As Ken would say, "Let's goooo!" Aliens Watching Reality TV is hosted by Erika Heidewald and Josh Shahryar, two reality show newbies who grew up feeling like aliens (turns out we're just autistic and ADHD) and love analyzing human behavior by watching reality TV dating shows on Netflix.Subscribe to our Patreon for just $5 a month to get an additional full-length episode every single week! You have found your people. Join us
As they pack their bags for one last hurrah, Lulu and Alison invite you to join them on a heartwarming farewell tour through our favorite memories in the final episode of 10K Dollar Day. This isn't just any conclusion; it's a laughter-laced tribute to the journey that's taken us from the world's most exotic locales to the cozy corners that have become our secret hideaways. We're rolling out the red carpet for our 'baes,' our cherished listeners, and guiding newcomers to the treasure trove of episodes that await them. With every chuckle and shared story, we're sending an air-kiss goodbye to the escapades that have become a part of us—and you.Strap on your hiking boots and adjust your fanny pack as we recount an escapade to Zion National Park, where luxury brushes up against the raw beauty of the Utah wilderness. Imagine the sound of a grand piano mingling with the rustling leaves of a zen garden as we detail our stay at the unique Flanagan's Resort. We tackle the practicalities of gallivanting through nature, from the necessity of EpiPens to the culinary delight of gourmet trail snacks, and even throw in a bizarre yet handy bee vacuuming hack. It's a blend of indulgence and adventure that could only come from the minds behind 10K Dollar Day.Lastly, we set a course for the ghostly allure of Lulu City, Colorado, offering glimpses of a lavish Airbnb and the makings of an unforgettable cabaret show. We share the comedic trials of securing a special bottle of 10,000 Drops gin and the vision of clinking crystal glasses in celebration. As we lift the curtain on the creative force our listeners have imbued into our show, we extend a hand to anyone eager to weave their own creative tapestries. So, refill your glass, find that snug spot, and raise a toast to the power of happy, creativity, and the end of an era that's been nothing short of extraordinary.Support the showBecome a supporter of the show! Cancel Anytime • No Commitment https://www.buzzsprout.com/145545/supporters/newDon't forget to get on the list that counts — our newsletter mailing list. Sign up at www.10kdollarday.com for show notes, resources, and things to make you smile. Instagram: @10KDollarDay Twitter: @10KDollarDay Support the show: www.patreon.com/10kdollarday
Susanne Posel, host of This Week Again, joins us to talk the cost of EpiPens, why we need a better contender than Biden to aggresively take on Trump, and Republican Idaho State Rep Heather Scott is worried about cannibals... getting into burial composting?Facepalm America: facepalmamerica.comTwitter: @FacepalmUSAFind Beowulf: @BeowulfRochlenBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/facepalm-america--5189985/support.
Unlock the secrets to navigating the complex world of food allergies as we sit down with Dr. Rubin, a renowned TikTok allergist. This episode promises to arm you with key strategies for reducing allergy risks, including the surprising benefits of early food exposure. Dr. Rubin dives into the gut microbiome's role and the intricate connection between eczema and food allergies, shedding light on the delicate balance our immune system strikes to protect us.Bite into the curious case of Alpha Gal Syndrome with us as we explore how a tick's tiny chomp can unleash an allergic storm, and how climate change plays a part in its spread. We tackle everything from the syndrome's baffling reaction times to the hopeful possibility of outgrowing the allergy, plus a candid look at the soaring costs of EpiPens and the ethical quagmires of medical trials. Let's navigate these waters together, facing the challenges head-on with knowledge and a touch of humor.Finally, we wrap up with some purr-fectly good news for cat lovers battling allergies. Could egg yolk be the unlikely hero for those sneezy fits? We debate the merits of feline companionship, the Canadian art of snow eating, and why sometimes, parenting with a dash of playfulness is just what the doctor ordered. Join us for a heartfelt reminder to savor the day-to-day – and don't worry, we'll steer clear of any yellow snow advice!Support the showYou can find us on social media here:Rob TiktokRob InstagramLiam TiktokLiam Instagram
Happy Wednesday! Epi Pens on airplanes. The governor of New Hampshire endorsed Nikki Haley. There will be no white Christmas this year. New video games coming to Netflix! Celebrities were tricked by the Russian government. https://forms.gle/Bf6aPVTbEqmo4QoS6 NEWSLETTER ⬅️ What's Trending: https://go.shopmy.us/p-3008266 Head to TheMorningShowPodcast.com for EVERYTHING we talk about. AG1 Deal: DrinkAG1.com/cma Seattle Gummy Company - code: CMA for 20% off https://seattlegummy.com/?ref=802 QUICK LINKS TO WATCH US LIVE, SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER, FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS HERE: https://www.flowcode.com/page/carlamarieandanthony Follow Carla Marie on Instagram Follow Anthony on InstagramSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
President Joe Biden gives his most candid view of the Israel-Hamas war — we'll break down what he said. This comes as Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss aid for Ukraine today amid partisan gridlock. Arizona's Supreme Court heard arguments about its 15-week abortion ban. Three top Senate Democrats demand airlines carry EpiPens on flights. And, actress Jennifer Aniston reveals that she and the late “Friends” co-star, Matthew Perry, were in communication the day he passed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bimekizumab vs secukinumab - Selenium sulfide for hyperkeratosis - Do kids with UP need epipens? - Meyerson phenomenon - Head-and-neck LCH - Want to donate to the cause? Do so here! http://www.uofuhealth.org/dermasphere Check out our video content on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dermaspherepodcast and VuMedi!: https://www.vumedi.com/channel/dermasphere/ The University of Utah's Dermatology ECHO: https://physicians.utah.edu/echo/dermatology-primarycare - Connect with us! - Web: https://dermaspherepodcast.com/ - Twitter: @DermaspherePC - Instagram: dermaspherepodcast - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DermaspherePodcast/ - Check out Luke and Michelle's other podcast, SkinCast! https://healthcare.utah.edu/dermatology/skincast/ Luke and Michelle report no significant conflicts of interest… BUT check out our friends at: - Kikoxp.com (a social platform for doctors to share knowledge) - https://www.levelex.com/games/top-derm (A free dermatology game to learn more dermatology!)
Anaphylaxis, or a severe allergic reaction, is the stuff parents' nightmares are made of. Seeing someone experience an anaphylactic reaction can be scary, but Dr. Tim Dribin advises that by staying prepared and knowing what to look for, you could save the life of someone experiencing this type of reaction. Today on the Young & Healthy podcast, we talk to Dr. Dribin, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist, and anaphylaxis expert. He and our host Kate Setter discuss myths and misunderstandings about anaphylaxis, the common triggers of anaphylactic reactions, symptoms to be aware of, and the importance of seeing an allergist. They also talk extensively about epinephrine injectors, commonly known as EpiPens, which are the first line of defense for a severe allergic reaction and a necessary prescription to have on hand for kids who have allergies. Be sure to check out the chapter markers to navigate to specific points of the episode.
In this episode of The Real ResQ, we are joined by Simon Megaw from Northern Ireland. With over 25 years in search-and-rescue, Megaw has loads of experience as both a team member and a team leader. He is qualified in swift water rescue and rope rescue, plus he is a full-time firefighter. At a young age, Megaw became interested in search-and-rescue after his sailboat flipped over and he was rescued. From there, he got into working with power boats and volunteered with the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI). His first memorable rescue was a woman hit in the head by the boom of a sailboat and knocked into the water. She sustained a significant head injury, and to get her into the rescue boat they had to deflate one of the sponsons and float her onto it. Another high-profile rescue that stands out to Megaw is when a young boy fell into the water. They searched for him for three and a half weeks. From that event, Megaw connected with a couple other guys and they created their own rescue team in Belfast. Megaw recalls a rescue as a young firefighter. A girl was trapped waist-deep in the mud at low tide. Someone asked if he could use items they had in the truck to make the rescue. His response was, “yes!” We had an opportunity to debrief this scenario a bit further after the story, too. Next, when Megaw was teaching a class, one of his students had what seemed to be an allergic reaction. After two EpiPens and a call for a helicopter evacuation, they were able to get her to hospital. They later found out she was diagnosed with pleurisy. His last story is about the biggest fire job he has ever been called to: A huge, six-storey building engulfed in flames in downtown Belfast. Enjoy! https://verticalhelicasts.com/the-real-resq-podcast/ https://www.facebook.com/therealresq https://www.instagram.com/therealresq This episode is brought to you by Vertical Helicasts Thank you for sponsoring this episode of The Real ResQ; Breeze-Eastern, https://www.breeze-eastern.com/
Food allergies are super common. According to the American College of Asthma and Immunology and the CDC, about 5% of kids and about 4% of adults are affected by food allergies. The allergic reactions can range from mild to severe and life threatening. Food allergy symptoms are most common in babies and children, but they can appear at any age. You can even develop an allergy to foods you have eaten for years with no problem (bummer). As we learned in our previous episode about Celiac Disease with Dr. Alessio Fasano, when we restrict people's diets, it can create a really stressful and isolating situation for them. How can we support people with food allergies? Can we treat the allergies? Are food allergies actually more prevalent now than they have been historically? Thankfully, we have our friend and renowned expert in the field of Allergy and Immunology to help us understand more! Welcome, Dave Stukus, MD! Dr. Stukus (DR. DAVE!!) is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Allergy/Immunology Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He's also the director of the Food Allergy Treatment Center. He's very active on social media with @AllergyKidsDoc on Twitter and Instagram. We remember Dr. Stukus from his AWESOME episode about seasonal allergies! Hold on to your EpiPens, folks, let's learn about food allergies! Key moments in this episode include: 00:06:32 - What Are Food Allergies? 00:09:47 - Major Culprits and Unknowns 00:13:57 - Different Methods of Testing 00:14:50 - Over-the-Counter Allergy Tests 00:15:29 - High IgE Levels and Allergies 00:24:35 - Diagnosing Food Allergies 00:27:10 - Reactivity to Cow's Milk Allergy 00:28:58 - Prevention of Food Allergies 00:30:26 - Treatment Options for Food Allergies 00:37:57 - What to Do in an Allergic Reaction 00:39:08 - Role of Antihistamines 00:48:36 - Food Allergy Labels 00:49:01 - EpiPen Availability in Schools 00:50:11 - Number of EpiPens to Have, Expiration Dates 00:52:35 - Evolving Understanding of Food Allergies, Future Research Dr. Stukus recommends the following trusted resources if you want to learn more: The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. The American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. The Support Groups page of FARE (Food Allergy Research and Education org). Dr. Dave's professional page via Nationwide Children's. For more episodes, limited edition merch, or to become a Friend of Your Doctor Friends (and more), follow this link! This includes the famous "Advice from the last generation of doctors that inhaled lead" shirt :) Also, CHECK OUT AMAZING HEALTH PODCASTS on The Health Podcast Network Find us at: Website: yourdoctorfriendspodcast.com Email: yourdoctorfriendspodcast@gmail.com Call the DOCLINE on 312-380-5005 and leave us a message. We will listen and maybe even respond/play it on the show! (Disclaimer: we will not answer specific medical questions or offer medical advice. Consult your healthcare professional with any and all personal health questions.) Connect with us: @your_doctor_friends (IG) @yourdoctorfriendspodcast1013 (YouTube) @JeremyAllandMD (IG, FB, Twitter) @JuliaBrueneMD (IG) @HealthPodNet (IG)
Hey everyone, a big heads up. This episode is about an issue that is literally life or death for our son Arlo. This was not easy to talk about and things get emotional. I did my best to edit all that out but some of it is still pretty tough. (At least normies have auto-ads to break up the tension in the worst possible way though!) A new law went into effect this year adding sesame as the 9th allergen with all the requirements that go with that. Arlo has a pretty bad sesame allergy. So... great, right? Yeah except due to capitalism, companies are literally adding sesame to everything to get around the law. It seems impossibly cruel and stupid, but it's true. Arlo has already been affected twice by this. We tell a bit of our family story around this, and then Lydia takes us through some of the public policy history. We also stop by Joe Manchin's daughter making millions from ripping us off on Epipens. (no, really.) Be sure to stay for the end, if you can, to hear our interview with incredibly cute and silly expert Arlo Smith. Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!
On this day in legal history, October 12, 1977, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in the landmark case of Allan Bakke, which centered around the contentious issue of "reverse discrimination." Bakke, a white student, had been denied admission to the University of California Davis Medical School, with the school reserving a specific number of seats for minority applicants. Bakke argued that this affirmative action policy amounted to racial discrimination against him. The case was seen as a significant challenge to affirmative action programs aimed at redressing past racial injustices.During the oral arguments, the justices grappled with the complex question of whether race-based admissions policies violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case ultimately led to a divided decision. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, stating that while affirmative action was permissible, the use of racial quotas in admissions was unconstitutional. This decision had far-reaching implications for affirmative action policies in higher education and set a precedent for future legal battles on the issue.A divided en banc US appeals court has granted California's emergency stay of a lower court ruling that barred the state from enforcing its law limiting the capacity of gun magazines to 10 bullets or less. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted 7-4, allowing most of the trial judge's order to be stayed, with the exception of magazines lawfully acquired and possessed before the judge's order granting a permanent injunction. The court stated that Attorney General Rob Bonta was likely to succeed on the merits, citing the 2021 US Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen, which limited the restrictions states can place on where gun owners can take their firearms. This majority decision noted that, since the Bruen decision, ten other federal district courts have considered Second Amendment challenges to large-capacity magazine restrictions, and only one court, the Southern District of Illinois, granted a preliminary injunction.The majority found that California demonstrated that it would face significant harm if the stay was denied, as it could lead to an influx of large-capacity magazines, posing potential threats to public safety. The ruling stated that other interested parties would not be substantially harmed by the stay, and it does not impede the public's ability to purchase and possess various firearms and magazines containing 10 rounds or fewer. This recent decision, while not deciding the case's merits, has temporarily stayed the injunction, allowing California to enforce its large-capacity magazine limit while the case proceeds. California High Capacity Gun Magazine Ban Mostly Unblocked (1)Anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum's American Alliance for Equal Rights has dropped a lawsuit against Perkins Coie, a U.S. law firm, over its diversity fellowship program. The decision came after Perkins Coie revised its application criteria, allowing all law students to apply, not just those from "historically underrepresented" groups. Blum's group had initially sued two firms in August, alleging that their diversity fellowship programs unlawfully excluded individuals, including white students, based on their race. The move to open these programs to all students preempted further legal action, though Blum highlighted the existence of similar "racially discriminatory programs" at other law firms, encouraging them to do the same. Last year, major U.S. law firms had just 11.4% partners from people of color, according to the National Association for Law Placement.Affirmative action opponent drops case over law firm's diversity fellowship | ReutersPfizer has agreed to a $50 million settlement to resolve claims by drug wholesalers that they overpaid for EpiPen allergy treatment devices due to alleged anticompetitive practices by the drugmaker. The wholesalers argued that Pfizer, which manufactured the EpiPen for Mylan, engaged in anticompetitive behavior that allowed them to maintain a monopoly over the market for EpiPens, leading to inflated prices. This class action settlement, filed in a Kansas City, Kansas federal court, must still be approved by the judge.The legal action against Pfizer and Mylan followed public outrage in 2016 when Mylan raised the price of EpiPens from $100 to $600. The lawsuits claimed that the companies engaged in anticompetitive practices to stifle competition and maintain high profits, including paying Teva Pharmaceutical Industries to delay the launch of a generic version of the EpiPen. In 2021, U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree dismissed the claims against Pfizer on the grounds that it was Mylan, not Pfizer, that directly sold the EpiPen. In 2021 and 2022, groups of consumers reached settlements of $345 million and $264 million with Pfizer and Mylan, respectively, over related claims.Pfizer to pay $50 mln to settle drug wholesalers' EpiPen antitrust claims | Reuters Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
Today's episode is a Drug Disposal Quiz in honor of the up-coming DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back Day (USA), which will be Saturday, October 28, 2023, from 10 AM - 2 PM. Thank you for listening to episode 242 of The Pharmacist's Voice ® Podcast! To read the FULL show notes, visit https://www.thepharmacistsvoice.com/podcast. Select episode 242. Subscribe to or follow The Pharmacist's Voice ® Podcast to get each new episode delivered to your podcast player and YouTube every time a new one comes out! Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/42yqXOG Google Podcasts https://bit.ly/3J19bws Spotify https://spoti.fi/3qAk3uY Amazon/Audible https://adbl.co/43tM45P YouTube https://bit.ly/43Rnrjt During my 22 years as an Ohio-licensed pharmacist, I've taken an interest in Drug Disposal. I believe that pharmacists can make a positive impact in their communities by knowing how to safely dispose of all types of drugs at various times of the year. Ideally, there would be a magical box at every pharmacy, and everything could go in it: solid tablets, liquid allergy medicine, ear drops, Epi-Pens, creams, nasal sprays, inhalers, and so on. However, it just doesn't work that way. As a result, we field questions about drug disposal all the time. To prepare you for those inevitable questions you may field about drug disposal, I put together a Drug Disposal Quiz. This is a crowd-sourcing episode. Feel free to answer one or all of these questions. If you submit a response, you may hear it on the podcast! I'm accepting answers until Oct 20, 2023. Step One: go to https://www.thepharmacistsvoice.com. Step Two: Click the Contact tab. Step Three: Click, “Start recording” Step Four: Leave a voicemail message with the question and answer. As an alternative, fill out the contact form. I may read your answer on the show. If no one answers, you'll hear my responses on Saturday, October 28, 2023 (Drug Take-Back Day). Listen to the episode for the full questions. Key words are below. Fluorouracil cream Expired Epi-Pen Expired OTC's Discontinued lisinopril tablets Info table at the health fair Disposing of illicit substances Grocery sack full of unwanted meds from a patient. When is the last time you cleaned out your medicine cabinet? Where is the closest drug disposal box to you? On drug take-back day, where can you get rid of odd dosage forms? Links from this episode DEA Take-Back Day https://www.dea.gov/takebackday National Pharmaceutical Association (NPhA) Frank North, PharmD on LinkedIn will be my guest Sept 22, 2023. Kim's websites and social media links: ✅Business website https://www.thepharmacistsvoice.com ✅The Pharmacist's Voice ® Podcast https://www.thepharmacistsvoice.com/podcast ✅Pronounce Drug Names Like a Pro © Online Course https://www.kimnewlove.com ✅A Behind-the-scenes look at The Pharmacist's Voice ® Podcast © Online Course https://www.kimnewlove.com ✅LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimnewlove ✅Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kim.newlove.96 ✅Twitter https://twitter.com/KimNewloveVO ✅Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kimnewlovevo/ ✅YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA3UyhNBi9CCqIMP8t1wRZQ ✅ACX (Audiobook Narrator Profile) https://www.acx.com/narrator?p=A10FSORRTANJ4Z ✅Start a podcast with the same coach who helped me get started (Dave Jackson from The School of Podcasting)! **Affiliate Link - NEW 9-8-23** Thank you for listening to episode 242 of The Pharmacist's Voice ® Podcast!
