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Has the US opioid crisis reached a turning point?

Drug makers Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma have been involved with legal resolutions

Drug makers Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma have both been involved with legal resolutions this week - could this mark a crucial turning point in how to deal with the country's opioid crisis? We speak to journalist David Armstrong who covers the story for the website Pro Publica.

Membership, and, with it, the power of the US's trade unions has been falling since the 1960s. What's behind this decline, when relative hourly pay is lower now than it was in 1973? Our report Matt Davies has been finding out.

And have you heard of the banana test? Geoffrey Fowler, of the Washington Post in California, has coined the term to measure how much of your data is generated and spread by buying one banana with a credit card.

Fergus Nicoll is joined throughout the programme by Ralph Silva of the Silva Research Network from Toronto, and by Bloomberg Opinion columnist Nisha Gopalan, who's in Hong Kong.

(Picture: Purdue Pharma HQ. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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53 minutes

Last on

Thu 29 Aug 2019 00:06GMT

Broadcast

  • Thu 29 Aug 2019 00:06GMT

Podcast