tonight on our team are you feeling tired depressed anxious nauseous or the slightest bit of pain there's a pill for that in fact there's a pill for just about any ailment you can come up with these days as the u.s. become dependent on prescription pills. in the t.s.a. is more invasive than ever before with their security lines pat downs and screenings all for the sake of safety all the t.s.a. agents feel you up the government starting to question is this really worth the funding and who is profiting. think they'll be so use the bleeding. consciousness in all governments and on the wounds which is one of the ultimate. control the two thousand and twelve olympic games in london are right around the corner inside the arena athletes will battle for gold medals but

residents are more concerned with what's happening outside we'll tell you about the security crackdown of monumental proportions. it's friday may eleventh eight pm in washington d.c. i'm adding martin you're watching r.t. . starting off this hour close to one hundred million working americans are currently uninsured the us and the lack of health care is the seventh largest cause of death in america despite president obama's attempts to reform health care some claim it's just another power grab from the health and health care insurance industry to force poor people to buy into the system or face penalties one of the biggest influences on health care debate is you guessed it the pharmaceutical industry the industry spent one point four million dollars a day lobbying congress during the health care debate and just in the last decade they spent nine hundred million dollars lobbying them the us is currently one out of only two nations in the world allows direct to consumer advertising of

pharmaceutical pills and prescription pills are twice as expensive here than almost anywhere else in the world at this country consumes a whopping eighty percent of the world's painkillers so why is america such a pill happy nation and whose interests are they serving the patients or their own earlier i was joined by a licensed clinical social worker dr darcy smith in regards to america's growing prescription addiction i asked her if she thought it was a good idea for people to be diagnosing their own symptoms take a listen i think it's i think it's a little less scary when people can diagnose their own their own symptoms because there's a reason why physicians go to med school and we're really not qualified unless we have a medical degree to be diagnosing ourselves and it can be really misleading when we go online and we start doing all this research about their area symptoms and we don't have the foundation of the medical education to really understand what to do with the information that we're reading so we're misdiagnosing ourselves see what

about you know this direct to consumer advertising that only america and new zealand implement. is this really. causing people to consume eighty percent of the world pows in this country i mean and the pills are so expensive here than anywhere else but it seems i mean is there really a link between the two well look they pulled out the meat the middleman they have found a way pharmaceutical companies and found a way to no longer rely exclusively on the physician to. to market their drugs to so they pulled out the middleman they're marketing directly to us the consumers and we are so vulnerable as we know which is why we are still vulnerable to advertising which is why it's illegal to advertise for our whole or for search for tobacco and we put these these boundaries in place to keep people safe because people are so vulnerable to the marketing and these attempts have clearly resulted

in exactly what the pharmaceutical companies have had been hoping for lobbying for as evidenced by their profit margin. darcy i think a lot of people trust in the paranoia in the system and when they see that the f.d.a. is passing these pills through they just assume that they're being tested and say for human consumption but as we see and i'm going to show this clip of some of these commercials but it seems like half of these commercials are just a side effect folks roll just a little montage of some of these pharmaceutical ads bipolar depression and. here's me and here's my depression you know when you feel the weight of sadness you may feel exhausted hopeless and anxious. i mean look let's take a look at the regulatory bodies. what is the process of really passing these pills into the public well not only they're out so so there's two issues one is that

they're working directly to a consumer and a consumer doesn't necessarily know the difference between have seen. a decrease in mood that is a result of normal life circumstances as opposed to something that really manifests and meet criteria for clinical depression so a normal person is watching this on television is saying she you know what i get really down to the last i don't know two weeks maybe i should ask my doctor or you know and the doctor's offices are so overwhelmed because they're having so many more patients because they're all to lead with managed care and having to see so many more patients per hour and so they just want to funnel their patients out and they do want their patients to be happy so the patient walks in and says the gee i think i could really do well with prozac or some of the last you know i think i have some depressive symptoms and then they start listing criteria that they were that they researched online and that becomes problematic so that's the first issue