State Senator Mike Halpin joins the Sound of the State to highlight a new law imposing a cap on the cost of EpiPens for Illinois families.
It's In the News, a look at the top stories and headlines from the diabetes community happening now. Top stories this week: a new insulin pump gets FDA approval, once-weekly basal insulin for type 2 gets through another trial, New Jersey caps insulin prices for some, possible link between ability to chew and glucose control, a landmark diabetes study moves on to aging and T1D, JDRF Children's Congress and more! Learn about Moms' Night Out - a new event for moms of children with diabetes Please visit our Sponsors & Partners - they help make the show possible! Take Control with Afrezza Omnipod - Simplify Life Learn about Dexcom Check out VIVI Cap to protect your insulin from extreme temperatures Learn more about AG1 from Athletic Greens Drive research that matters through the T1D Exchange The best way to keep up with Stacey and the show is by signing up for our weekly newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter here Here's where to find us: Facebook (Group) Facebook (Page) Instagram Twitter Check out Stacey's books! Learn more about everything at our home page www.diabetes-connections.com Reach out with questions or comments: info@diabetes-connections.com Hello and welcome to Diabetes Connections In the News! I'm Stacey Simms and these are the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now XX In the news is brought to you by AG1. AG1 helps you build your health, foundation first. XX Our top story, Tandem's Mobi Pump is approved. The FDA cleared the tiny pump for people with diabetes ages six and up. Tandem says mobie is fully controllable from a mobile app and is the world's smallest durable AID system. It still has a button on the pump to dose and holds 200 units. You use the same infusion set as the current Tandem pumps and Mobi uses Control IQ. Limited release planned for late this year and fully available early 2024. https://www.drugdeliverybusiness.com/fda-clears-tandem-mobi-automated-insulin-pump/ XX Learning more about a newly approved therapy for type 1 diabetes called Lantidra. Two safety and efficacy studies found that 21 participants who took Lantidra did not need to administer themselves insulin for a year or more. Twelve of those participants did not need to take insulin for up to 5 years, and 9 did not need insulin for over 5 years. Lantidra is an allogeneic (donor) pancreatic islet cellular therapy. In other words, Lantidra uses cells taken — or isolated — from human organ donor pancreases. “In [a] subsequent process, the insulin-producing islets are purified from the rest of the pancreatic tissue using a density gradient. Once the islets are isolated, purified, and put for a short time in cell culture, the cell preparation is infused into the liver of the recipient,” he explained. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/fda-approves-first-cellular-therapy-for-type-1-diabetes-what-does-it-do#How-does-islet-cellular-therapy-work? XX Once weekly basal insulin for type 2 gets through another trial. After 26 weeks of treatment and five weeks of follow-up, patients on weekly insulin icodec had significantly larger improvements in their HbA1C than those using daily insulin. Both groups had an extremely low rate of adverse events. These researches say next step is FDA evaluation. https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2023/july-weekly-insulin-found-safe.html XX That's the idea behind Fractyl Health's treatment for type 2 diabetes—which could also be used for weight control. The Lexington, Massachusetts-based biotech company is in the early stages of developing a one-time gene therapy intended to lower blood sugar and body weight using the same mechanism as semaglutide. “You have this problem where you need to stay on therapy for efficacy,” says Harith Rajagopalan, a cardiologist by training and CEO and cofounder of Fractyl Health. “That's the Achilles heel.” The company wants to deliver an artificial gene to the pancreas that continuously produces the GLP-1 hormone so there's no need for weekly injections. The approach, called gene therapy, uses inactivated viruses to carry a therapeutic gene to pancreatic cells. (Viruses are used because of their natural ability to deliver genetic material to cells.) The company is aiming to begin an initial human trial by the end of 2024 https://www.wired.com/story/a-one-time-shot-for-type-2-diabetes-a-biotech-company-is-on-it/ XX Gov. Phil Murphy signed three bills into law Monday aimed at cutting the high cost of prescription drugs in New Jersey. The new laws will cap how much residents will pay for some popular medications such as insulin, prevent pharmacy benefit managers from engaging in practices that make drugs more expensive, and create a panel that will monitor prices set by pharmaceutical companies. One measure (S1614) would cap the cost of insulin, epinephrine auto-injector devices and asthma inhalers for state and local public workers enrolled in the State Health Benefits Program, the School Employees' Health Benefits Program and other state-regulated plans. For a 30-day supply, insulin will cost $35, EpiPens $25 and asthma inhalers would be capped at $50, according to the bill. The law takes effect next year. https://www.nj.com/politics/2023/07/new-laws-to-stem-high-cost-of-prescription-drugs-in-nj-were-just-signed-by-gov-murphy.html XX The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Tuesday it has extended its probe into Novo Nordisk's (NOVOb.CO) diabetes drugs Ozempic and weight-loss treatment Saxenda, following two reports of suicidal thoughts, to include other drugs in the same class. The agency began its review on July 3 after Iceland's health regulator flagged the reports of patients thinking about suicide and one case of thoughts of self harm after use of Novo's drugs. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/eu-extends-ozempic-probe-include-other-drugs-2023-07-11/ XX We often hear that diabetes can lead to problems with your teeth.. but one researcher says it might be the other way around. A University at Buffalo researchers says there is a notable correlation between chewing functionality and blood glucose levels in people with type 2. Specifically, he found that patients with T2D who maintain a full chewing ability exhibit significantly lower blood glucose levels compared to those with compromised chewing function. The thinking here is that chewing stimulates the body in all sorts of ways, including releasing hormones that help you feel fuller and help in digestion. More studies are expected. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284319 https://scitechdaily.com/the-surprising-connection-between-chewing-and-type-2-diabetes/ XX The next step of the landmark Diabetes Control and Complications Trial will focus on aging with type 1 diabetes. The original randomized DCCT clinical trial results, published September 30, 1993, in the New England Journal of Medicine, proved that early intensive glycemic control was the key to preventing or slowing the progression of long-term eye, kidney, and nerve complications of type 1 diabetes. Subsequently, EDIC has yielded many more major findings including that early tight glycemic control also reduces cardiovascular risk and prolongs survival in type 1 diabetes. subsequent EDIC data also have suggested that it is never too late to initiate intensive glycemic control Together, DCCT and EDIC — both funded by the National Institutes of Health at 27 sites in the United States and Canada — have changed the standard of care for people with type 1 diabetes Prior to the DCCT, between 1930 and 1970, about a third of people with type 1 diabetes developed vision loss and one in five experienced kidney failure and/or myocardial infarction. Stroke and amputation were also common, DCCT/EDIC chair David M. Nathan, MD, said while introducing the symposium. "All of the advances in care of type 1 diabetes have developed because this study demonstrated that it was important — continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), new insulins, better [insulin] pumps…I think the most profound finding is that mortality in our intensively treated cohort is the same as in the general population. That says it all," Nathan told Medscape Medical News. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/994221 XX Commercial – AG1 XX Today, JDRF, the leading global type 1 diabetes (T1D) research and advocacy organization, urged members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to renew the Special Diabetes Program (SDP) and support policies to ensure insulin is available at an affordable and predictable price. Opened by U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and led by U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the hearing took place during the 2023 JDRF Children's Congress, a biennial event that brings over 160 kids and teens living with T1D face-to-face with lawmakers and top decision-makers. The youth delegates traveled to Washington, D.C. from across the country and JDRF's international affiliates in the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada. The SDP has accelerated the pace of T1D research through a long-term investment of funding at the National Institutes of Health. The program has led to significant scientific breakthroughs, including Tzield, the first disease-modifying treatment for T1D, which can delay the onset of the disease by over two years. Without Congressional action, the SDP will expire at the end of September. "The Special Diabetes Program has fundamentally changed what it means to live with diabetes, put new life-changing therapies in our hands, and brought us closer to cures," said Aaron Kowalski, Ph.D., JDRF CEO. "We must keep this momentum going so we can capitalize on the progress to date and realize cures. However, until we have cures, people need access to affordable insulin. JDRF urges Congress to pass the bipartisan INSULIN Act of 2023, which will establish a $35 per month insulin copay cap for people with commercial insurance and includes other provisions that would make insulin more affordable for everyone, regardless of insurance status." Dr. Kowalski was joined at the hearing by Dr. Griffin Rodgers, Director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, who provided testimony on the scientific value of the SDP, and Jimmy Jam, award-winning producer, songwriter, musician, member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and T1D parent. "My son Max, who is now in his twenties, was just two years old when he was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Late nights working on music became late nights working on music and waking up my son to test and manage his blood sugar levels," said Jimmy Jam. "Type 1 diabetes should be one of those things we can all agree on. Diabetes doesn't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican. We can all agree that there should be research to improve the lives of those with diabetes. We can all agree that insulin should be affordable for all who need it." Two 2023 JDRF Children's Congress delegates shared their T1D experience with the committee: Maria Muayad: 10-year-old Maria is from Maine and is a member of her school's civil rights club and math challenge group. Every November, Maria, and her mother, Golsin, give blue ribbons to the staff at her school in honor of National Diabetes Awareness Month. Elise Cataldo: 15-year-old Elise lives in New Hampshire and is passionate about educating those around her about life with T1D and tries to use things like pump site changes and blood sugar checks as opportunities to help others learn. Following the hearing, the 2023 JDRF Children's Congress delegates continued their advocacy by meeting with lawmakers in their Capitol Hill offices. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2023-jdrf-childrens-congress-delegates-urge-lawmakers-to-support-type-1-diabetes-research-and-access-to-affordable-insulin-301874927.htmlXX XX A 23-year-old with type 1 diabetes has broken the record for circumnavigating Britain in a kayak after paddling 2,000 miles in 40 days. Dougal Glaisher beat the previous record by 27 days. Glaisher was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 19 shortly after winning the Oban Sea Kayak race in Scotland, when he had blurred vision and struggled to recover his energy. The expedition was to raise money for the UK-based charity Action4Diabetes and Glaisher livestreamed his blood sugar On Tuesday he was well stocked with a bunch of bananas and a stash of cereal bars lashed to his boat. But in remote areas it was more challenging. Around the islands off Scotland he ran out of freeze-dried meals and survived on porridge for several days. He also sourced drinking water from streams. . It is the first time anyone has used a surfski – a kayak that you sit on top of – to paddle around the country. XX On the podcast next week.. I sat down with Dexcom's new Chief Commercial officer to talk about their announcements from this week about the type 2 market and other features important to people with type 1. Our last epoisde is all about Kickass Healthy LADA That's In the News for this week.. if you like it, please share it! Thanks for joining me! See you back here soon.
Zero Grav and Astro Alacorn talk about Universal Studios, Super Nintendo World, Disneyland, Upland Lemon Festival, theme park rides, allergic reactions, price gouging, EpiPens, Big Pharma, flaky people, lack of free time, and much more. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/zero-grav/support
Wellness Wednesday. One day a week on my one hour weekday radio show, I cover all things health and wellness related. Things I find important or interesting that I like to share with others who might benefit. If even one nugget of new knowledge helps one of you listening or reading here, my time has been well spent. This Wellness Wednesday show podcast is just me talking. No guests. Just Me. (and occasionally my engineer Bob) There was big news this week that we have a crisis of loneliness going on here in the U.S. Half of the U.S. Adults are feeling lonely every day? How horrible is that? The U.S. Surgeon General released an advisory on Tuesday calling attention to the public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection in the United States. Everyone should read the story from ABC News called ‘US Surgeon General calls for action regarding the ongoing 'epidemic of loneliness and isolation', by Emma Egan. The report highlights that a lack of social connection can present significant health risks, as loneliness can increase risk of premature death by 26% and social isolation by 29%. On the flip side…U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy was quoted as saying, "Social connection can reduce the health risks associated with isolation and loneliness.” “By taking small steps every day to strengthen our relationships, we can rise to meet this moment together… And we can ensure our country and the world are better posed than ever to take on the challenges that lay ahead.” I'm personally suggesting that everybody put a little more effort into stepping up your social connections for your own sake and for the good of us all. And check in with a friend, a family member or someone who you think might need a dose of caring…just because. Hey if parrots can do it we can do it. What? You missed the story about the parrots being taught to call each other to become less lonely? It's True. U.S. scientists got owners to train their pet parrots to contact other birds using a touchscreen tablet. Read the story in The Guardian Here. Other Topics I covered this episode include; Why are Teen Girls Suffering from Record Levels of Sadness and Suicidality? A very disturbing report from Amen CLINICS. Parents and caretakers of teenage girls really need to read this. World Password Day. Celebrated the first Thursday of May exists to raise awareness about the importance of password security. I say create passwords that makes you smile each time you type one in! What Does a Kids Healthy Eating Plate Look Like? Just because I always have a stash of emergency lollipops and gummies in my car, doesn't mean I don't ‘try' and teach my little granddaughter about healthy eating. The Kid's Healthy Eating Plate featured on Harvard.edu is a visual guide to help educate and encourage children to eat well and keep moving. Everyone and their mother is playing Pickleball. What's the draw — and is it really a workout? Found some good answers in this NY Times story here; I only tried Pickleball once but so far I don't think like the Pickleball ‘ball'. As a tennis player I'm not sure I can get used to what feels like a WIFFLE BALL. While we're on the subject of Wiffle Balls (we weren't but who cares) did you know where the Wiffle Ball came from? It was Summer 1953, and a Dad was watching his kids play a game in their backyard in Fairfield Ct. using a perforated plastic gold ball and a broomstick handle. The rest of the story and family legacy is here on Wiffle.com Ever get an allergic reaction and freak out? Me too. That's relaxing, eh? It's why I always carry Benadryl with me especially when traveling. ‘Allergies in the sky: Airlines are pressed to treat severe reactions', was a report this week from NBC. The FAA is considering updates to their emergency kits including Epi Pens, pediatric doses of antihistamines and meds to reverse opioid overdoses. BTW: AN EpiPen® is an auto-injector that contains epinephrine, a medication that can help decrease your body's allergic reaction by: Relaxing the muscles in your airways to make breathing easier Helping to reverse the rapid and dangerous decrease in blood pressure Relaxing the muscles in the stomach, intestines, and bladder EpiPen® is for emergency treatment only and does not replace seeing a healthcare provider or going to the hospital.
