appointed by theodore roosevelt as the first opium commissioner of the united states he said of all the nations of the world the united states consumes most haven't forming drugs per capita opium the most pernicious drug known to humanity is surrounded in this country with far fewer safeguards than any other nation in europe senses it with which is why it was outlawed with the without a prescription and the harrison narcotics tax act was in force regulating the dangerous drug and why he wrote those words in the new york times. and for all for while opium deaths in overdoses declined as did recreational or use then in one nine hundred seventy president richard nixon signed the controlled substances act into law the bill deregulated addictive drugs like opioids in favor of her sure warning labels prison sentences and limitations on their imported export nearly half

a century later opiate problem isn't getting better but it has made one family quite wealthy various members of the sackler family own controlling interests and purdue pharmaceuticals they're the creators and distributors of oxycontin and that one little drug accounts for close to eighty percent of the company's total sales oxycontin is currently killing an average of one hundred people a day in the u.s. and costing our economy about seventy billion annually according to the c.d.c. but no justice may finally be coming for a purge do farm and the sackler family has class action lawsuits pile up and bankruptcy is on the table for the multi-billionaire brood so let's stop making excuses for a big pharma and start watching the. world in. the first real that this would be a liar for the part of. the day like you let down our guard.

which we. would. welcome everybody to watch not out of the wallet you know health care costs are rising in every sector however the pharmaceutical giant that makes the insulin bread cumulus recently announced it will release a generic version at half the price but is that discount enough to save lives. correspondent ann kellan has the story. by the year twenty thirty nearly eighty million people around the world with type two diabetes won't have access to the medicine they need to survive unless there's a drastic change in access and cost it's a sobering statistic that underscores the difficulties more than thirty million diabetic americans face today as prices for the lifesaving medicines soar but

following pressure from congress the pharmaceutical company lilly announced it will sell a generic version of its insulin drug at half price this version will cost about one hundred thirty five dollars for one vial but that's still about seven times as expensive as the brand name version when it was released in one thousand nine hundred six and most patients need to vials per month adding up to more than three thousand dollars every year still have to a price tag for many americans who struggle financially senator chuck grassley praised the announcement as a first step saying quote this is only one piece of the puzzle and more needs to be done insulin has existed for over one hundred years the finance committee is investigating high prices looking forward to getting the responses from insulin companies to letters we sent meanwhile produce pharma the company that makes oxycontin is filing for bankruptcy as it faces thousands of lawsuits for allegedly contributing to the opioid crisis which has killed more than forty seven thousand

americans in twenty seventeen companies accused of deceiving doctors and patients about the dangers of the highly addictive drug the company admitted as much in a two thousand and seven criminal case that saw it pay out six hundred million dollars in damages to corporations filing for bankruptcy it's not certain it would allow purdue to negotiate legal claims with plaintiffs under the supervision of a judge there by limiting its losses porting in washington dan cohen r t. from the cost of living from fire. goals to the cost of living in venezuela despite violating a court order travel ban on president nicolas maduro government allowed opposition leader won by doe to return home without a rest however some on capitol hill aren't so thrilled and have now turned their attention to getting rid of getting a kind of reparations payments for those who lost land during cuba's one nine hundred fifty nine revolution rachel blevins has the story. opposition leader

one quite joe made his return to venice where law on monday but instead of focusing on the fact that he was not arrested by the government of nicolas maduro some u.s. lawmakers are attempting to bring one of their favorite topics back into the mix russian collusion senator marco rubio claimed that russia is intentionally undermining what he called the constitutional basis for why doe's interim presidency by describing him as the self-proclaimed president of venezuela rubio then noted the sand then does the same and suggested that it may be the basis for how russian collusion now was rubio did not provide any other evidence of ties between the two it should be noted that why joe's return to venice where love lacked the dramatic arrest that was predicted after he intentionally violated a court imposed travel ban instead he received a hero's welcome in caracas. the