but what takes it to a whole other level of creepiness is that many drugs are being marketed for purposes that they've not necessarily been approved for and that is really really concerning can you elaborate on what some of those have been. i really can't i'm so sorry no no problem it reminds me i was recently calling a doctor to consult about birth control and i was basically in a five minute conversation the doctor was trying to sell me anti depressants. and it was really fascinating because i didn't i didn't realize i mean maybe you can elaborate on do doctors have a personal motivation to sell these drugs are they being lobbied themselves from such a company absolutely they are being lobbied directly from the front of pharmaceutical companies they have sales people who are out in full force whose exclusive goal is to is to market their drugs and to get these doctors to prescribe more and more of

these drugs and the doctors are incentivized now i don't know the exact i can't give you exact statistics on what some of these incentives are or how or how often they are pushed on these doctors but they're absolutely monetary monetary rewards to these doctors for prescribing a certain number and these see their statistics that the pharmaceutical companies have which doctors are prescribing the most of their drugs and those doctors are absolutely be gifted trips they're being gifted all kinds of things from pharmaceutical companies there's a very interesting point you bring up there are those talk about why only america and new zealand but i mean marathons consuming eighty percent of the world prescription pills prescription pill deaths of just outnumbered car crashes in this country it's such an underreported topic why is it i mean is there just so much

more coercion in this country is there so much more industry pushing our government why is it that we're one of the only two countries in the world that allows this idea if you look at the history of drug overdoses you'll you'll realize that it's only in very recent history have we been seeing the magnitude of the drug overdoses that we see and it is a direct result of people using both pharmaceutical drugs so legal drugs. along with recreational drugs such as out the hall or marijuana and the combination of out the hole in particular with pharmaceutical drugs is a recipe for overdose and we're seeing that across the board you're seeing that was celebrity look at whitney houston look at michael jackson you know. and we've and we we know look at the sixty's we never saw anything like this going on in the sixty's people did not die from overdosing and they're dying now because people

have access to magnitude there's a wealth of pharmaceutical drugs at everyone's disposal anyone can go into their mother's medicine cabinet and help themselves to a slew of herat it is a deadly concoction darcey and i think a lot of people don't know the effects they don't know the situation we're not really being taught or educated what it is you know what the potential side effects are when you're taking uppers and downers together and it is really scary it doesn't need to be talked about more started to wrap this up i just want to get your perspective here in america we spend more per person on health care than pretty much other industrialized countries that socialize our medicine why do you think it is that americans are so against socialized health care you know i i i can't really speak to why americans consistently vote against their own best interest idea that we are against socialized medicine that we believe the government exists you know for nothing more than to to wreak more and to

fight wars and to fight battles that that there is no government responsibility to keep us well in comprehensible to me but it does appear to be what what you know certainly what what the right wing. politicians and their constituents embrace in terms of their philosophy i can't speak to that i don't understand how and why people vote against their own best interests i don't understand what how people think that they're look the the people who are impoverished are many of them are getting their medical needs met too late and guess what we're paying for it anyway that is part of why health care is. so expensive that because hospitals cannot turn people away and so we are seeing people but it's too late there's no prevention and more people would would survive if they were getting the

health care that they need ahead of you know ahead of the actual disease manifesting and it's really unfortunate that socialized medicine in this country has become synonymous with a dirty word and despite you know the price that we're paying for these goods and services we're certainly not getting the quality of care that we're paying for it was dr darcy smith's life and clinical social worker touch and squeeze an interest in yes we're talking about the t.s.a. again the transportation security administration was created in the wake of nine eleven to help prevent future terrorist attacks but some people call the t.s.a. is tactics a form of security theater that just doesn't make us any safer let's just take a look at some of the most ridiculous examples that come to mind. when your daughter was flying as no fly i said excuse me it's absurd my life is pretty much in our hands when i walk there a bystander with my hands on a pump on she was right to be weary the pump stopped working just john. kerry she