Many assaults on the environment happen slowly and continually, almost invisibly to us: starting a car engine, buying meat at the grocery store, throwing away a plastic straw.Mountaintop removal is different. It is sudden and violent and intentionally, unmistakably destructive. Coal companies will blow off the tops of mountains with explosives in order to more easily and cheaply access the coal seams underneath vast swaths of forest, streams, and wildlife habitat. They destroy massive areas of wild land to produce a dirty energy that heavily pollutes the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Their use of explosives also allows them to employ many fewer miners.Mountaintop removal was one of the big environmental stories in the media in the last couple decades. There were massive protests and a lot of bad press for the coal companies.Now coal production is down in the US, and dramatic and shocking stories about mountaintop removal have largely disappeared from the headlines, but mountaintop removal has not gone away. As the easier-to-access coal is mined, the amount of land that must be destroyed by mountain removal to produce the same amount of coal has increased.One report that demonstrates this is from SkyTruth, an environmental advocacy group that uses satellite imagery and remote sensing data to study environmental damage. They published a study showing that the amount of land needed to produce a unit of coal in 2015 was three times more than it had been in 1998.Vernon Haltom and Junior Walk haven't forgotten what's happening in West Virginia and Appalachia, because they live it every day. They both work for Coal River Mountain Watch, the organization previously directed by Judy Bonds, the renowned mountaintop removal activist from West Virginia, who was the daughter of a coal miner and died of cancer in 2011 at age 58.Vernon and Junior's stories are urgent environmental ones, but they are also stories about the media and how we forget and move on.This episode of Chrysalis is the first in the Chrysalis Projects series, which highlights the work of community-based environmental projects.You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word!Vernon HaltomVernon Haltom has a BS in Mechanical Engineering (Aerospace Option) from Oklahoma State University and a BA in English Education from Northwestern Oklahoma State University. He served six years as an officer in the US Air Force, specializing in nuclear weapons safety and security. He then taught high school English for two years and English as a Second Language to college students for four years. He began volunteering for Coal River Mountain Watch in 2004 and has served on the staff since 2005, serving as executive director since 2011. He was involved in founding the regional Mountain Justice movement in 2004, the Alliance for Appalachia in 2006, and the Appalachian Community Health Emergency (ACHE) Campaign in 2012.Junior WalkJunior Walk grew up on Coal River Mountain in Raleigh County, WV, taking part in traditional Appalachian activities such as harvesting ginseng and mushrooms. He worked for a time in a coal preparation plant and then as a security guard on a mountaintop removal site, where he learned firsthand the damage coal harvesting had on the mountains and the communities below. He began working with Coal River Mountain Watch and other groups in 2009. In 2011 he was awarded the Brower Youth Award. Since that time his work has taken various forms, including lobbying on federal and state levels, gathering data for lawsuits against coal companies, and even getting arrested doing direct action at surface mines and corporate offices. In 2021 he was awarded a fellowship with Public Lab to help support his work monitoring the coal mines in his community via drones. Junior now serves as the outreach coordinator for Coal River Mountain Watch, monitoring coal mines in his community for environmental violations and guiding tours for visiting journalists and student groups.About Coal River Mountain Watch Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW) is a grassroots organization founded in 1998 in response to the fear and frustration of people living near or downstream from huge mountaintop removal sites. They began as a small group of volunteers working to organize the residents of southern West Virginia to fight for social, economic, and environmental justice. From their humble beginnings, they have become a major force in opposition to mountaintop removal. Their outreach coordinator, Julia Bonds, was the 2003 Goldman Prize winner for North America. CRMW's efforts figure prominently in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s book Crimes against Nature. They have been active in federal court to challenge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits for valley fills and made regional news with demonstrations against a sludge dam and preparation plant near Marsh Fork Elementary School. Find CRMW online: Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.About Judy Bonds“Born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, Julia “Judy” Bonds was a coal miner's daughter and director of Coal River Mountain Watch. Bonds emerged as a formidable community leader against a highly destructive mining practice called mountaintop removal that is steadily ravaging the Appalachian mountain range and forcing many residents, some of whom have lived in the region for generations, to abandon their homes.” - Learn more at The Goldman Environmental Prize Website.Recommended Readings & MediaSee more of Junior's drone work here and other Coal River Mountain flyovers here.TranscriptionIntroJohn FiegeMany assaults on the environment happen slowly and continually, almost invisibly to us: starting a car engine, buying meat at the grocery store, throwing away a plastic straw.Mountaintop removal is different. It is sudden and violent and intentionally, unmistakably destructive. Coal companies will blow off the tops of mountains with dynamite in order to more easily and cheaply access the coal seams underneath vast swaths of forest, streams, and wildlife habitat. They destroy massive areas of wild land to produce a dirty energy that heavily pollutes the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Their use of dynamite also allows them to employ many fewer miners.Mountaintop removal was one of the big environmental stories in the media in the last couple decades. There were massive protests and a lot of bad press for the coal companies.Now coal production is down in the US, and dramatic and shocking stories about mountaintop removal have largely disappeared from the headlines, but mountaintop removal has not gone away. As the easier-to-access coal is mined, the amount of land that must be destroyed by mountain removal to produce the same amount of coal has increased.One report that demonstrates this is from SkyTruth, an environmental advocacy group that uses satellite imagery and remote sensing data to study environmental damage. They published a study showing that the amount of land needed to produce a unit of coal in 2015 was three times more than it had been in 1998.Vernon Haltom and Junior Walk haven't forgotten what's happening in West Virginia and Appalachia, because they live it every day. They both work for Coal River Mountain Watch, the organization previously directed by Judy Bonds, the renowned mountaintop removal activist from West Virginia, who was the daughter of a coal miner and died of cancer in 2011 at age 58.Vernon and Junior's stories are urgent environmental ones, but they are also stories about the media and how we forget and move on.I'm John Fiege, and this conversation about Coal River Mountain Watch is part of the Chrysalis Project series. Here are Vernon Haltom and Junior Walk.---ConversationJohn FiegeI was hoping that you all could start by telling me a bit about your backgrounds and how you both came to work for Coal River Mountain Watch.Vernon HaltomMy background is, I was raised in Oklahoma, went to Oklahoma State University, went into the Air Force, went back into education, got my English teaching degree, and taught English for a while in high school, taught English as a second language. Just before I moved to West Virginia, I started learning about mountaintop removal. And while I was there I saw it in person and I met Judy Bonds and began volunteering with Coal River Mountain Watch in 2004. Came on staff at the beginning of 2005, and I've been there since.When I heard Judy Bonds on the radio in 2003, she was the Goldman Environmental Prize winner at the time. She was so inspirational and so motivational that seeing the problem of mountaintop removal and seeing what the coal companies were doing to the communities was unbearable.John FiegeAnd how about you, Junior?Junior WalkYeah, so I graduated high school in 2008. Shortly before I graduated, I realized that in this country you kind of need money to go to college. And so realized I wasn't really going to be able to do that. And so I was stuck here in southern West Virginia. And like many people who are in that situation, I went to work for the coal industry. At 17 years old, I went to work for the Elk Run coal processing plant in Sylvester, West Virginia. I worked there for about six months as I graduated high school and quickly learned that that's not something I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It's dangerous work, it's difficult work, and it doesn't pay enough.And so did some minimum wage work for a while, Dollar Store, Dairy Queen, that sort of thing. And eventually, I was offered a position as a security guard on a surface mine, and I figured sitting on my butt for 12 hours a day making money, I could handle that and so I did that. I did also for about six months, but within the first couple weeks of me working up there, I felt miserable about it. Sitting up there, watching that machinery work and them tearing down the mountains and knowing that the people who live below that mine site were going through the same stuff I went through when I was a kid. Contaminated water, dust, coal trucks rumbling by your house, trains. I felt bad about putting other people through that, continuing that cycle of exploitation.John FiegeWhen you were a kid, how aware were you of that as a problem versus just your reality that you didn't question?Junior WalkWell, we had well water at my house when I was growing up and they were doing coal slurry injection on the hillside above my family's home. And so coal slurry is a byproduct of coal processing. When coal is mined regardless if it's taken from an underground mine or a surface mine, the first stop for that coal is a processing plant. And that's where it's put through a series of chemical washes to be suitable to burn in a power plant to fit within clean air act regulations. And the byproduct of that is that coal slurry. So that's everything in the coal that they're not allowed to burn and put into the atmosphere as well as all the chemical agents that are used to take those impurities out. And they dispose of that in a few different ways, but one such way is by injecting it into old abandoned underground coal mines. And that's what they were doing right above my family's home. And so our water came out of my tap red for years, and I always knew that had something to do with the coal industry.In addition to that, through my entire elementary school career, I attended Marsh Fork Elementary, which at the time, was situated directly next to a coal processing plant and a coal slurry impoundment, which is the other way that the industry disposes of this coal waste. They put it into these huge earthen dams. So when you think about a dam, you are usually thinking about concrete and steel and that sort of thing, like the Hoover Dam. But when you're talking about a dam as in a slurry impoundment, you're talking about a bunch of dirt and rubble and trees that are dumped into the face of a valley, used to create a giant berm up to the top of the hilltop almost. And that whole holler back in behind there is back filled with liquid waste. And so that was right directly next to my elementary school.John FiegeWow. And that was one of the projects that you all did in terms of relocating that elementary school?Junior WalkIt was, yeah.John FiegeWere you part of that project?Junior WalkYeah. So essentially, while I was a security guard up there, I decided to come and have a conversation with Judy, who'd I'd known ever since I was a little kid, because I went to school with her grandson. And I think she also worked with my grandma at various times at gas stations and stuff. But from there, I started volunteering with Coal River Mountain Watch while I was a security guard. And a few months down the road, I was offered a position on staff. And I started on staff at Coal River Mountain Watch in January of 2010, and that's what I've been doing ever since.John FiegeWell, could each of you also describe the mountains and forests and waterways and biodiversity in Raleigh County and the area around Coal River Mountain?Junior WalkThe topography is large valleys with a bunch of smaller valleys jutting off from it, which are known as hollers. And then each of those little hollers have hollers branching off from it, just going way back into the mountain and up to the tops. And it can feel very isolated here because it takes so long to get to anywhere else. If you think about it, if you're up in the head of a holler that's in a holler, then you've got to travel out two hollers before you even hit the main road. In a lot of places around here, it's like an hour to your closest McDonald's or Walmart or any of that stuff.John FiegeAnd what are some of your memories from childhood of being within that?Junior WalkGoing hunting with my dad and my uncle, my papa. Traveling way back into the woods either in trucks and then later on, four wheelers caught on, and we'd take those. And just being in the forest and being taught how to bring food back out, why it's important for us to take care of these places where you can do those sorts of things.John FiegeRight. Right. Well, as the production of coal has been plummeting in the United States over the last few years, it's easy to think of American coal mining and mountaintop removal as vestiges of the past, but they're not. Can you all describe what mountaintop removal is, what it's like to witness it, and what's going on right now with coal mining in Raleigh County and in the surrounding areas?Vernon HaltomMountaintop removal is still going on. It's still expanding. They don't stop. There are new permits. The Turkey Foot permit on, it's well over a thousand acres, I want to say 1700 acres, on Coal River Mountain was approved last year. The valley fill permits for that will bury over three miles of streams, and that's just part of the overall 12 square mile complex on Coal River Mountain that includes the 8 billion gallon Brushy Fork sludge dam. So the myth that it's over is just that, a myth. And that's one of the biggest obstacles to our work because it's hard to get somebody to listen about your cause if they think that your cause is over.And our backyard is Cherry Pond Mountain, the Twilight complex there is 12 square miles and the coal company operating there, they have 81 civil penalty delinquency letters since December 14th. And they're still allowed to operate, they're still getting permits renewed.John FiegeYeah, I think that's one of the dirty secrets of our environmental regulations in this country is, industry is constantly violating those regulations and often being even fined for it, if not warned about it, but they keep operating. The money they're making is so much greater than the costs of dealing with those petty violations.Vernon HaltomOne of the permits that was recently renewed, it was actually signed on April 1st, April Fool's Day, the day after the company received a civil penalty delinquency letter. And the same company also had received a show cause notice just before that. It was something that we had requested because they had so many violations within the previous year. But the corrective action is what's called a consent order, where the company agrees to comply with the regulations and the laws, but there's really no teeth involved. They tell them they have to have three consecutive days of no coal removal and they're just going to schedule that in it. It's not going to be punitive.John FiegeAnd then there are no consequences. And the threat is, we might be mad at you.Vernon HaltomNo consequences. Sometimes the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection will wag their finger. On rare occasions, they will slap a wrist, but usually it's just a scowl.John FiegeRight. And if you compare it to the daily profits, it's just nothing.Vernon HaltomAnd one thing that I think it's important too, I always say that mountaintop removal is the cradle of the climate crisis. So many people think that this is just a local problem, but it's not just a local problem. The coal that's extracted from the mountains becomes CO2 and contributes to global heating. The trees, the forests that are destroyed, and it's not just the trees, it's everything in the forest, is demolished. So there's no longer a carbon sink there and the blasting dust that goes into the communities, and Junior has a video, a drone video of a blasting cloud coming from Coal River Mountain drifting down through the communities of McDowell Branch and Workman Creek at least two miles. And that is deadly. Those health consequences that have killed so many of our friends continue unabated.West Virginia DEP will not issue a violation for fugitive dust. They just never do. That is what the main culprit in over 30 health studies now that have been done. It's increasingly apparent that breathing this ultra fine silica that's like very, very fine glass that goes right through your cell membranes is not good for you. It causes cancer and heart disease and birth defects. We've lost Judy Bonds for the cancer. We've lost Joanne Webb to cancer. We've lost Larry Gibson to heart disease. We lost Chuck Nelson to heart disease. We lost Carol Judy to cancer. We lost Vicki Terry to cancer.John FiegeAnd Junior, can you talk about, having grown up in those forests and on those rivers, what is it like for you on an emotional and a visceral level to witness the mountaintop removal and these other side effects of it?Junior WalkWe've lost a lot of friends in the course of fighting against this stuff. And seeing some of these places that I've grown up digging ginseng and hunting and riding four wheelers and hiking, seeing some of these places go from these lush, almost tropical type of forests up on top of these mountains where you're never going to run into another human being, into just a bare rock face, just a vast moonscape. It's like losing a friend.John FiegeYeah. I think one thing that's difficult for a lot of Americans to recognize is that close connection to the land, because so many people in our country have lost that close connection to the land.Junior WalkCan you blame them? Look at the land that they're given. You know what I mean? Most people looks out their window and they see a big old four-lane with stop lights and billboards and gas station signs and all that mess. And it's hard to feel a connection to that. I'm lucky for where I come up at.John FiegeLucky on the one hand, and then feeling the pain of watching it be destroyed on the other. And can you all catalog for me the impacts on ecosystems, on water and air quality, on flood risk, on human health, of mountaintop removal and other coal production in that area?Vernon HaltomWhen I first moved to West Virginia in 2001, the place was flooding. Some of the communities lost several homes, and most of that was in areas near mountaintop removal. Now, there are more valley fills and more mountaintop removal coming so the flood impacts is one of the first things that propelled the formation of Coal River Mountain Watch. So many people concerned about their homes from flooding in 1998 that killed two people in Artie, West Virginia. So that's one of the first concerns. Then you have the blasting, which emits the ultra fine silica dust and other pollutants as well into the lungs of children and elderly and everybody in between in the communities. And blasting also cracks foundations, cracks walls.If you're prone to PTSD and hear these massive explosions every day, that's not helpful for your mental health. The health impacts from mountaintop removal are deadly, so there's that. There's water pollution. The valley fills that are created continue to pollute the water for decades. We don't know yet how long, because the earliest valley fills are still polluting after 30 years or so.John FiegeCan you describe what a valley fill is and how it's done and why it's done?Vernon HaltomOkay, thank you. Because a lot of people get this wrong. So when you take the top off a mountain, you use a lot of explosives and you break the rock up and then you bulldoze it out of the way to get to the coal. Well, that rock and rubble has to go somewhere. So what the coal companies do is they dump it into the creeks and streams and hollows that are the natural contours of the mountains. They compress it, they pack it down. And some of them are miles long, and the miles of streams, over 2000 miles of streams have been impacted by valley fills.John FiegeCovered up, and they're gone?Vernon HaltomThey're covered and they're gone. They're buried. They're completely buried. They're hundreds of feet under this rubble. And so that contributes to the flooding, but you also have that contributing to pollution in the water because all this rock that was segregated from the rain and the sun and the wind for millions of millions of years is now broken up into smaller chunks. If