self-proclaimed leader landed at the country's major airport on monday he was greeted by a crowd of supporters who embraced him took cell phone pictures and chanted yes we can in spanish why do made his way through the crowd a group made up of ambassadors from several supporting countries such as the germany france and spain formed a human shield around the opposition leader as he moved through the airport and despite warning that he would be arrested for breaking a travel ban imposed by the spill a supreme court to government did not interfere with the idea. as you travel to a brolly where here trust supporters and calls for the country's armed forces to turn on president nicolas maduro. there is never going space for division no two we . not only few elections but also democracy forever prosperity for our people in the armed forces what are you waiting for. seven hundred or more than seven hundred

are on the side of the constitution. one day after u.s. officials publicly threatened anyone who interfered with by joe's return russia is now sending out a warning of its own against anyone who attacks russian investments in venezuela the russian ambassador in caracas noted that all of moscow's investment projects have passed checks by the venezuelan government based on international laws and are therefore under their protection he warned that any attempts to take away what was invested by russian firms in the country's economy would be met with a tough response while why joe has claimed cuba has a hold on venezuela's military and u.s. national security adviser john bolton underscored that claim by saying that twenty five thousand cuban troops are currently in front of us on top of that on monday the trumpet ministration announced new economic sanctions against cuba over the island nations alleged role in supporting the material government cuba is now firing back at the u.s. he was foreign secretary accuse the u.s.

of interfering in venezuela by calling for a coalition to elect a president of ukraine the bolton is the perfect advocate for the u.s. government because it is quote famous for resorting to lies so while madeira has chosen to lay low despite all of the fanfare surrounding why doe's return the office isn't leader has continued to the supporters to rally against the elected president and it remains to be seen how the government and the military will respond with another mass demonstration planned for this saturday in washington rachel blevins. r t. joining me now to discuss the venice waylay cuba and beyond is our social media producer here on watching the hot seven figure thank you for joining me of course thank you for having me so here we are in this venice way that you know quite all goes back to this quote unquote hero's welcome what are your farce thoughts when you see that i mean well on sort of on its face the

propaganda we're getting is that murrow is a ruthless dictator in venezuela's under this totalitarian authoritarian regime but why don't legally enter an exit of the country has not been arrested and people are being allowed to amass around him and cheered his return so it's i mean that's already a contradiction right there that tells me there's something up here because what a ruthless dictator even allow that in the first place second all of the pictures and videos i saw of him when he returned one most of the people around him are international press and then to all of the angles they're using is sort of from the ground looks like there's a huge crowd around him in reality numbers show it might have been a hundred at its peak and it was an unimproved gondor to what i've heard from people who are on the ground so my first thought is that it's a lot of sort of layers are going to peel back yeah i mean they're trying to make a star out of this this guy very you know suddenly this person we've never heard that we've never heard in u.s. politics at least you know one guy doa suddenly this huge now it's you know it's

like bedo like where did this person come from and now all the sudden it's you know he seems like the beethoven it's way hey we found someone fits into our kind of idea so now there's this idea of who is who is not working it's a failure it's not really going the way they planned and washington and the sort of opposition to it are getting a little desperate. this is this is this kind of explains why now we're attacking cuba and russia as a last resort because that but is there a real reason to go and is cuba is cuba or russia doing anything invest way aside from legally trading and rightly so every day yeah sensually i would agree with you that the coup has been a massive failure so now they're getting desperate and they're trying to hit their allies and friends in the really just trying to latin america as much as they can at this point. what is being sort of told is that the cuban military is actually

running the venezuelan military now and that's why the military will not turn against him that's actually what john bolton is claiming that whyld lee inaccurate and bizarre the only people who are in cuba is about fifteen to twenty thousand citizens most of them are actually health care professionals who come and they give free aid and they have for years all across the world even offered when hurricane katrina happened here as well as hurricane sandy and other natural disasters in the u.s. which we by the way. so yeah it's weird isn't it the suddenly cubans are running the venezuelan government just because they're allies and they have trade so let me get straight cuba can take care of themselves but they're apparently running venezuela on this yeah they're apparently this country they're running and giving weapons to another military it's wild so in retaliation for that the u.s. has now slapped even stronger sanctions on cuba mostly symbolic in this case