let me check security belts touch my gun like you know your thoughts we do a little bit slow you know we can do that here if you touch my junk want to have your rest since nine eleven we've slowly seen our rights to privacy while flying completely dissolve just take a look at this time line right after september eleventh the t.s.a. immediately started making security changes knives for the first to be banned and shoes need to be removed following not lighters and liquids are next to go mandatory full body scans came along but that didn't make us any safer in two thousand and nine a bomb was smuggled into an airplane and just last may for chef knives were brought into a plane and these are just a few of the numerous security breaches that we know about today. one of the biggest controversies surrounding the t.s.a. is their implementation of naked body scanner machines a program that's already cost taxpayers eighty seven million dollars and is planning to be spread nationwide now though there have already been outcries about

the naked scanners as a violation of privacy but recently a blogger has uncovered fatal flaws in the scanners revealing how they can be tricked with and sewn pockets and metallic objects that can smuggle through pretty much anything illegal so what's the point of all this extra security if it doesn't actually make us safer joining me now more on that is the blogger who revealed it all jonathan corbett president of for ten technologies jonathan glad to have you on could you elaborate more on what you one covered the vulnerabilities in these scanners. absolutely so i've been researching the body scanners for about the last year and a half now and i've come across so one of those but not as simple as the one that i described my video that came out in march of this year the center of the body scanners have a bit of a problem seems things that are on the side of one's body especially metallic objects so essentially what it did was to an ordinary shirtless sort of pocket side of it but a metallic object and it walked through the body scanners on video repeatedly and

what i found was a body scanners for money able to detect after going ahead with. what do you say to the t.s.a. is response to this video that went viral they said you know it's really unfortunate that this person revealed the vulnerabilities in our system because terrorists could take advantage of that what do you say to that. is if a terrorist cannot but think about this look much much more in-depth and i have the bottom line is that these vulnerabilities are numerous and they did not take any kind of. neuroscience to to uncover. the problem is that the t.s.a. does not let anyone independent tests body scanners to keep everything secret that goes for both efficacy as well as the health effects of the service or x. ray machines that we have to trust are safe and effective. that's just not something that we as the american public can do right now to give the t.s.a. that trust matter and so jonathan the t.s.a. you know despite the abysmal failure it seems of these scanners and kind of the what the commonplace understanding that they are failing you know they just

released this congressional report saying yes we know that there's vulnerabilities but we're going to place for these recommendations to solve then i mean why are they trying to implement a thousand more in the next to yours. you know it's got to be pretty embarrassing. we've spent close to a billion dollars by now on the spot of scanners as well as the installation the maintenance and all the little things that go along with the body scanners so they come back and say we just wasted a billion dollars on you know just search grandma group your daughter we're sorry that's that's a tough pill for them to swallow and i think can be easier if they did it now than if they wait another three and a few years until you know someone gets there was something dangerous or you know who knows. they're not putting security first they're putting their own image first of putting buying expensive toys first it's truly unfortunate talk about how your findings really cause such waves they are actually presenting them to congress sure

after the scanner video that actually put out was released it received something like two million you tube hits within about a day and a half and i was featured all over the world in a national media really bonded too by the t.s.a. and people took notice it was very pleasant for me to see that you know people out there are watching you know are seeing what's happening with t.s.a. and are are catching on that hey this doesn't make us safer and b. even if it is not the right thing to do and congress well the t.s.a. has had. the balls to stop us representatives and senators going through airports have them down detain them so forth you know it's it's it's truly incredible what they think that they can do and the public and congress is watching and so your testimony is going to be a very important one will definitely keep an eye on that jonathan i want you to talk a little bit about the incompetency that you put forward and one of your videos where

you're interviewing an actual t.s.a. agent who's saying you know they gave us these manuals they say that there were mandated to read them to understand how the scanners work we don't read them i've never even read one in my life they don't even really train as how to properly in the scenes and then you see that case of the woman who just the t.s.a. official broke her ten thousand dollar insulin machine i mean why is this incompetency being pushed on on this industry it just seems almost like it's working against national security. you know i think there's there's a few reasons for that number one is that no one really wants to work for the t.s.a. it's the people that you have that actually take the job a probably just looking for a job and. we're taking what they can find. because it's an environment that is hostile to work and it's a place where you're stuck touching people's genitals against their consent all day long for a living so it's not going to attract the best and brightest and that's part of the problem that the bureaucracy the sheer size of the t.s.a.