you imagine grinding your coffee and putting it in a basket to make coffee, that's a similar process. So the rain leeches through that and the various minerals and pollutants that were locked up in the rock for all those millennia are now seeping back into the streams. And we don't know how long that will last, but considering the vast scale of these, it'll be forever. You have sediment ponds at the toe of these valley fills where the treatment is done, and that has to be done forever.We've seen coal companies go bankrupt or those obligations not being taken care of, otherwise. The coal companies aren't going to be there forever. When they stop doing that, it's still going to be polluting the streams. So we've lost a large fraction of the species of fish in a lot of the streams and a large fraction of the numbers of fish too, at least a third. So that is a huge impact.John FiegeThe forest itself in the valley is covered in this rubble as well, right?Vernon HaltomIt is.John FiegeSo you have a functioning forest ecosystem in addition to the stream ecosystem that are both completely covered with dirt and destroyed.Vernon HaltomAnd they're all interrelated. The leaves that fall from the trees are processed by the bugs in the streams, and those bugs feed the fish and some of the fish and bugs are eaten by birds. And it's a whole system of overlapping cycles that is part of the beauty of the Appalachian forests.John FiegeWell, and the rest of the country often views folks in West Virginia, and especially folks from coal mining towns and coal mining families as being diehard coal supporters and extremely anti-environmental. And the industries and politicians who profit tremendously from coal production, love to use the West Virginia coal miner as this symbol of American freedom and hard work and that type of thing. The view from the ground is always much more complicated. Can you all talk a bit about the communities in Raleigh County and the views of folks there toward coal mining and mountaintop removal and these coal companies, like Massey Energy, that profits so handsomely from this exploitation and destruction?Vernon HaltomReally quick, just let me point out part of the myth that everybody is for mountaintop removal. Consistently the polls and surveys show that people in West Virginia and elsewhere in Appalachia oppose mountaintop removal two to one. That's not insignificant. And the idea that everybody in West Virginia works for the coal industry is also a myth. Less than 3% of West Virginia's workforce works for the coal industry. Less than half of 1% works in mountaintop removal. Some of that's clustered in specific places. There are a lot more teachers than there are coal miners in West Virginia.Junior WalkThings are always a lot more complicated than they initially seem from the national headlines, at least in most cases. And definitely, there isn't like a homogenous view that everybody in southern West Virginia shares about the coal industry. Opinions and political beliefs and everything else is just as diverse down in here as they are anywhere else. Sure, you've got people who are die hard coal industry supporters that whether they work in the industry or somebody in their family does or not, they're still going to believe whatever the right wing news media shoves down their throat about the coal industry and all that. But then you also have a lot of people who don't feel that way about it.The vast majority of people around here are apathetic about the coal industry because whether that apathy stems from just not thinking about it that much, or whether that apathy stems from a defeatist attitude of, oh, the coal industry, that's the people who have the money and the power and they're going to do whatever they want. That's probably different on a person by person basis. But then you also do have a segment of the population here who are vehemently against stripping the land. Even if they think that the economic benefits of the coal industry and of the past underground mining and stuff like that have been worth it, they'll still draw the line at mountaintop removal or surface mining.John FiegeSo one thing I see over and over again and all across the country, different industries, is this argument that industry tries to make, that the people in the communities where these polluting and destructive activities happen, they want that to go on. They want those jobs, they want the economic activity, they're supportive. The people who are against it are outside agitators or urban environmentalists or professional activists. All these terms you hear thrown around. And I was just wondering if you all could talk about that a little bit and this image that industry often tries to paint of the division between people from the community who are supportive and people from outside the community who are in opposition.Junior WalkFor sure. And I'll say that around here, the vast majority of the good paying coal mining jobs do not go to people who live directly around those coal mines. These people drive in an hour down into here to work, and when they get done working, they get to go back home and turn on their tap water and it comes out clean. They get to send their kids to school somewhere that ain't in danger from being too close to coal operations. They get to drive on roads in their little cul-de-sacs and middle class subdivisions and not have to be worried about getting flattened like a pancake by a coal truck.Those are the people who benefit from the coal industry. It ain't the people who lives in the trailer park right below the big strip mine who are now dealing with a bunch of runoff water and a bunch of dust and everything else.John FiegeAnd those micro differences of different communities is completely lost in the national conversation about these things, I think.Junior WalkAbsolutely.Vernon HaltomOne of the things in West Virginia is you have so much of the industry propaganda infiltrating the schools, even on Earth Day, Alpha Metallurgical Resources hosted kids from Clear Fork Elementary School onto their mountaintop removal site. They had big banners, their trucks. All that's really fun and cool if you're a kid, but Clear Fork Elementary is also within a mile of three mountaintop removal sites and a fourth one if Alpha gets their permit for that one. So there's that support, sometimes locally, but I think the people who are often opposed to it are intimidated, either intimidated by violence or intimidated by opinions of somebody's cousin's nephew's brother-in-law who happens to work for the industry.John FiegeAnd coal supporters often claim that shutting down coal production will destroy communities that grew up around coal and the economies that support them. What do you all make of those claims?Junior WalkI think if the coal industry brought prosperity and economic vitality for southern West Virginia, we wouldn't be some of the poorest counties in the entire nation. And I think that's the only argument that needs to be made about that.John FiegeRight. Well, y'all have mentioned Judy Bonds already, but she's such a big figure. She's the founder and director of Coal River Mountain Watch. She won the 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize. Her unofficial title is The Godmother of the Anti Mountaintop Removal Movement. I know you both knew her and worked with her. Can you tell me a little bit more about her and just her personality and what role she played in bringing these issues to the national stage?Vernon HaltomI first met Judy in 2004. I first heard her voice on the radio in 2003 after she won the Goldman Environmental Prize. She was not tall. What she lacked in stature, she made up with in heart and passion. She was brave. There's a story of her chasing a bear off because it was intimidating her dog. She used her grandson's track shoes to throw at the bear. She was from a coal mining family. I was one of the people who helped carry Judy's casket to her grave in her backyard. She was the last person out of Marfork Hollow in the community of Packsville, that used to be there before the coal industry made it unbearable to live there.She cared deeply about her family. That's what got her into activism, seeing her grandson standing in a stream holding dead fish. I traveled some with Judy. Driving her car, you had to remove the pillow and scoot the seat back so that you could actually get behind the steering wheel. She loved her community, she cared about her community, even the people that wished her ill. And one of my sons middle names is Jude, and that's for Judy. She had such a huge impact on thousands and thousands of people that her shoes were hard to fill and nobody's tried to fill them and nobody can. But her loss from cancer from breathing mountaintop removal dust for all those years is a huge loss.Junior WalkI was real lucky to know her when I was a kid. My mom actually volunteered with Coal River Mountain Watch in 1998 right after everything was started up. She didn't do it for very long or anything, but I can remember going in there as a kid and they had big pieces of butcher block paper, essentially, on a easel, and she'd let me draw on them and stuff. And it's one of the first places I ever messed with a computer at, was at the old Coal River Mountain Watch office there. The one story that really sticks in my mind about Judy and me is, so when I was about eight years old, this is around '98, there was a community meeting at the old Pettus School, which doesn't exist anymore. Now, it's a parking lot for coal mines. I went there, my mom brought me there when I was a little kid, and I remember standing up and asking Judy if they want to blow up the mountains, why don't we all just hold hands around the mountains and they can't? I was a little kid.And then years later, you fast forward and I started working for Coal River Mountain Watch and all that. And there's this one point in time Judy looks at me and she said, "Junior, do you know you're the first person to ever bring up direct action to me?" Referencing all the way back to that. And that ain't something I talk about an awful lot because that's kinda unbelievable. When I first started working for Mountain Watch and stuff, the actions and all that had been going on for quite a few years-John FiegeReally?Junior Walk... from when I was a teenager and stuff. And I wasn't involved in any of that, so it's crazy to think.John FiegeWow, that's amazing. And Judy's known for doing this non-violent direct action. And at this point, I know you all are doing a lot of monitoring work on foot with GPS and with small planes and drones. Can you talk about the various strategies that Coal River Mountain Watch uses and how they relate to the work the organization has done historically?Junior WalkYeah, you pretty well hit the nail on the head there as far as our current strategy, which is the monitoring work, either going up in flights with one of our partner organizations, South Wings, in small aircraft to monitor these mines or with drones or on foot and just hiking around in the mountains and trying not to get seen by security guards. And yeah, I'd say over the years, Coal River Mountain Watch has employed a lot of different tactics, and we've had a lot of different campaigns to the ends of trying to be a nemesis to the coal industry. That's always been our main goal is to be as much of a pain to the coal industry as humanly possible. And so whatever projects we can figure out to work on to meet that goal, that's what we do.And over the years, we've done everything from lobbying in the state capital in Charleston, in Washington, DC, gathering scientific data from lawsuits, traveling around and telling the story of how coal mining has affected our community at various universities or events and things like that, to doing direct action work, getting arrested, doing tree sits and blockades and things of that nature.John FiegeAnd what has changed? I know you were doing more direct action before. What has changed? Has the political environment changed? Do you feel like other tactics are more successful now? What's the thinking there about the shifts in emphasis?Vernon HaltomA lot of the shift in emphasis is the myth that the coal industry is over. In 2015, it was in pretty much every major media outlet that King Coal was dead when Alpha Natural Resources, at the time, requested bankruptcy relief. That was taken as a sign that it was over. And we had allies who said it was essentially over. That's the quotation from their fundraising letter. And some of the minor victories, I call them minor victories, in lawsuits were over-hyped, I think. So a lot of the energy from direct action campaigns went to other related issues, pipelines, fracking and things like that.John FiegeAnd Junior, you went to Marsh Fork Elementary School. What was it like, one, to be there? What did you notice about going to school there? And then secondly, what was it like to then witness this fight as you got older and became an adult and then started working with Coal River Mountain Watch that was doing all this work with Judy around relocation?Junior WalkYeah. So I went to Marsh Fork Elementary from kindergarten through sixth grade, and that would've been from 95 until 2001. And yeah, I can remember dust in the playground, just like when you'd be let out for recess, if you was the first one over to the slides and stuff, there'd be a layer of dust just laying on everything.John FiegeAnd that was silica dust?Junior WalkIt was coal dust.John FiegeIt was coal dust.Junior WalkFrom the processing plant.John FiegeBut the ultra fine silica, that would be more in the air then-Junior WalkIt would be. And that's more from-John FiegeOh, that's from the mountaintop removal.Junior WalkBlasting. Yeah, exactly. Which there is a mountaintop removal site directly behind the processing plant beside the old school, but it wasn't active yet at the time I went there.John FiegeGotcha. So this was straight coal dust?Junior WalkYeah, it was just coal dust. So it got worse after I left, essentially. And I do remember the first silo that they built there, right directly behind the school. It's the only one that they actually built, but it was there when I was a kid, and I can remember the noise of them loading train cars. So imagine a train pulling through a tunnel in the bottom of a massive silo and then just a bunch of coal dropping into each one of those cars every few seconds. It was difficult to concentrate on anything.John FiegeWell, I'm sure that Joe Manchin's kids had to deal with the same stuff in their school-Junior WalkOh yeah.John FiegeDon't you think?Junior WalkGuarantee you that. Is that his daughter's the one that hiked up the price of EpiPens a while back? Yeah, no, I bet she's breathed all kind of coal dust in her life, huh? So from the time I got out of elementary school until I graduated high school, there was two kids that I went to elementary school with that had had cancer by the time we graduated high school, and one of them passed away. And I've had other people that I went to elementary school with who since then until now have passed away. I don't even know how many, but more than a couple. There was a girl that was in my grade that just died, I think last year-John FiegeWhoa.Junior Walk... from cancer. And I solidly blame the coal operations that we were going to school next to.John FiegeWow. And what's it like to see the school moved later and then to begin working for the organization that was responsible for that?Junior WalkTo know that the kids that would be going to school there now have a safe, clean school that they can go to just a few miles up the road from that one. It's amazing. That, to me, even though I was only involved a little bit right at the very end, that's still one of the proudest things I've ever been involved in in my life.John FiegeWell, and just makes it so much more powerful having gone to that school yourself. That's really an incredible story.Vernon HaltomYeah, I guess the sad thing is the new school is two miles from the Eagle 2 mountaintop removal permit. So when they get around to that portion of it, there's kids going to be endangered from that too, if the wind's blowing from the correct direction.John FiegeRight. And I think when people think of coal mining, they think of that, you dig a tunnel in the mountain and you go down there and the coal is there and you knock it off and you put it in rail cars and you send it out. Can you talk just a bit more about why they're doing this mountaintop removal? I know you mentioned it's cheap, but why is it cheap and why are they having to go for these thin sections of coal in the mountain now?Vernon HaltomIt's cheaper because it takes fewer people. If you go and watch a mountaintop removal site, you may see just a handful of people. There will be a guy driving that truck, a guy driving that truck, a guy driving that bulldozer, a guy driving that bulldozer, a security guy and a few people operating the explosives. So the energy and work that used to be done by miners is now done by explosives. And the explosive equivalent of 20 Tomahawk missiles is pretty substantial even though the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection calls that a small blast. It does a lot of damage and it breaks up the rock, and then you just scoop it up, push it down the valley, or push it onto another section of the mountaintop removal site and then scoop up the coal. It's fast and efficient. It's the low hanging fruit of getting to the coal.And if they want to come back later, they just spray some of those grass seed and fertilizer over it and call it good until they want to come back to it. The companies get a variance. They have all these variances, all these regulations and laws that they get the approval to violate, essentially, and they're not able to comply with the regulations. They can't even maintain a ditch. Right now they have a very bad open violation on Coal River Mountain because their ditch failed. The ditch that's supposed to catch the runoff and the sediment, and it's just too steep. And the laws of physics still apply in West Virginia regardless of what the coal industry and the DEP think.John FiegeAnd what's the danger of company abandonment and bankruptcies and all of that, thinking about these issues?Vernon HaltomA lot of the companies had what was called self-bonding, where they themselves guaranteed the money to fix up any reclamation if they were to abandon it. And that's not a good idea. And there are also other companies, insurance companies or what have you, that a company can get their reclamation bond through. But so much of mountaintop removal is subject to failure with too many bankruptcies or too many companies abandoning their obligations, that there is a real potential that the actual cleanup costs could fall on the taxpayer. And frankly, West Virginia taxpayers can't afford it. The state budget already gives more to the coal industry than they get from it.John FiegeWell, in the context of all this, Judy Bonds had to deal with continual threats of violence toward her, as have so many other people who've worked to stop mountaintop removal, like Larry Gibson, well-known activist who was working right near there. How much do you still encounter violence or threats of violence in this work?Junior WalkI'll say, when I first come on staff at Coal River Mountain Watch in 2010, before Judy would start her car, she'd have me go around and look at the underside of it with a mirror to make sure that there wasn't nothing going to surprise her when she started her car. And I think that since then, between the coal industry just generally not employing as many people as they did in 2010, as well as the shift of attitude of a lot of the local people after the Upper Big Branch mine explosion and the drop off of attention from the national news media about surface mining here in West Virginia as an issue. Also, something that's went away with all that has been a lot of the real visceral threats of violence and stuff from the other side, from the coal industry supporters. And that's not to say that it don't still happen, because it most certainly does. And I'm real careful anytime I leave the house just to remember that there are people around here that would rather see me dead. But in recent years, it hasn't been as bad as what it was at the height of the resistance to surface mining here.John FiegeAnd how about you, Vernon? What have you seen?Vernon HaltomBack in 2009, in June of 2009 when we had the big rally at Marsh Fork Elementary School and the protest and the march down to the preparation plant, pretty much everybody had their lives threatened then. My life was threatened, my wife's life was threatened. Judy Bonds was sucker punched. It leaves an impression that regardless of where you are, am I safe here? When is it coming? You're always looking over your shoulder. And some people get treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, when that trauma and that stress is ongoing, there's that concern, that anxiety, that it could happen. And there's also the concern and anxiety for ongoing mountaintop removal. It's a violent process. It kills people.John FiegeWell, what is y'all's vision of what a future Raleigh County or a future West Virginia could look like and how the communities there could find themselves in a much better place than what they have to endure currently?Junior WalkI do not care. It's not my problem what the future is going to look like around here. It's not my problem how a coal miner is going to make their truck payment that they went out and financed some ridiculous big old truck. You know what I mean? That's not my responsibility to come up with what a future's going to look like here. Just because I'm the one that's standing here saying that