essentially for any property that was seized during the revolution several decades ago from u.s.p.s. owners ok they can sue now for that property never and never sees this to amaze me how much we can mess up a simple thing like diplomats say that. we had to go to break og rogers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics we covered on facebook and twitter here at com coming up we're going to. something was found at the bottom of the ocean that i don't think it's supposed to be there stay tuned to watch. i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter the u.s. has over one trillion dollars of debt more than ten white collar crime families

each day. eighty five percent of global wealth he longs to be ultra rich eight point six percent. market rose thirty percent some with one hundred to five hundred three per second per second and when he rose to twenty thousand dollars. china's building two point one billion dollars. mark but don't let the numbers over. the only number you need to remember one one business showed you know the mid one and only boom but. traditionally in the foreign policy with the assistance of the legacy media to find an immediate threat for a foreign military intervention or coup their aim has been to manufacture public support today it's different with virtually no public debate is the target of a forced regime change the problem is force regime change as

a deplorable record. what politicians do something that. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when one of the president. wanted. to try to cross the sea. the three of you did. just that all those. years.

whether you're afraid of injury of the government or big pharma parents across the country asking for vaccines and vaccine schedules to be examined however with fear of vaccines and fear of people who are fearful of vaccines out of full tilt one has to wonder how any of this will help the public health is a measles outbreak truly raging across the country and if it is should parents be forced to vaccinate their children for the public good the senate health committee hearing on vaccines and outbreaks took place this week on capitol hill and republican senator bill castro from louisiana had this to say but the group should point out that in terms of requirement the requirement is just that you cannot enter school ilish or vaccinated now if you're of such a believer in liberty that you do not wish to be vaccinated then there should be a consequence and that is that you cannot infect other people. but senator rand paul asked a vaccine mandates are in line with american values regarding personal liberty. as we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine i think it's

important to remember that force is not consistent with the american story nor is force considered because system with the liberty our forefathers sought when they came to america i don't think you have to have one of the other though i'm not here to say don't vaccinate your kids of this appearing is for persuasion i'm all for the persuasion i vaccinated myself i vaccinated my kids or myself or my children i believe that the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks but i still do not favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security. joining us now to discuss the recent measles cases and the concern around them is our intake correspondent michelle greene thank you so much for joining us today and i think i think this is always such a a very delicate topic to handle with everybody because there's these moments when people kind of you know it's the fear it's the fear fear of people being afraid of this whole big thing that i think is super touchy because particularly effects like

infants and young children right so the first thing is this week senate hearings on the on the vaccine mandate sparked by the recent they were sparked by the recent measles outbreak first how bad is the the outbreak and is this something that you can say with some scientific anybody can say with scientific knowledge would have been prevented if we had had one hundred percent or close to one hundred percent vaccination in those areas yes oh good question so according to the c.d.c. there have been two hundred cases of the measles so far in twenty nineteen so as you guys know we're in march right now so that's actually quite a spike because we have comparable numbers in twenty eighteen for the entire year so there's definitely an increase going on there and the c.d.c. says that these outbreaks are linked to people coming in to the u.s. from other countries the c.d.c. says like israel and ukraine where measles is prevalent now in terms of vaccines being an effective way to curb these types of outbreaks that's actually where the fallacy lies so even though you know vaccines undoubtedly save lives and the

