May 10, 2018
Victorian diseases eradicated long ago with the advent of antibiotics are making an unlikely comeback across the pond. You heard that right - scurvy and other illnesses related to malnutrition are now having devastating effects on thousands of families as hunger and hardship have spiked, following eight years of austerity cuts in the U.K. To discuss the state of the U.K.'s austerity cuts - which lawmakers in Washington would be wise to consider a cautionary tale as they debate a Farm Bill that would strip 2 million Americans of meager yet vital food assistance - Rebecca talks with Mary O'Hara, a columnist with The Guardian and the author ofAusterity Bites: A Journey to the Sharp Edge of Cuts in the UK.
Later in the show, some 1 in 4 Americans report difficulty affording necessary prescription drugs, as prices have skyrocketed in recent years. In response to this growing crisis, a range of lawmakers in Congress have called for legislation to curb rising drug costs, and states have begun to take action as well, with Vermont's legislature last week passing a bill to allow the state to import prescription drugs from Canada. To dig into what drives rising drug prices - and what we can do to bring their cost down - Rebecca speaks with Fran Quigley, who coordinates of People of Faith for Access to Medicines and serves as a clinical professor in the Health and Human Rights Clinic at Indiana University's School of Law.
But first, Jeremy Slevin, aka the Slevinator, returns with the latest on the Farm Bill debate (and his cat mitzvah!) and other news of the week, in another installment of In Case You Missed It.