what's going on now is a problem and it needs to stop, that don't put the burden on my shoulders to tell these people what they're going to do next.John FiegeAnd Junior, is there a world that you want to live in there? For example, do you imagine, hope for, dream of a world without the coal industry operating? Or do you have a vision, not to speak for everybody there or the coal miners or anything like that, but for yourself? What would you like to see there that would be better for you?Junior WalkThe only thing I could see to make this area a better and more livable place is to do away with the coal industry, to stop them from operating completely like 10 years ago, and we haven't done that. They still get to do what they want, and it still makes this place miserable to live for most people or for a whole lot of people. And yeah, I would love to see what this area would look like without the exploitation of the coal industry. I'm sure we would be just fine. The vast majority of the people that live in these communities around here are all retired or disabled. The coal industry dissolving overnight isn't going to affect them. It's going to affect the people, like I said, driving in an hour every day. And whatever happens to them and their cul-de-sac and gated communities, I could care less.John FiegeRight. And why have you stayed?Junior WalkWell, I've stayed here because this is where my family is. Like I was talking about, I've traveled all over the country. I've been to almost every single one of the lower 48, and I've never found anywhere else that I'd rather live. This is a beautiful place. I'm lucky to be from here.John FiegeWhat keeps you going through this difficult work?Junior WalkWell, for me, personally, I'll say that I still feel like I owe it to the people who took me under their wings when I was first starting out in this stuff. Judy Bonds and Larry Gibson, Chuck Nelson, Sid Moye. There's many people that really put a lot of faith into me and put a lot of effort into molding me into who I am today. And I'll be eternally grateful for that. And I still owe it to them and to their memories to keep doing this work until it's done, until there is no more coal industry in southern West Virginia, because that's what they asked of me. And so that's what I'm going to keep doing.And then on top of all that, you can't live around here and see the way that people are exploited and the things they're expected to live through and live with and be okay with and not stand up and say something about it. If you can sit there on your hands and keep your mouth shut just to protect your paycheck from seeing some of the things I've seen, then you're not a good person, and I try to be a good person.Vernon HaltomThe persistence, I think, is something that Coal River Mountain Watch is known for since we started so long ago. We tend to be stubborn and we tend to be bulldogs in the sense of hanging on and sticking to it. I think our passion is seeing it through and not walking away from it. And that's something we do for the love of friends and family that aren't able maybe to take that stand or who would like to, but for whatever reason are intimidated by the threats of violence. But when you have family members who have died from it and you see it, or you stand in it, or you breathe it, or you feel the dust in your teeth, it's gritty. You become a part of it and it's more infused into you. And it's very much a battle, not just for the community, but for the sake of the planet. What happens in West Virginia affects people in the low-lying islands in the Pacific. It affects people impacted by hurricanes.John FiegeAnd you hinted at this idea earlier of, if we can't stop mountaintop removal, what hope do we have of dealing with these big global issues of climate change? It feels like such low hanging fruit and so obvious that if you're going to start somewhere, let's start with that.Vernon HaltomExactly. There's no better low hanging fruit in the climate crisis battle than mountaintop removal.John FiegeNot only do we not need coal anymore, but we don't need to destroy mountains to get to it.Vernon HaltomWe don't need to destroy mountains and kill people to profit a few coal barons who control the state legislatures and much of the government itself. That wealth has power, and the people who breathe air and drink water have very little power in comparison. But eventually, there are more of us than there are of them, and we'll eventually outlast them. We've gone through how many iterations of Alpha Natural Resources, Alpha Metallurgical Resources, and whatever company name they're going to pick next year, that we'll eventually wait them out.John FiegeWell, what do you all hope that listeners can take from this conversation and your stories, and how can they get involved and support some of the work that you're doing at Coal River Mountain Watch?Junior WalkIf there's some big problem in your community that you feel passionate about, do something about it. First and foremost, do whatever you can, devote your life to it. But don't just let injustice stand because when you're quiet about it, everybody else is going to be too. It only takes one person to stand up and raise hell about it for other people to get brave. And then the second part that I'd like for people to take away from this is that these issues that we deal with down here in southern West Virginia related to the coal industry, they are just one issue in a sea of similar problems that goes on around this nation and around the world when poor people get exploited by wealthy people. And that's really the root issue that we're dealing with here, is the exploitation of this land and the people who live on it by wealthy interests that live elsewhere.And this issue here, it's not the capitalist system that we live under gone wrong by any means. It's the capitalist system that we live under going directly 100% according to plan. This is their plan. We live on a planet of only a set amount of resources. And the capitalist system that we live in is based upon this concept of exponential growth of more and more and more and more, consume, consume, consume, consume. And those two facts are going to eventually come to a head. Both of those can't coexist, and that's what they're trying to make happen right now, globally. And that's just not how that works.Vernon HaltomI'd like to echo what Junior said about tackling the challenges in your own backyard. There's something everywhere that people can be plugged into and have that local voice. If somebody wants to help, if they want to help our organization specifically, it's CRMW.net. We're always underfunded. There's more work to do than we have time to do.John FiegeJunior, one more thing I wanted to ask you. Could you talk a little bit more about the drone work you've been doing and more about what it is you're filming and what impacts either you're hoping it's going to have or that you actually seen it have already?Junior WalkFor sure. So I've been using drones to film and document these mine sites since about 2016. And generally, the idea is you fly the drone, you find something that they shouldn't be doing or that's messed up on their site that they're going to have to fix. You take that information to the DEP, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and then you make them make the coal company fix whatever it is that you found. And so generally, the fines and stuff that they get are just a slap on the wrist. They're factored into the cost of doing business. But what really hurts them is when we find stuff that they then have to take workers and equipment away from actively mining coal to then go to a different section of the site and repair, and that's what really hurts them economically. And in our hope, that is what will make it less economically feasible for them to keep their operations open.John FiegeGreat. And have you seen results from that?Junior WalkTo some extent, for sure. We've definitely had to force, or we've been able to force coal companies to have to go back to sections of their site that they're pretty far away from and fix crumbling high walls or dig stuff out of a sediment ditch. And I don't think I'm wrong in assuming that, yeah, we've been able to cost them a pretty penny.John FiegeWell, Vernon, Junior, thank you so much for joining me today, and thank you for all this amazingly difficult, but important and vital work that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you for keeping at it.Vernon HaltomThank you, John, for providing us a platform to tell the story and let people know.Junior WalkYeah, I appreciate you. It was great talking to you.---OutroJohn FiegeThank you so much to Vernon Haltom and Junior Walk. Go to our website at chrysalispodcast.org where you can find out more about Coal River Mountain Watch and the legacy of Judy Bonds. Plus, see some of Junior's drone footage of recent mountaintop removal operations.This episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Brodie Mutschler and Sofia Chang. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Juan Garcia. If you enjoyed my conversation with Vernon and Junior, please rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Contact me anytime at chrysalispodcast.org, where you can also support the project, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chrysalispodcast.org
On this episode, Alex reviews some of the most interesting Space from March in this final episode of the month! We have a busy April in Space, but let's not forget all the amazing things that happened in this 3rd month of 2023: Relativity Space successfully launches the test flight for Terran 1, an 85% 3D printed rocket that has now showcased that 3D printed structures (at least made with the Stargate printer) can handle the maximum forces of rocket launch! iSpace's Hakuto-R lunar lander has made it to Lunar Orbit on Mission Day 100! Next step, lunar surface approach and landing! The US Space Force has requested $60 million dollars/2 years to develop Tactically Responsive Space launch contracts for 24-hour flight readiness! Elementary School students help NASA (and all of us) learn that EpiPens degrade and are toxic when exposed to cosmic radiation! We also share our thoughts on the exciting things waiting for us in April for Space related activities. From NASA JPL Open House, to the Artemis 2 Crew announcement, and Starship's potential Orbital Launch - there's alot to be excited about! Questions/Thoughts for this week: How will Relativity Space's demonstration of Terran 1 change the expectation and use of 3D printed parts in spaceflight? What would things look like if iSpace has a flawless landing on the moon with Hakuto-R? Why is Tactically Responsive Space important? And why is the assumption that they will be shot down and need replacing?? Do you really have to be the smartest person in the room to have a place in Space and Science? We'd love to know your thoughts and questions! Email us at todayinspacepodcast@gmail.com 00:00 Today In Space introduction 01:46 Relativity Space launches first 3D-printed rocket on the third try - Terran 1 proves 3D printing is here to stay in space! 04:40 iSpace Hakuto-R lunar lander in orbit around the Moon! 09:09 Are you preparing for the alien abduction? Go to Manscaped.com & use code word SPACE for 20% off and free shipping and get prepped to represent humanity! 11:51 US Space Force budget includes 60 million over two years for “tackling responsive space. 15:13 US keeping up its resiliency in space by having the ability to replace anything that gets shot down as global conflicts increase 17:04 The Space Force is not only here to stay, but it's playing a larger and larger role 19:46 Elementary schoolers prove EPI pens become toxic in space, something NASA never knew. 26:00 Closing out the epside! What to expect in April in Space SOURCES: Relativity Space Part 3 (link starts a few minutes before launch!) https://www.youtube.com/live/bzA0lIwh19c?feature=share&t=4871 Elementary schoolers prove EPI pens become toxic in space, something NASA never knew. https://www.livescience.com/elementary-schoolers-prove-epipens-become-fatally-toxic-in-space-something-nasa-never-knew https://spacenews.com/u-s-space-force-budget-includes-60-million-for-tactically-responsive-space/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ispace-inc_ispace-hakutoabrr-lunarquest-activity-7043931139769565184-hZ94?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios -------------------------- Space News in March that didn't make the review: https://www.sciencetimes.com/amp/articles/42699/20230306/spacecraft-one-fifth-speed-light-reach-another-solar-system-20.htm https://www.universetoday.com/160553/nasa-and-axiom-space-do-a-partial-reveal-of-the-spacesuit-that-will-be-worn-on-the-moon/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/new-discovery-could-impact-the-future-of-mars-exploration/ https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/03/22/virgin-orbit-nears-funding-deal.html Here's to building a fantastic future - and continued progress in Space (and humanity)! Spread Love, Spread Science Alex G. Orphanos We'd like to thank our sponsors: Manscaped AG3D Printing Follow us: @todayinspacepod on Instagram/Twitter @todayinspace on TikTok /TodayInSpacePodcast on Facebook Support the podcast: • Get 20% OFF@manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code SPACE at MANSCAPED.com! #ad #manscapedpod • Buy a 3D printed gift from our shop - ag3dprinting.etsy.com • Get a free quote on your next 3D printing project at ag3d-printing.com • Donate at todayinspace.net #space #rocket #podcast #people #spacex #moon #science #3dprinting #nasa #tothemoon #spacetravel #spaceexploration #solarsystem #spacecraft #technology #aerospace #spacetechnology #engineer #spaceforce #stem #listenable #soyuz #iss #crewdragon #relativityspace #terran1 #3dprintedrocket
Arizona AG Kris Mayes refocuses Election Integrity Unit on protecting election officials and voting rights | CO Gov. Jared Polis and Democrats introduce bills to lower healthcare costs | Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples commission sets field hearings for AZ, CA, MT, NM | Department of Defense provides process for service members to obtain abortions when stationed in states where abortion is banned | Ani DiFranco does a western swing with shows in CO, MT, and ID.Song playsIntro by hostWelcome to High Country - politics in the American West. My name is Sean Diller; regular listeners might know me from Heartland Pod's Talking Politics, every Monday.Support this show and all the work in the Heartland POD universe by going to heartlandpod.com and clicking the link for Patreon, or go to Patreon.com/HeartlandPod to sign up. Membership starts at $1/month, with even more extra shows and special access at the higher levels. No matter the level you choose, your membership helps us create these independent shows as we work together to change the conversation.Alright! Let's get into it: ARIZONA MIRROR: ARIZONA AG INVESTIGATES FAKE ELECTORSKris Mayes is investigating Trump's ‘fake electors,' focusing on threats to election workersBY: JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY - MARCH 3, 2023 7:12 AMWhile her predecessor used a dedicated election crimes division to investigate hundreds of bogus election fraud claims, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says she will redirect the unit's focus to prosecute election-related threats and protect voting rights. “We are almost at a crisis situation in our state, in the sense that we now have a third of our counties experiencing the resignation of high-level election officialS due to death threats and harassment. That is unacceptable,” Former AG Mark Brnovich, the Republican who Mayes replaced this year, persuaded the state legislature to create the Election Integrity Unit so his office could have a dedicated team to investigate election fraud claims. But Brnovich buried what was arguably its most important work, a 10,000-hour investigation debunking hundreds of fraud claims related to the 2020 election. AG Mayes released the results of that investigation earlier this month. And the Election Integrity Unit is also investigating a much larger effort to undermine the will of the voters — The Trump / Eastman / Perry plot to send fraudulent slates of electors for former President Donald Trump to Congress on Jan. 6 - using the state's seal. While she was secretary of state, Gov. Katie Hobbs requested Brnovich investigate the criminal use of the state seal on false documents, but Brnovich did nothing. There were actually multiple “fake elector” schemes in Arizona. One was tied to the Arizona Republican Party and allegedly done at the request of the Trump campaign. It involved officials including former AZ GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward, state Sen. Jake Hoffman, state Sen. Anthony Kern and Turning Points USA CEO Tyler Bowyer. That fake electors scheme is also the subject of a federal investigation. Another group, the Sovereign Citizens of the Great State of Arizona, also created an alternate slate of electors for Trump, independent of the former President's desperate and nihilistic attempts to steal the 2020 election for himself.Since the 2020 election, threats to election officials nationwide have been increasing. Arizona has been at the forefront of those threats, with the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice getting involved in multiple cases. Most recently, veteran Cochise County Election Director Lisa Marra resigned. In her departure letter, she described a workplace that was hostile due to a monthslong saga in which Marra stood up to election conspiracists' insane demands and threats.Last year, the director of elections in Yavapai County resigned due to more than 18 months of threats she received. GOP-dominated Yavapai County has been a hotbed of hostile activity, with the white supremacist Oath Keepers intimidating voters before federal law enforcement got involved. AG Mayes said the images of armed men watching drop boxes “disturbed” her and set her on a path to begin speaking to police and sheriff's departments across the state. Making sure voters feel safe and secure when using a drop box will be a major priority, Mayes said, and if that means making sure that agents with the Attorney General's Office are present alongside law enforcement, then that might be the case. Currently, Mayes has 60 agents working directly with her in the office. Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies had to be dispatched in riot gear to deal with angry and armed crowds of butt-hurt snowflake losers (my term) during the 2020 election, when they descended upon the Maricopa County tabulation center. Deputies have had to dedicate security to election officials who faced threats as well.During the midterms, Maricopa County spent approximately $675,000 on security for the elections, a number the Sheriff expects to be “substantially” higher for the next election as he and his deputies are already preparing for the next wave of threats to election officials, as well as illegal activities around drop boxes. But for AG Mayes, the Arizona Election Integrity Unit can be a force that actually protects voting rights in the state. “We really want to repurpose the Election Integrity Unit to be an arm of the Attorney General's Office that is focused on protecting democracy in Arizona, protecting election officials against the rise of death threats and intimidation against them, and to protect the voting rights of every legally registered Arizonan.COLORADO NEWSLINE: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and a group of Democratic lawmakers have introduced a slate of new bills that are meant to reduce health care costs in the state.BY: SARA WILSON - MARCH 3, 2023 2:04 PMThe bills would reduce premiums for Colorado Option health insurance plans, lower prescription drug costs and work to increase transparency around the huge profits being made by hospitals.