measles vaccine is of course successful in lowering incidence of measles what it doesn't do is create a population was lifelong immunity so i don't know if you guys remember but like you know it used to be or at least when our parents you know were children you would get the chicken pox you would get the measles and then after you got it you would be immune for your entire life you couldn't get it again so getting the measles naturally having the disease naturally gives you lifelong immunity vaccines actually don't do that and actually there have been a number of vast measles outbreaks in the u.s. in populations that were her. highly vaccine compliant just three examples like texas montana and colorado these were highly vaccinated populations sometimes in schools where vaccines were mandatory and people still you know how to outbreaks there so even though vaccination doesn't result in immunity it of course doesn't reduce incidence of diseases like measles but the idea that herd immunity is complete is kind of a fallacy that you know it's like every yes herd immunity is

a thing and it works in large groups but there's always going to be a small a certain right at the moment that a lot of people are blaming measles outbreaks on failure to vaccinate when really the problem is you know a failing vaccine but the question of course becomes would you rather have even one you know cases measles and have like a largely vaccinated population or would you rather have no symptoms so of course you know a very few mound of people with measles die or get brain damage or those other severe symptoms but you know common things are you know it lays the groundwork for infections there's diarrhea there's you know things like lung infection so if you want to avoid that totally then you might as well get the vaccine kind of like you said was that sort of like the chicken pox when your kid and your parents when you see your friends out of the chicken parm you want your child to get a chicken pox or measles in this case and sort of suffer through that or take the risk right with the vaccine and does not even have to go through that at all but exactly and that doesn't mean that getting the vaccine gives you the disease just

means it doesn't give you lifelong immunity and there are those who think that a lot of people don't understand and terms of that is that certain people of the m.m.r. vaccine doesn't actually work on their just riders like one or one to four percent of people that lastly i'm one of those people which is why i had measles as a kid and this i think gets to the heart of a very very justified criticism which is not we don't have to say that you know vaccines are bad but we do have to say hey maybe we shouldn't be blanket prescribing you know sixty plus vaccines to all of our kids all of the time because every child is different there's a certain subset. of children for whom the measles vaccine for instance is actually harmful not for everyone but doctor should be looking into those health risks more before being so quick to rise we've got a lot of things that have come up in the years since these vaccines have been regular you know the m.m.r. was a regular saying and we've known about a lot we've learned a lot more about a lot of diseases and certain things if certain people are reading our rampaul makes this point about it being a personal liberty is at the core of american democracy and questioning mandatory

vaccines whenever you question that what you said it tends to get attacked because it gets lumped in with one thing of you know my mother vaccinated me she didn't question it she said i would do it again if i knew it was going to work on you but then also she was told by doctors it's true that me being vaccinated could help it not spread to somebody else or there's other things so i think there's so much misinformation that people you know are wary of someone saying this is mandatory it's not as if the you know the u.s. government doesn't have a history of testing you know diseases on people like in going to the tests keiji experiments as one example and you know we give our children twice the number of vaccines as kids in other developed countries do so there are a lot of rational people ask asking rado questions and my problem is when all of those people asking questions go under the same subset of crazy people and that's what the correct media tends to do you know of course they take big pharma money so there's that i mean i was sort of the sort of polarization right where there's like

you're either the strongest and five out there i like if you don't get vaccines don't speak to me don't look me in the street you know i don't know that i'm doing very well be a good idea what you both harmful and they're both playing into this narrative the corporate media has really been playing up on thing you know for sure and you know corporate media they just love a fiery situation so anything that polarizes people work for them and then of course you have the concept of big pharma like we know capitol hill takes money from big pharma the c.d.c. the f.d.a. these are both organizations influence. by drug companies so we can understand why people can be skeptical of especially when it becomes mandatory you know we understand that these drug companies bribe our government when it comes to other things like opioids that is at this point not a taboo thing to say so that same logic should apply i think well one thing i wanted to ask you because i agree skepticism is healthy especially when as you said there's a government history of you know testing on people poor people incarcerated people