they've got it's sixty thousand employees right now. and you can't have a government organization that long without extensive waste and disorganization. and what we've found is that these employees have not read the books have not gotten the updates the updates haven't gotten down to them and it's not all the employees faults in fact i would hardly blame the employees at all it's the management fault for not ensuring that their employees have this training and when you have fifty thousand employees to train and it's not a small undertaking jonathan i want to read you a couple stats that you just talked about the growth of the t.s.a. and you know how many employees are currently working there. have already spent over sixty million dollars since nine eleven on funding the t.s.a. and yet it is allowed twenty five thousand thousand security breaches they've spent thirty six million dollars on devices that puff air on travelers and like you said sixty two thousand people are employed for nine months of work one t.s.a.

executive received a salary of five point four million dollars so what felton if i mean are you proposing to completely abolish the t.s.a. . absolutely you know we need airport security at some level that the pre nine eleven security measures were great with the exception of reinforcing the cockpit doors which are already done and having a traveling public that's not going to look for men to take over their airplane which we've also done that the t.s.a. with their body scanners the puffer machines the e.t.s have not done well with catching even things that you think would be easy to catch just firearms the latest report there is released on that show that the t.s.a. misses approximately seven. the percent of firearms that are brought through the checkpoint so you can look at the t.s.a. as we catch is that the post on their blog about how many guns they've caught and you can you can double that never discount any guns they've missed. you know you can mention those puffer scanners puffer machines that cost thirty six million dollars well what happened was those machines broke down instead of fixing the

problem benchley sent all the machines to a warehouse to be destroyed. and bought these body scanners instead it seems like the t.s.a. has been spending money hand over fist and it's just not the solution much cheaper solutions much less invasive solutions that the great one has sponsored a few dogs why the t.s.a. has not chosen to implement those machines is beyond me jonathan on your blog you mentioned the first underwear bomber attack and the witnesses kurt haskell specifically says that he witnessed the well dressed man eighteen the guy on the plane and i mean it speculated that he was purposely given that native pull you could say bomb do you think that this was all kind of a plan to get these body scanners in the airports. you know i'm hesitant to engage in what many people would call conspiracy theory but there's do seem to be a lot of coincidences after the embarrassment with the t.s.a. of searching a bunch of children over the last month comes out you know

a few days ago that some child had. parts hidden within her toys you know it does seem very quick steps that the t.s.a. all the sudden finds these things and they may be finding them but i think oftentimes they're hyped up for example this new underwear bomber that they found that they said had a nonmetallic explosive what does that mean to this person have a stick of dynamite did this person have something no more significant to this person have the means of getting into the u.s. and you don't know and most importantly with the body scanners have actually caught it and in my experience if the person had concealed it properly the answer is no it is very interesting these cases that come time and time again that shows some sort of aiding and abetting by actual government agencies thanks for joining us jonathan that was jonathan corbett president of for ten technologies in a blogger who can sort it all. and speaking of paranoia result in the abuse of government authority ever since the olympic committee decided to hold the summer games in london the british government has implemented unprecedented levels of security regulations that have baffled and disturbed the city's residents artie's

laura smith brings us the story. the olympic torch is lit and on its journey to london accompanying it fear uncertainty and code red level security impinging on the lives of people from london to las vegas that's where ted larkin lives he's supposed to be in the u.k. training martial arts enthusiasm but as he was boarding his flight he discovered the home office had excluded him from the country on the grounds that his self-defense course bitin site vigilanteism being that i have a fifteen year history of coming to the u.k. training thousands of people from the u.k. and also european clients coming into london and had no incidents whatsoever in and the rhetoric that's being used is absolutely inconsistent with what i teach it's a level of paranoia that increases the closer the olympics gets but london

a simon more won't get anywhere near the games he protested the building of basketball courts on a green space near the olympics and was slapped with a control order that forbids him from going near the olympics or any other celebration taking place this summer he faces five years in prison if he disobeys legislation is being used to prevent. low for an understandable protest to aspects of the games which are on the necrotic or on popular. furthermore these are just this legislation won't prevent people from disrupting the games who would it would do is it will give the ability to punish people more severely i think it's insane i think that it shows the prevailing. consciousness in all governments and in the world which is one of the