“Saving people money on healthcare has been a top priority for me since Day One, and it's a big challenge,” said Gov. Polis. “We want to pound away on it every year, to find every cost driver and address it, to make sure Coloradans stop having to overpay for prescription drugs, insurance, and the health care that they need.”House Bill 23-1224 would work to improve the Colorado Option, the state-regulated plan offered by private insurers that passed just last year. The bill would make it easier for consumers to compare prices on standardized plans, and empower the state's insurance commissioner to hold carriers accountable for the cost reduction requirements in Colorado Option standardized plans.Another bill, House Bill 23-1225, addresses the state's prescription drug affordability board. It would allow the board to review any number of expensive prescription drugs instead of only a dozen as outlined in the legislation that created the board.The board, which has not yet reviewed the costs of any drugs so far, has the authority to set an upper payment limit if it determines a drug is unaffordable for Coloradans.House Bill 23-1227, would give more oversight power to the state's Division of Insurance over pharmacy benefit managers. “In some cases, PBMs are coming between consumers, health insurance plans, pharmacies and manufacturers while making very, very large profits. PBMs can be a part of the plan to save Coloradans money on prescription drugs, but they have to follow the rules,” Jodeh, one of the bill sponsors, said.Lawmakers highlighted other pieces of health care cost saving legislation:HB23-1226 would enhance current hospital financial transparency reporting in an effort to highlight what is driving up hospital costs in the state.COLORADO SUN: And, Almost four years after becoming the first state to cap insulin copayments, Colorado may limit what consumers pay for epinephrine autoinjectors, also known as EpiPens, which treat serious allergic reactions.In 2007, the wholesale price of a single EpiPen was about $47. Today, two brand-name autoinjectors cost just under $636 at a Walgreens in Denver, according to GoodRx. A proposed state law would cap out-of-pocket copays at $60 for a two-pack of Epi Pens.The bill is part of a nationwide push by states to address the soaring prices of lifesaving drugs. New Hampshire passed a law in 2020 requiring insurance to cover the autoinjectors, and Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a similar measure this year. No state has capped what consumers pay for EpiPens, though the New Jersey Senate passed a bill in June to do so; that measure is pending in the legislature's lower house.state Rep. Iman Jodeh, a bill sponsor, said “The need for EpiPens doesn't discriminate based on who you are. This unfortunate trend we're seeing of lifesaving medication being out of reach for so many people is something we need to end.”In 2019, Colorado became the first state to enact a law that set a $100 limit on monthly copays for insulin, a hormone that regulates the blood sugar of people with diabetes.Since then, 21 other states, plus Washington, D.C., have implemented laws limiting insulin costs. Congress imposed a $35 insulin copay cap for seniors on Medicare, and, in his recent State of the Union address, President Joe Biden called for expanding this cap to every American.KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.Tagged: Colorado legislature, Colorado politics, EpiPen, Iman Jodeh, insulin, Kaiser Health News, KHN, prescription drug costsAZMIRROR: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples field hearing comes to AZ in MayBY: SHONDIIN SILVERSMITH - MARCH 3, 2023 12:27 PM As part of the U.S. departments of the Interior and Justice's work to combat the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) crisis, the Not Invisible Act Commission will be hosting its first round of field hearing sessions this spring. “In partnership with the Justice Department and with extensive engagement with Tribes and other stakeholders, the Interior Department is marshaling our resources to finally address the crisis of violence against Indigenous peoples,” she added. FROM WORC: Missing and Murdered Indigenous People is an epidemic stemming from over 500 years of colonization that has harmed Indigenous communities across the globe. For Indigenous women in the United States, this means being amongst the population that is murdered at 10 times the national average. According to the Indian Law Resource Center, more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence, and more than half have experienced sexual violence. There is no official statistic regarding how many Indigenous women go missing within the United States, and many families report the same experiences where law enforcement will dismiss a missing loved one's case. In a Montana Public Radio article from 2019, people who had missing loved ones reported that law enforcement officers had told them “that their daughters were drunk or had run away.” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said “This work requires each of us to face our own trauma, to relive unimaginable pain, and visualize a future in which our loved ones are safe, and our communities have closure. We're here for our children, grandchildren, and relatives we have yet to meet.”The Not Invisible Act was signed into law in October 2020. It is the first bill in history to be introduced and passed by four U.S. congressional members who are enrolled in federally recognized tribes. Then- Representative Haaland, one of those four, spearheaded the bill during her time in Congress.At that time she said “A lack of urgency, transparency, and coordination has hampered our country's efforts to combat violence against American Indian and Alaska Native people” The commission established by the Not Invisible Act is a cross-jurisdictional advisory committee including law enforcement, tribal leaders, federal partners, service providers, family members of missing and murdered individuals, and survivors. In April, the commission will hold field hearings in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Anchorage, Alaska. In June, more hearings are scheduled in Minneapolis, Minnesota, northern California and Albuquerque, New Mexico. In July, a hearing will be held in Billings, Montana. A national, virtual field hearing is also planned for later in the summer. These field hearings will feature panel discussions and a public comment period. For more information, go to https://www.bia.gov/service/mmuCOLORADO NEWSLINE: Land of the free.BY: LINDSEY TOOMER - MARCH 4, 2023 11:05 AMU.S. Rep. Jason Crow D-Colorado praised the Department of Defense's decision to ensure service members have access to reproductive health care including abortion after he proposed a bill that would have done the same last fall. “After the Supreme Court's extreme and dangerous decision to take away a woman's fundamental right to an abortion, servicemembers struggled to access basic reproductive health care,” Crow said. “I applaud the Department of Defense for moving to protect our servicemembers and mitigate challenges of recruitment, readiness, and retention in the ranks. The servicemembers who fight for us should not have to fight for their own basic health care.”One of Crow's goals was to ensure that service members stationed in states that enacted abortion bans were allowed to travel to states, such as Colorado, where abortion is still legal.A Department of Defense news release said “Our Service members and their families do not control where they are stationed, and due to the nature of military service, are frequently required to travel or move to meet operational requirements. The efforts taken by the Department today will not only ensure that Service members and their families retain the fundamental right to make their own health care decisions, as well as ensuring they're afforded the time and flexibility needed to do so. In response, Rep. Lauren Boebert and fellow Republicans said they plan to maintain their laser focus on the REAL truth behind Hunter Biden's laptop.CONCERT PICK OF THE WEEK: Ani DiFranco! It's the 25th anniversary of the excellent album, Little Plastic Castle, originally released in 1998. Ani is doing a run of shows starting March 15 hitting Boulder, Fort Collins, Breckenridge, Salt Lake City, Boise, Bozeman, Missoula and finishing in New Orleans at the FREE French Quarter Music Festival, April 13.Welp, that's it for me! From Denver I'm Sean Diller. Original reporting for the stories in today's show comes from the Arizona Mirror, Colorado Newsline, Kaiser Health News, Colorado Sun, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils at worc.org. Thank you for listening! See you next time.
Arizona AG Kris Mayes refocuses Election Integrity Unit on protecting election officials and voting rights | CO Gov. Jared Polis and Democrats introduce bills to lower healthcare costs | Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples commission sets field hearings for AZ, CA, MT, NM | Department of Defense provides process for service members to obtain abortions when stationed in states where abortion is banned | Ani DiFranco does a western swing with shows in CO, MT, and ID.Song playsIntro by hostWelcome to High Country - politics in the American West. My name is Sean Diller; regular listeners might know me from Heartland Pod's Talking Politics, every Monday.Support this show and all the work in the Heartland POD universe by going to heartlandpod.com and clicking the link for Patreon, or go to Patreon.com/HeartlandPod to sign up. Membership starts at $1/month, with even more extra shows and special access at the higher levels. No matter the level you choose, your membership helps us create these independent shows as we work together to change the conversation.Alright! Let's get into it: ARIZONA MIRROR: ARIZONA AG INVESTIGATES FAKE ELECTORSKris Mayes is investigating Trump's ‘fake electors,' focusing on threats to election workersBY: JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY - MARCH 3, 2023 7:12 AMWhile her predecessor used a dedicated election crimes division to investigate hundreds of bogus election fraud claims, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says she will redirect the unit's focus to prosecute election-related threats and protect voting rights. “We are almost at a crisis situation in our state, in the sense that we now have a third of our counties experiencing the resignation of high-level election officialS due to death threats and harassment. That is unacceptable,” Former AG Mark Brnovich, the Republican who Mayes replaced this year, persuaded the state legislature to create the Election Integrity Unit so his office could have a dedicated team to investigate election fraud claims. But Brnovich buried what was arguably its most important work, a 10,000-hour investigation debunking hundreds of fraud claims related to the 2020 election. AG Mayes released the results of that investigation earlier this month. And the Election Integrity Unit is also investigating a much larger effort to undermine the will of the voters — The Trump / Eastman / Perry plot to send fraudulent slates of electors for former President Donald Trump to Congress on Jan. 6 - using the state's seal. While she was secretary of state, Gov. Katie Hobbs requested Brnovich investigate the criminal use of the state seal on false documents, but Brnovich did nothing. There were actually multiple “fake elector” schemes in Arizona. One was tied to the Arizona Republican Party and allegedly done at the request of the Trump campaign. It involved officials including former AZ GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward, state Sen. Jake Hoffman, state Sen. Anthony Kern and Turning Points USA CEO Tyler Bowyer. That fake electors scheme is also the subject of a federal investigation. Another group, the Sovereign Citizens of the Great State of Arizona, also created an alternate slate of electors for Trump, independent of the former President's desperate and nihilistic attempts to steal the 2020 election for himself.Since the 2020 election, threats to election officials nationwide have been increasing. Arizona has been at the forefront of those threats, with the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice getting involved in multiple cases. Most recently, veteran Cochise County Election Director Lisa Marra resigned. In her departure letter, she described a workplace that was hostile due to a monthslong saga in which Marra stood up to election conspiracists' insane demands and threats.Last year, the director of elections in Yavapai County resigned due to more than 18 months of threats she received. GOP-dominated Yavapai County has been a hotbed of hostile activity, with the white supremacist Oath Keepers intimidating voters before federal law enforcement got involved. AG Mayes said the images of armed men watching drop boxes “disturbed” her and set her on a path to begin speaking to police and sheriff's departments across the state. Making sure voters feel safe and secure when using a drop box will be a major priority, Mayes said, and if that means making sure that agents with the Attorney General's Office are present alongside law enforcement, then that might be the case. Currently, Mayes has 60 agents working directly with her in the office. Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies had to be dispatched in riot gear to deal with angry and armed crowds of butt-hurt snowflake losers (my term) during the 2020 election, when they descended upon the Maricopa County tabulation center. Deputies have had to dedicate security to election officials who faced threats as well.During the midterms, Maricopa County spent approximately $675,000 on security for the elections, a number the Sheriff expects to be “substantially” higher for the next election as he and his deputies are already preparing for the next wave of threats to election officials, as well as illegal activities around drop boxes. But for AG Mayes, the Arizona Election Integrity Unit can be a force that actually protects voting rights in the state. “We really want to repurpose the Election Integrity Unit to be an arm of the Attorney General's Office that is focused on protecting democracy in Arizona, protecting election officials against the rise of death threats and intimidation against them, and to protect the voting rights of every legally registered Arizonan.COLORADO NEWSLINE: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and a group of Democratic lawmakers have introduced a slate of new bills that are meant to reduce health care costs in the state.BY: SARA WILSON - MARCH 3, 2023 2:04 PMThe bills would reduce premiums for Colorado Option health insurance plans, lower prescription drug costs and work to increase transparency around the huge profits being made by hospitals.“Saving people money on healthcare has been a top priority for me since Day One, and it's a big challenge,” said Gov. Polis. “We want to pound away on it every year, to find every cost driver and address it, to make sure Coloradans stop having to overpay for prescription drugs, insurance, and the health care that they need.”House Bill 23-1224 would work to improve the Colorado Option, the state-regulated plan offered by private insurers that passed just last year. The bill would make it easier for consumers to compare prices on standardized plans, and empower the state's insurance commissioner to hold carriers accountable for the cost reduction requirements in Colorado Option standardized plans.Another bill, House Bill 23-1225, addresses the state's prescription drug affordability board. It would allow the board to review any number of expensive prescription drugs instead of only a dozen as outlined in the legislation that created the board.The board, which has not yet reviewed the costs of any drugs so far, has the authority to set an upper payment limit if it determines a drug is unaffordable for Coloradans.House Bill 23-1227, would give more oversight power to the state's Division of Insurance over pharmacy benefit managers. “In some cases, PBMs are coming between consumers, health insurance plans, pharmacies and manufacturers while making very, very large profits. PBMs can be a part of the plan to save Coloradans money on prescription drugs, but they have to follow the rules,” Jodeh, one of the bill sponsors, said.Lawmakers highlighted other pieces of health care cost saving legislation:HB23-1226 would enhance current hospital financial transparency reporting in an effort to highlight what is driving up hospital costs in the state.COLORADO SUN: And, Almost four years after becoming the first state to cap insulin copayments, Colorado may limit what consumers pay for epinephrine autoinjectors, also known as EpiPens, which treat serious allergic reactions.In 2007, the wholesale price of a single EpiPen was about $47. Today, two brand-name autoinjectors cost just under $636 at a Walgreens in Denver, according to GoodRx. A proposed state law would cap out-of-pocket copays at $60 for a two-pack of Epi Pens.The bill is part of a nationwide push by states to address the soaring prices of lifesaving drugs. New Hampshire passed a law in 2020 requiring insurance to cover the autoinjectors, and Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a similar measure this year. No state has capped what consumers pay for EpiPens, though the New Jersey Senate passed a bill in June to do so; that measure is pending in the legislature's lower house.state Rep. Iman Jodeh, a bill sponsor, said “The need for EpiPens doesn't discriminate based on who you are. This unfortunate trend we're seeing of lifesaving medication being out of reach for so many people is something we need to end.”In 2019, Colorado became the first state to enact a law that set a $100 limit on monthly copays for insulin, a hormone that regulates the blood sugar of people with diabetes.Since then, 21 other states, plus Washington, D.C., have implemented laws limiting insulin costs. Congress imposed a $35 insulin copay cap for seniors on Medicare, and, in his recent State of the Union address, President Joe Biden called for expanding this cap to every American.KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.Tagged: Colorado legislature, Colorado politics, EpiPen, Iman Jodeh, insulin, Kaiser Health News, KHN, prescription drug costsAZMIRROR: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples field hearing comes to AZ in MayBY: SHONDIIN SILVERSMITH - MARCH 3, 2023 12:27 PM As part of the U.S. departments of the Interior and Justice's work to combat the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) crisis, the Not Invisible Act Commission will be hosting its first round of field hearing sessions this spring. “In partnership with the Justice Department and with extensive engagement with Tribes and other stakeholders, the Interior Department is marshaling our resources to finally address the crisis of violence against Indigenous peoples,” she added. FROM WORC: Missing and Murdered Indigenous People is an epidemic stemming from over 500 years of colonization that has harmed Indigenous communities across the globe. For Indigenous women in the United States, this means being amongst the population that is murdered at 10 times the national average. According to the Indian Law Resource Center, more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence, and more than half have experienced sexual violence. There is no official statistic regarding how many Indigenous women go missing within the United States, and many families report the same experiences where law enforcement will dismiss a missing loved one's case. In a Montana Public Radio article from 2019, people who had missing loved ones reported that law enforcement officers had told them “that their daughters were drunk or had run away.” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said “This work requires each of us to face our own trauma, to relive unimaginable pain, and visualize a future in which our loved ones are safe, and our communities have closure. We're here for our children, grandchildren, and relatives we have yet to meet.”The Not Invisible Act was signed into law in October 2020. It is the first bill in history to be introduced and passed by four U.S. congressional members who are enrolled in federally recognized tribes. Then- Representative Haaland, one of those four, spearheaded the bill during her time in Congress.At that time she said “A lack of urgency, transparency, and coordination has hampered our country's efforts to combat violence against American Indian and Alaska Native people” The commission established by the Not Invisible Act is a cross-jurisdictional advisory committee including law enforcement, tribal leaders, federal partners, service providers, family members of missing and murdered individuals, and survivors. In April, the commission will hold field hearings in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Anchorage, Alaska. In June, more hearings are scheduled in Minneapolis, Minnesota, northern California and Albuquerque, New Mexico. In July, a hearing will be held in Billings, Montana. A national, virtual field hearing is also planned for later in the summer. These field hearings will feature panel discussions and a public comment period. For more information, go to https://www.bia.gov/service/mmuCOLORADO NEWSLINE: Land of the free.BY: LINDSEY TOOMER - MARCH 4, 2023 11:05 AMU.S. Rep. Jason Crow D-Colorado praised the Department of Defense's decision to ensure service members have access to reproductive health care including abortion after he proposed a bill that would have done the same last fall. “After the Supreme Court's extreme and dangerous decision to take away a woman's fundamental right to an abortion, servicemembers struggled to access basic reproductive health care,” Crow said. “I applaud the Department of Defense for moving to protect our servicemembers and mitigate challenges of recruitment, readiness, and retention in the ranks. The servicemembers who fight for us should not have to fight for their own basic health care.”One of Crow's goals was to ensure that service members stationed in states that enacted abortion bans were allowed to travel to states, such as Colorado, where abortion is still legal.A Department of Defense news release said “Our Service members and their families do not control where they are stationed, and due to the nature of military service, are frequently required to travel or move to meet operational requirements. The efforts taken by the Department today will not only ensure that Service members and their families retain the fundamental right to make their own health care decisions, as well as ensuring they're afforded the time and flexibility needed to do so. In response, Rep. Lauren Boebert and fellow Republicans said they plan to maintain their laser focus on the REAL truth behind Hunter Biden's laptop.CONCERT PICK OF THE WEEK: Ani DiFranco! It's the 25th anniversary of the excellent album, Little Plastic Castle, originally released in 1998. Ani is doing a run of shows starting March 15 hitting Boulder, Fort Collins, Breckenridge, Salt Lake City, Boise, Bozeman, Missoula and finishing in New Orleans at the FREE French Quarter Music Festival, April 13.Welp, that's it for me! From Denver I'm Sean Diller. Original reporting for the stories in today's show comes from the Arizona Mirror, Colorado Newsline, Kaiser Health News, Colorado Sun, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils at worc.org. Thank you for listening! See you next time.