would still have and today. you know population to test on they can organize it is that right it's a helpless population but. there was a study that came out that i think is going to add to sort of the more conservative conspiratorial side of the a little bit where there is a line of thinking that essentially assumes vaccines equals autism and so i mean it's also a little bit able is that you're sort of trying to choose your child getting sick or dying over them being on. but nonetheless there was a study that came out last week that looked at almost seven hundred thousand children over it's been your span and found that there's virtually no conclusive evidence between vaccines and autism have you had a chance to look at this i did actually i just came out recently that's very important so what we do have scientific evidence for is that in a certain subset of children they are at risk for you know regression brain disorders you know being on the autism spectrum if they have mitochondrial

dysfunction and together with other factors one of which is vaccines now that has you know of course been wildly inflated and some people are you know heralding the doctor that came out and said this and this research to say you know all that the vaccines cause autism autism all the time in all children that's not what we have evidence for so when something like what i just mentioned comes out it definitely gets blown out of proportion you you know that that is a study done on vaccines in general so that's i think more conclude. like you said it was peer reviewed so if only you know that it was more talked about online the problem of course as with any polarizing issue is that people online you know we tend to seek out as well as chambers and so if you already or are of the mindset that you know this is going to kill you then everything that you see that doesn't confirm that goes out one eye and in the other i don't i'm trying to take the era metaphor and bring it to social media and you know it's going through though i mean

i think what we see in this is that there's you know on the one hand you have people who are very concerned about their personal liberty and saying to a parent you have to do this by law or we're going to what threw you in jail or do something that's scary considering i mean bill gates is calling these people child killers like jeff does that you know you know that does demonization only fuels people even more what i want to thank both of you for sitting with me today and talking about all of this because it's been a big day you know with opioids in the sackler family down to things like insulin and this is and we've seen like how how this can affect everybody and i'm glad you know here we were having a perfectly rejoinders time to make one quick point or do we not have one point. sorry i don't know are all of them well they're alleged i don't know you back ah ok i was back on friday or you can come back. it's. the mary honest trench located near guam is the deepest known trench in the world

at an estimated over ten thousand meters deep it seems like it would be the last place on earth one would find signs of human life but when the deepwater exploration was in the mariana trench in twenty sixteen they found a plastic bag thirty six thousand feet below the water surface and after seeing the plastic bag researchers come to over five thousand entries in the d.c. debris database and found another thirty four hundred pieces of plastic pollution in the marianna trench more than thirty percent of the plastics found was single use another study found micro plastics and large quantities. in the deepest sections of the earth's oceans which is why it is so important to remember that single use doesn't mean it magically goes away but these stories also remind us that the problems facing our environment are being ignored but tackled by scientists literally from sea to shining sea thank you so much michele green and devon spring i think is right for joining me today thank you for your time i teach

teach everyone at home a little but that's our show for you today everyone remember in this world we're not we're left enough so i tell you all of that and keep on watching those hearts and have a rate they invite every latin. my son doing drugs my nephew was still in drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse america's public enemy number one in the united states is drug abuse started going after the users in the prison population. we started treating sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like criminals while i was on the hill i increasingly became convinced that the war on drugs was a mistake there are countless numbers of people who are in prison for conceivably.

for minor minor offenders in the drug trade it's a lot watching your children grow up and miss you in waves and say bye daddy as you're walking out of this is just it doesn't get easier. the maternity town the slums go in and you may never get out some sort of the most of. my teenage gang rules here. go to one of you to move then you're letting my people go to get close you were. but. the navy will. kill. you. minus a murderer zero. in for the yeah.

and melanie may not win if. you don't you know mccain. can use all i see. this is a sticker from the water bottle found in the stomach of a fish the brand is part of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that let's tell consumers they're the bad ones they're the litter bugs are throwing us away industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. that's. stay on your phones at

a special projects funded. on the line your best bet is the end of infinity but for now the mountains of waste only grow while. the u.s. state department their rights to. analysts are refusing to refer to venezuela's opposition leader as the country's interim president. some outlets are incorrectly referring to one as the opposition leader. who claims president. neither is correct. a british born man whose aid work in syria made him a media darling is stripped of his citizenship over alleged links to jihad is.