ultimately we're in control luckily for simon he doesn't live near the stadium but tight anyone who does this buildings less than a kilometer from the olympic park the plan is to station a battery of high velocity missiles on the roof of this block of flats the two months over the olympics a proposal that's already triggered an explosive reaction resident brian whelan learned of the plans from a leaflet pushed through his door late one night some people are worried about how affect the property values some people think that make the building a target for terrorists some people think that it's discipline as it is not secure enough so people don't want to be turned into some sort of military base because they'll really affect the quality of life. might my big argument just. nobody consulted us the mit never spoke to us the two thousand and twelve games have spawned a level of security that's unprecedented seen by many as overwhelming and repressive

the question many british people are asking is if it's like this already what's it going to be like when the lympics circus finally rolls into town north smith r t london summer season rapidly approaches so do the early predictions of record breaking temperatures across the nation were on deck for possibly one of the hottest summers yet and the weather isn't the only thing holding up the debate on global warming is reaching a boiling point but is it manmade global warming science fiction or fact are her friends with the resident dot com dot head took to the streets of new york to find out what you think. this year the u.s. saw its fourth warmest winter on record and europe saw a record breaking cold why is no one talking about the perils of climate change any more this week let's talk about that do you think it's still a threat to the planet. yes over here especially well walked off mic.

you know you got a car we like to pollute the air here in the u.s. definitely you know what can you do i mean what can the individual. person to do if you stop using plastic bags and we already live we already knew we really don't like that mix of a differential no we do yes we do as much as we can but you know it's times of the government heads worldwide do you think that the world still cares about it because it doesn't seem to be in the headlines as frequently absolutely not so why is that i don't know. for government to figure out but they don't want to give us an affirmation for us to make our own decisions and i think it's something that people know i mean everyone a lot of people watch you know watch our gore and listen to him and can't even remember the name of the movie i can't right now but that's all we heard of out of years ago was that inconvenient truths are convenient we forgot the days

immediately for god why do you think the media has that to talk about it because it clearly wasn't common sense that stops them. because they found something else to talk about i do believe people are working on it and when you talk to my son who's in college and his friends i think there is a lot more concern than we have staff i guess it's you can't really gauge everything by what the media is talking about right right we're going to have snow in june at this point so you believe it's still a threat yes absolutely so why isn't the media talking about it anymore big business. big big big oil companies don't want to hear that so they get money to lobbyists that don't want to hear it though if it still is but we don't hear about it so much are we headed for doom i hope not i don't know if you have a seven hundred twenty first one in twelve the bottom line is although there are people who are still concerned about the effects of climate change the mainstream media is clearly not among them.

well that's going to do it for the news for tonight but be sure to tune in next week we've got a brand new lineup in store for you first up the two thousand and twelve elections over the past few months we've watched presidential bids rise and then tailspin into oblivion from herman cain's nine nine nine plan to michele bachmann's tea party a lurker we watch one candidate after another leave whatever happened to tim paul n.t. the money is king in politics as we all know in the can and the more a candidate has the longer they can stay in the game so with old billionaires using their fortunes to make and break political contenders are elections are rigged and whatever happened to one man one vote will explore and speaking of political missteps d.c. elites of a known to cause a scandal or two in their day whether it's the watergate to win or gate we've seen it all in more ways than one and now one d.c. tour companies actually profiting off the scandal offering tours around the nation's capital that highlight the more embarrassing moments that made history next week will board the bus and show you how some of the people are capitalizing

on corruption finally in the past called degrees were an investment in the future that's not necessarily the case these days seems degrees are more like lottery tickets than a ticket to success higher education can pay off more times that students left buried in debt next week we'll show you how student debt is dragging the nation down those are just a few of the stories we're working on for next week shows along with more news and always in-depth interviews so keep it tuned right here to our team. for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america or check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at abby martin that's it for now have a great night and weekend.