Colorado Gov Jared Polis delivers State of the State address to legislators | First bills filed in Colorado General Assembly | Interview w Democratic State Rep Matt Martinez, sponsor of a bill that would reduce prison sentences for nonviolent inmates who earn accredited degrees while incarcerated | Free Universal Pre-K application opens in Colorado | Arizona Gov Katie Hobbs calls for $40 Million DREAMER scholarship fundWelcome to High Country - politics in the American West. My name is Sean Diller; regular listeners might know me from Heartland Pod's Talking Politics, every Monday.Support this show and all the work in the Heartland POD universe by going to heartlandpod.com and clicking the link for Patreon, or go to Patreon.com/HeartlandPod to sign up. Membership starts at $1/month, with even more extra shows and special access at the higher levels. No matter the level you choose, your membership helps us create these independent shows as we work together to change the conversation.Alright! Let's get into it: DENVER (AP) — In yesterday's state of the state speech to lawmakers, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis laid out his vision to tackle the state's sky-high housing prices - including proposals to roll back building regulations, open public land to affordable housing development, and support innovations such as pre-built units.Polis, a Democrat re-elected in November, also touched on efforts to combat climate change, lower the state income tax, measures to reduce crime, and expanded education funding.Polis, the first openly gay governor in the U.S., starts his second term after a shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub in November left five dead and has renewed calls by Democrats to enact stricter gun regulations.Looking down from the gallery were Richard Fierro and Thomas James, two patrons who tackled the shooter inside the club, as Polis read the names of those killed, asked for a moment of silence and nodded towards concerns around “spiraling hate speech.”Polis addressed gun violence but largely skirted Democrat proposals that included raising the minimum age to buy guns and potentially banning assault weapons.Polis told reporters after his address. “We are happy to discuss other ideas about how we can improve gun safety in Colorado and honor our Second Amendment rights," Polis lauded government intervention on housing, citing a ballot measure that Coloradans passed in November that dedicates an estimated $300 million annually to affordable housing. Polis said he also plans to “aggressively” free up parcels of state-owned land for low-income units.Polis gave his speech — which referenced everything from electric vehicle tax credits to "The Lord of the Rings” character Gandalf the Grey — after securing almost 60% of the vote in a state where Independent voters are one-third of the electorate. Polis's appeal has stirred rumors of a future presidential run.“Our state might be shaped like a square but the political pundits can't put us in a box,” Polis said. “We are a state that just this year voted to once again cut income taxes, while legalizing magic mushrooms.”Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.COLORADO NEWSLINE: Colorado legislature's first bills Soon after the Colorado General Assembly convened for the 2023 legislative session on Monday, members introduced the first bills of the year, offering a hint of Democratic priorities. Democrats enjoy large majorities in both legislative chambers.House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Democrat from Dillon, said “This session, we'll pass legislation to protect our water and air, invest in our schools, improve public safety, and make our state more affordable. Our first five bills are just the beginning, and we're excited to get to work building a Colorado where everyone can thrive,” In the House, the first five bills center on education investments, health care costs, mental health, language accessibility and water efficiency.House Bill 23-1001 would expand the eligibility for financial assistance and loan forgiveness for educators to address the state's teacher shortage. It is sponsored by Democratic Reps. Cathy Kipp of Fort Collins and Barbara McLachlan of Durango and Sen. Rachel Zenzinger of Arvada.House Bill 23-1002 would create an EpiPen affordability program for people who do not have health insurance. It would cap the cost of a two-pack of EpiPens, often used to treat severe allergic reactions, at $60. It is sponsored by Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat, and Sen. Dylan Roberts, an Avon Democrat.House Bill 23-1003 would form a mental health assessment program for Colorado youth in order to identify student mental health concerns and direct them to resources. It would be available in public schools for students in sixth through 12th grades. It is sponsored by Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, an Aurora Democrat, and Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Littleton Democrat.In the Senate, the first five bills introduced involve housing, health care costs, education and workforce development for mental health and forestry professionals. Three of them have bipartisan sponsorship.Senate Bill 23-1 would provide $13 million to the Public-Private Partnership Office to encourage affordable workforce housing on state-owned land. The bill is sponsored by Roberts, Zenzinger, Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat, and Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat.Senate Bill 23-2 would direct the state to seek federal authorization for Medicaid reimbursement for community health worker services. Community health care workers serve as a liaison between providers and community members and can often have a personal experience with a health condition and a cultural background they share with the community they serve. The bipartisan bill is sponsored by McCluskie, Sen. Kyle Mullica, a Federal Heights Democrat, Sen. Cleave Simpson, an Alamosa Republican, and Rep. Mary Bradfield, a Colorado Springs Republican.Senate Bill 23-3 would create the Colorado Adult High School Program for adults to earn a high school diploma at no cost and enter the workforce. The program would include transportation support and child care. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Janet Buckner, an Aurora Democrat, Sen. Bob Gardner, a Colorado Springs Republican, and Rep. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat.Two bills focus on the workforce shortage in our schools and in our forests. SB-4 would authorize schools to hire mental health professionals who are not licensed by the state Department of Education but hold a Colorado license for their profession. It is sponsored by Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, a Longmont Democrat, and Michaelson Jenet.SB-5 involves wildfire mitigation and forestry professionals. It would direct the Colorado State Forest Service to create educational materials on the industry and create a new forestry program at Colorado Mountain College, among other provisions. REP MATT MARTINEZ INTERVIEWHB23-1037Department Of Corrections Earned Time For College Program CompletionConcerning awarding earned time to nonviolent offenders who complete an accredited higher education program.SESSION: 2023 Regular SessionSUBJECT: Crimes, Corrections, & EnforcementBILL SUMMARYUnder existing law, an inmate in the custody of the department of corrections (department) may have earned time deducted from the inmate's sentence for meeting certain statutory requirements. The bill permits an inmate sentenced for a nonviolent felony offense to have earned time deducted from the inmate's sentence for each accredited degree or other credential awarded by an accredited institution of higher education to the inmate while the inmate is incarcerated, in the following amounts:One year of earned time for receiving an associate, baccalaureate, or graduate degree; and6 months of earned time for receiving a certificate or other credential.The bill requires the general assembly to annually appropriate the savings incurred during the prior state fiscal year as a result of the release of inmates from correctional facilities because of earned time granted for completion of a higher education degree or credential, as follows:50% of the savings to the department of corrections to facilitate inmates enrolling in and completing accredited higher education programs; and50% of the savings to the department of higher education for allocation to institutions of higher education that offer accredited programs in correctional facilities.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)Read LessCHALKBEAT COLORADO:Colorado's free preschool application is open. Here's what you need to know.The parent application for Colorado's new free preschool program opened yesterday— a major milestone in the march toward the program's launch next summer. The program, funded in part by a voter-approved nicotine tax, will offer 10 to 15 hours a week of tuition-free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide, with some eligible for 30 hours a week. In addition, some 3-year-olds will be eligible for 10 hours a week early childhood education.Families who fill out the application by Feb. 14, will find out what preschool their child matched with on March 10.State officials expect about 30,000 children to opt into the universal preschool program in its first year. That's about half the number that will be eligible. SO: Who gets free preschool and what age do they have to be?Three groups of children qualify: all 4-year-olds, some 3-year-olds who need extra help, and a small number of 5-year-olds who are too young for kindergarten. The goal is for kids to be more prepared for kindergarten.Some 4-year-olds will get 30 hours of free preschool a week, including those from lower-income families, kids who speak a language besides English at home, are homeless, in foster care, or have disabilities. The new preschool program will also cover 10 hours a week of preschool for 3-year-olds in these same groups. What's involved in the application? Are there income requirements?Many families will need about 15 minutes and not much else. The application is offered in English, Spanish, and Arabic, and parents should be able to complete the application on a cell phone or computer. Families that earn up to 270% of the federal poverty limit — about $81,000 a year for a family of four —will need to upload documents that prove their income.Can I pick my child's preschool?Yes. Families will be asked to pick up to five preschools they'd like their child to attend and will be able to rank their choices. Options include school-based preschools, church-based preschools, preschool programs inside child care centers, and state-licensed home-based preschools. Children will be prioritized for a spot in a preschool if they're already enrolled there, if a sibling is enrolled there, or if a parent works there. When does free preschool start in Colorado?August or September of this fall, depending on the specific preschool. For more information check out upk.colorado.gov or you can also contact the state's help desk at 303-866-5223 Do you have a question you don't see answered here or can't find the answer to elsewhere? Let us know at co.tips@chalkbeat.org and we'll do our best to find an answer. Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.ARIZONA MIRROR: Governor Hobbs wants a scholarship for DREAMERS.More than 3,000 undocumented students in Arizona could see their dreams of a college degree come true under a new scholarship proposed by Gov. Katie Hobbs. Dubbed the Promise for Dreamers Scholarship Program, the $40 million dollar investment is aimed at supporting undocumented students who've attended an Arizona high school for at least two years. Scholarships from the program help fund four years at one of the state's three public universitiesThe new scholarship program debuted in Hobbs' State of the State speech last week, where she billed it as an extension of Proposition 308 which allows DREAMERS to pay in-state tuition and access state-funded financial help. Reyna Montoya, who was part of the effort to pass Prop. 308 said that even though it improves access to higher education, but it doesn't resolve the inequality undocumented students face at the federal level. To fill out the FAFSA, which determines a student's eligibility for low-income loans and scholarships like the Pell Grant, citizenship is a requirement.If you're a low-income student, typically you have other supports, like the Pell Grant,” Montoya said. If you're a Dreamer, and you're getting ready to graduate from high school, you're not eligible. Even paying in-state tuition is going to be a steep challenge if you're trying to pay for school completely out of your own pocket.“Seeing the same heartache time after time — I get the chills to think that we can have different conversations with our students looking ahead. We don't have to tell them, ‘You're limited to these extremelydifficult pathways if you want to obtain an education,'” she said. Montoya is also hopeful that the scholarship will benefit the state's future by creating a more educated workforce and helping to mitigate labor shortages. Arizona is currently grappling with teacher vacancies and faces a projected nursing shortage by 2030. “This would really help us close a lot of the workforce gaps that we have in the state,” she said, adding: “It's in our benefit to see education as an investment rather than an expense.” Potential future benefits are a significant argument in favor of the scholarship, said Tyler Montague, chairman of the Yes on 308 campaign. “It's a big payback. Everybody that we get through college — as compared to just high school — makes $650,000 to $1 million more over their lifetime, and they're putting that money back into the economy. And they pay, on average, $380,000 more over their lifetime in taxes, which is a massive financial return,” he said, citing national studies.Also important to consider are the social returns that college grads provide, Montague added. People who earn a college degree are less likely to incur social costs, and are more involved in their communities. Montague hopes that the Republican-majority legislature gives the scholarship fund a fair shot, and keeps in mind the support that voters gave Prop. 308 as an indicator for the consensus around aiding undocumented youth in the state. “I would hope that the legislature takes their cue from (308) and acts accordingly,” he said. The proposition passed with a narrow 51% majority, but the approval across party lines was widespread, with as many as 27% of Republicans and 54% of Independents voting yes. Still, while Arizona voters agreed to level the playing field in university tuition rates, some Republican leaders in the legislature are balking at opening up access to state-funded scholarships. “Gov. KATIE HOBBS in her State of State stated that she would like to invest $40 million to help pay for illegal immigrants to attend college in Arizona,” tweeted House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci. “What about LEGAL citizens of Arizona or any other state?” Hobbs' budget proposal also includes an equivalent $40 million increase to the state's existing Arizona Promise Program, which she estimated on Monday could benefit as many as 10,000 more students. Last year, 4,000 students benefited. While the underlying legislation of Prop. 308 found bipartisan support, and was proposed by a Republican state senator, Hobbs' initiative may face an uphill battle in a statehouse with a more conservative bent to it. Enacting it through legislative channels isn't her only option; she could resort to issuing an executive order or negotiate with the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the state's universities. It's unclear, however, what path the governor's office will take; they did not respond to questions about what strategies it might consider to create the new scholarship fund.CONCERT PICK OF THE WEEK:Billy Strings has 3 sold out shows February 2, 3, and 4 at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield. At just 30 years old, Billy Strings is one of the most celebrated bluegrass musicians in America. He is known as an electric performer, keeping the improvisational tradition of bluegrass alive while incorporating a diverse variety of other genres into his music as well. Tickets and tour info at BillyStrings.comWelp, that's it for me! From Denver I'm Sean Diller. Original reporting for the stories in today's show comes from the Colorado Newsline, Arizona Mirror, Chalkbeat Colorado, Indian Country Times and Denver's Westword.Thank you for listening! See you next time.
Colorado Gov Jared Polis delivers State of the State address to legislators | First bills filed in Colorado General Assembly | Interview w Democratic State Rep Matt Martinez, sponsor of a bill that would reduce prison sentences for nonviolent inmates who earn accredited degrees while incarcerated | Free Universal Pre-K application opens in Colorado | Arizona Gov Katie Hobbs calls for $40 Million DREAMER scholarship fundWelcome to High Country - politics in the American West. My name is Sean Diller; regular listeners might know me from Heartland Pod's Talking Politics, every Monday.Support this show and all the work in the Heartland POD universe by going to heartlandpod.com and clicking the link for Patreon, or go to Patreon.com/HeartlandPod to sign up. Membership starts at $1/month, with even more extra shows and special access at the higher levels. No matter the level you choose, your membership helps us create these independent shows as we work together to change the conversation.Alright! Let's get into it: DENVER (AP) — In yesterday's state of the state speech to lawmakers, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis laid out his vision to tackle the state's sky-high housing prices - including proposals to roll back building regulations, open public land to affordable housing development, and support innovations such as pre-built units.Polis, a Democrat re-elected in November, also touched on efforts to combat climate change, lower the state income tax, measures to reduce crime, and expanded education funding.Polis, the first openly gay governor in the U.S., starts his second term after a shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub in November left five dead and has renewed calls by Democrats to enact stricter gun regulations.Looking down from the gallery were Richard Fierro and Thomas James, two patrons who tackled the shooter inside the club, as Polis read the names of those killed, asked for a moment of silence and nodded towards concerns around “spiraling hate speech.”Polis addressed gun violence but largely skirted Democrat proposals that included raising the minimum age to buy guns and potentially banning assault weapons.Polis told reporters after his address. “We are happy to discuss other ideas about how we can improve gun safety in Colorado and honor our Second Amendment rights," Polis lauded government intervention on housing, citing a ballot measure that Coloradans passed in November that dedicates an estimated $300 million annually to affordable housing. Polis said he also plans to “aggressively” free up parcels of state-owned land for low-income units.Polis gave his speech — which referenced everything from electric vehicle tax credits to "The Lord of the Rings” character Gandalf the Grey — after securing almost 60% of the vote in a state where Independent voters are one-third of the electorate. Polis's appeal has stirred rumors of a future presidential run.“Our state might be shaped like a square but the political pundits can't put us in a box,” Polis said. “We are a state that just this year voted to once again cut income taxes, while legalizing magic mushrooms.”Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.COLORADO NEWSLINE: Colorado legislature's first bills Soon after the Colorado General Assembly convened for the 2023 legislative session on Monday, members introduced the first bills of the year, offering a hint of Democratic priorities. Democrats enjoy large majorities in both legislative chambers.House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Democrat from Dillon, said “This session, we'll pass legislation to protect our water and air, invest in our schools, improve public safety, and make our state more affordable. Our first five bills are just the beginning, and we're excited to get to work building a Colorado where everyone can thrive,” In the House, the first five bills center on education investments, health care costs, mental health, language accessibility and water efficiency.House Bill 23-1001 would expand the eligibility for financial assistance and loan forgiveness for educators to address the state's teacher shortage. It is sponsored by Democratic Reps. Cathy Kipp of Fort Collins and Barbara McLachlan of Durango and Sen. Rachel Zenzinger of Arvada.House Bill 23-1002 would create an EpiPen affordability program for people who do not have health insurance. It would cap the cost of a two-pack of EpiPens, often used to treat severe allergic reactions, at $60. It is sponsored by Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat, and Sen. Dylan Roberts, an Avon Democrat.House Bill 23-1003 would form a mental health assessment program for Colorado youth in order to identify student mental health concerns and direct them to resources. It would be available in public schools for students in sixth through 12th grades. It is sponsored by Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, an Aurora Democrat, and Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Littleton Democrat.In the Senate, the first five bills introduced involve housing, health care costs, education and workforce development for mental health and forestry professionals. Three of them have bipartisan sponsorship.Senate Bill 23-1 would provide $13 million to the Public-Private Partnership Office to encourage affordable workforce housing on state-owned land. The bill is sponsored by Roberts, Zenzinger, Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat, and Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat.Senate Bill 23-2 would direct the state to seek federal authorization for Medicaid reimbursement for community health worker services. Community health care workers serve as a liaison between providers and community members and can often have a personal experience with a health condition and a cultural background they share with the community they serve. The bipartisan bill is sponsored by McCluskie, Sen. Kyle Mullica, a Federal Heights Democrat, Sen. Cleave Simpson, an Alamosa Republican, and Rep. Mary Bradfield, a Colorado Springs Republican.Senate Bill 23-3 would create the Colorado Adult High School Program for adults to earn a high school diploma at no cost and enter the workforce. The program would include transportation support and child care. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Janet Buckner, an Aurora Democrat, Sen. Bob Gardner, a Colorado Springs Republican, and Rep. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat.Two bills focus on the workforce shortage in our schools and in our forests. SB-4 would authorize schools to hire mental health professionals who are not licensed by the state Department of Education but hold a Colorado license for their profession. It is sponsored by Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, a Longmont Democrat, and Michaelson Jenet.SB-5 involves wildfire mitigation and forestry professionals. It would direct the Colorado State Forest Service to create educational materials on the industry and create a new forestry program at Colorado Mountain College, among other provisions. REP MATT MARTINEZ INTERVIEWHB23-1037Department Of Corrections Earned Time For College Program CompletionConcerning awarding earned time to nonviolent offenders who complete an accredited higher education program.SESSION: 2023 Regular SessionSUBJECT: Crimes, Corrections, & EnforcementBILL SUMMARYUnder existing law, an inmate in the custody of the department of corrections (department) may have earned time deducted from the inmate's sentence for meeting certain statutory requirements. The bill permits an inmate sentenced for a nonviolent felony offense to have earned time deducted from the inmate's sentence for each accredited degree or other credential awarded by an accredited institution of higher education to the inmate while the inmate is incarcerated, in the following amounts:One year of earned time for receiving an associate, baccalaureate, or graduate degree; and6 months of earned time for receiving a certificate or other credential.The bill requires the general assembly to annually appropriate the savings incurred during the prior state fiscal year as a result of the release of inmates from correctional facilities because of earned time granted for completion of a higher education degree or credential, as follows:50% of the savings to the department of corrections to facilitate inmates enrolling in and completing accredited higher education programs; and50% of the savings to the department of higher education for allocation to institutions of higher education that offer accredited programs in correctional facilities.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)Read LessCHALKBEAT COLORADO:Colorado's free preschool application is open. Here's what you need to know.The parent application for Colorado's new free preschool program opened yesterday— a major milestone in the march toward the program's launch next summer. The program, funded in part by a voter-approved nicotine tax, will offer 10 to 15 hours a week of tuition-free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide, with some eligible for 30 hours a week. In addition, some 3-year-olds will be eligible for 10 hours a week early childhood education.Families who fill out the application by Feb. 14, will find out what preschool their child matched with on March 10.State officials expect about 30,000 children to opt into the universal preschool program in its first year. That's about half the number that will be eligible. SO: Who gets free preschool and what age do they have to be?Three groups of children qualify: all 4-year-olds, some 3-year-olds who need extra help, and a small number of 5-year-olds who are too young for kindergarten. The goal is for kids to be more prepared for kindergarten.Some 4-year-olds will get 30 hours of free preschool a week, including those from lower-income families, kids who speak a language besides English at home, are homeless, in foster care, or have disabilities. The new preschool program will also cover 10 hours a week of preschool for 3-year-olds in these same groups. What's involved in the application? Are there income requirements?Many families will need about 15 minutes and not much else. The application is offered in English, Spanish, and Arabic, and parents should be able to complete the application on a cell phone or computer. Families that earn up to 270% of the federal poverty limit — about $81,000 a year for a family of four —will need to upload documents that prove their income.Can I pick my child's preschool?Yes. Families will be asked to pick up to five preschools they'd like their child to attend and will be able to rank their choices. Options include school-based preschools, church-based preschools, preschool programs inside child care centers, and state-licensed home-based preschools. Children will be prioritized for a spot in a preschool if they're already enrolled there, if a sibling is enrolled there, or if a parent works there. When does free preschool start in Colorado?August or September of this fall, depending on the specific preschool. For more information check out upk.colorado.gov or you can also contact the state's help desk at 303-866-5223 Do you have a question you don't see answered here or can't find the answer to elsewhere? Let us know at co.tips@chalkbeat.org and we'll do our best to find an answer. Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.ARIZONA MIRROR: Governor Hobbs wants a scholarship for DREAMERS.More than 3,000 undocumented students in Arizona could see their dreams of a college degree come true under a new scholarship proposed by Gov. Katie Hobbs. Dubbed the Promise for Dreamers Scholarship Program, the $40 million dollar investment is aimed at supporting undocumented students who've attended an Arizona high school for at least two years. Scholarships from the program help fund four years at one of the state's three public universitiesThe new scholarship program debuted in Hobbs' State of the State speech last week, where she billed it as an extension of Proposition 308 which allows DREAMERS to pay in-state tuition and access state-funded financial help. Reyna Montoya, who was part of the effort to pass Prop. 308 said that even though it improves access to higher education, but it doesn't resolve the inequality undocumented students face at the federal level. To fill out the FAFSA, which determines a student's eligibility for low-income loans and scholarships like the Pell Grant, citizenship is a requirement.If you're a low-income student, typically you have other supports, like the Pell Grant,” Montoya said. If you're a Dreamer, and you're getting ready to graduate from high school, you're not eligible. Even paying in-state tuition is going to be a steep challenge if you're trying to pay for school completely out of your own pocket.“Seeing the same heartache time after time — I get the chills to think that we can have different conversations with our students looking ahead. We don't have to tell them, ‘You're limited to these extremelydifficult pathways if you want to obtain an education,'” she said. Montoya is also hopeful that the scholarship will benefit the state's future by creating a more educated workforce and helping to mitigate labor shortages. Arizona is currently grappling with teacher vacancies and faces a projected nursing shortage by 2030. “This would really help us close a lot of the workforce gaps that we have in the state,” she said, adding: “It's in our benefit to see education as an investment rather than an expense.” Potential future benefits are a significant argument in favor of the scholarship, said Tyler Montague, chairman of the Yes on 308 campaign. “It's a big payback. Everybody that we get through college — as compared to just high school — makes $650,000 to $1 million more over their lifetime, and they're putting that money back into the economy. And they pay, on average, $380,000 more over their lifetime in taxes, which is a massive financial return,” he said, citing national studies.Also important to consider are the social returns that college grads provide, Montague added. People who earn a college degree are less likely to incur social costs, and are more involved in their communities. Montague hopes that the Republican-majority legislature gives the scholarship fund a fair shot, and keeps in mind the support that voters gave Prop. 308 as an indicator for the consensus around aiding undocumented youth in the state. “I would hope that the legislature takes their cue from (308) and acts accordingly,” he said. The proposition passed with a narrow 51% majority, but the approval across party lines was widespread, with as many as 27% of Republicans and 54% of Independents voting yes. Still, while Arizona voters agreed to level the playing field in university tuition rates, some Republican leaders in the legislature are balking at opening up access to state-funded scholarships. “Gov. KATIE HOBBS in her State of State stated that she would like to invest $40 million to help pay for illegal immigrants to attend college in Arizona,” tweeted House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci. “What about LEGAL citizens of Arizona or any other state?” Hobbs' budget proposal also includes an equivalent $40 million increase to the state's existing Arizona Promise Program, which she estimated on Monday could benefit as many as 10,000 more students. Last year, 4,000 students benefited. While the underlying legislation of Prop. 308 found bipartisan support, and was proposed by a Republican state senator, Hobbs' initiative may face an uphill battle in a statehouse with a more conservative bent to it. Enacting it through legislative channels isn't her only option; she could resort to issuing an executive order or negotiate with the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the state's universities. It's unclear, however, what path the governor's office will take; they did not respond to questions about what strategies it might consider to create the new scholarship fund.CONCERT PICK OF THE WEEK:Billy Strings has 3 sold out shows February 2, 3, and 4 at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield. At just 30 years old, Billy Strings is one of the most celebrated bluegrass musicians in America. He is known as an electric performer, keeping the improvisational tradition of bluegrass alive while incorporating a diverse variety of other genres into his music as well. Tickets and tour info at BillyStrings.comWelp, that's it for me! From Denver I'm Sean Diller. Original reporting for the stories in today's show comes from the Colorado Newsline, Arizona Mirror, Chalkbeat Colorado, Indian Country Times and Denver's Westword.Thank you for listening! See you next time.
(0:00) We start the final hour debating whether we would rather have Mac Jones or Zack Wilson.(10:02) The guys discuss EpiPens and listen to turkey stories.(21:32) We continue our talks on turkeys, and Patriots Legend Matt Light gives his opinion.(32:35) Today's Takeaways.CONNECT WITH ZOLAK & BERTRANDhttps://www.instagram.com/zoandbertrandhttps://twitter.com/ZoandBertrandhttps://www.facebook.com/ZolakandBertrandhttps://www.instagram.com/985thesportshubhttps://twitter.com/985thesportshubhttps://www.facebook.com/985TheSportsHub
We're super excited to introduce today's guest! Debbie Adler is the very definition of a renaissance woman. She's been a Wall Street accountant, an actress, a comedienne, a playwright, and a television development executive. But sixteen years ago she found her true calling, as the creator of the very first vegan, sugar-free, gluten-free, and allergy-free bakery in Los Angeles. Sweet Debbie's Organic Cupcakes caters to everyone from studio heads to Hollywood A-list entertainers. Debbie is also the writer of cookbooks Sweet, Savory & Free and Sweet Debbie's Organic Treats. Her most recent book, The Mediterranean Plate: Plant-Based Recipes Free From Gluten, Salt, Oil & Sugar, will ignite your taste buds while boosting your health and overall well-being. Her cookbook and bakery have been featured in the Los Angeles Times and on NPR, and her recipes have been published on popular websites and blogs. What an awesome treat to have her with us today! This episode is definitely for all the foodies out there. “Literally teenagers die of embarrassment. And it's the truth. They're so embarrassed in front of their friends to be different. They don't want to say, ‘well can you make it without this?' And some of them don't even carry their EpiPens because they're embarrassed. And they literally die of embarrassment.” -Debbie Adler What we discuss in this episode: What inspired her to open a bakery. How she perfected her recipes. Why Debbie chose to make her products allergy free. Allergies in children. Potential causes and signs of allergies. Tips and ingredients for delicious allergy and sugar-free vegan baking. Food addiction. Creative food substitutions. How Debbie overcame depression and her habits to achieve happiness. Resources: Debbie Adler's website Debbie's new book SUPPORT SWITCH4GOOD https://switch4good.org/support-us/ ★☆★ JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP ★☆★ https://www.facebook.com/groups/podcastchat ★☆★ SWITCH4GOOD WEBSITE ★☆★ https://switch4good.org/ ★☆★ ONLINE STORE ★☆★ https://shop.switch4good.org/shop/ ★☆★ FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM ★☆★ https://www.instagram.com/Switch4Good/ ★☆★ LIKE US ON FACEBOOK ★☆★ https://www.facebook.com/Switch4Good/ ★☆★ FOLLOW US ON TWITTER ★☆★ https://mobile.twitter.com/Switch4GoodNFT ★☆★ DOWNLOAD THE ABILLION APP ★☆★ https://app.abillion.com/users/switch4good
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