​On October 1st the CDC, FDA, and numerous other health departments and organizations announced a nationwide investigation into an outbreak of lung injuries that have been associated with vaping.  For years vaping has spread through the US as a substitute for smoking cigarettes, a way to stop smoking cigarettes, a way to take marijuana, and as a cool recreational tool.  in the last few years, we have also seen vaping being utilized by teenagers in increasing fashion.  In this episode of Lessons from the Screen we will be taking a look at the Vaping Outbreak. 

Due to family issues, the show for today has been delayed. We hope to release the show as soon as the family matters are resolved. Thank you for your patience.

​Scandal after scandal, through broken laws, rules, norms, and traditions Donald Trump’s presidency has seemed unassailable.   The Republican party has been overtaken by an extreme wing of “alt-righters” that are dead set on defending Trump regardless of what he does.  The Democratic party has been at war with itself as the far left fights with the moderate and conservative left on how to deal with Trump.  This is creating a disunified front incapable of doing anything.  With all of that going on, Trump has managed to reshape the Judicial and Executive Branches of government into extensions of his will by filling them with partisan persons and going around the official appointment channels where ever possible.  Surviving campaign finance issues, lying to the media and the public, instructing others to lie under oath to congress, interfering in multiple investigations, potentially using pardons as a political tool, and encouraging other countries to interfere in US elections, his presidency faces a new challenge that has people seriously talking impeachment: pressuring Ukraine to investigate the son of a political opponent. In this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be talking about impeachment.  

​Those of you that follow the show know that we are not afraid of being late to the party when it comes to documentaries, and we are fashionably late here.  Although the film made its American debut in March of 2019, it hit Netflix in the first part of August, and it didn’t hit our radar until early September.  Do we need another film about steroids, baseball, superstars, drugs, and the Miami dark side?  Do we need more documentaries talking about the ineptitude of Florida and the lack of concern that parents have for their children’s health in the sports world?  Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter if we needed another one, because we got another one, and in this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to talk about it.  

​The Summer of 2019 has just ended however the ramifications of the things that transpired and that were discovered will continue to shape global history forever.   The social media and digital giants faced a world that was a lot more inquisitive about their business models and a lot more aggressive in how it sought answers to those questions.  A 2-year federal investigation wrapped up in April of 2019 and at its core was the largest social media company in the world and how data stolen from them was being used to shape democracies and engineer societies.  The great hack follows the story of one of the primary culprits in this game of digital shenanigans, it is the story of Cambridge Analytica, and it is the story of this episode of Lessons from the Screen.  

Following the proposal of the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation in February of 2019, a series of protest swept through Hong Kong that continues to this day.  The bill would have made it possible to detain and extradite people accused of criminal acts to countries that Hong Kong does not currently have extradition agreements with.  The bill was proposed because the Hong Kong government wanted to close a loophole that was allowing a Hong Kong man that had killed his girlfriend in Taiwan (a place with no agreement) to go without trial.  However the people of Hong Kong felt like the bill went too far and placed their autonomy at risk giving too much power to China.  In this episode of Lessons from the Screen, we will be taking a look at the relationship between Hong Kong and China, the bill, and the protest raging on and spreading across the globe. 

Lessons from the Screen is back after a slew of situations preventing the release of new episodes.  In this return show which also happens to be the last show of Mental Health Awareness Month on the Freedom Train Network, we are going to be talking a terrible tragedy and the communities response to it.  

​Despite having no formal diplomatic relations since the 1980s, Iran and the United States can’t seem to get enough of each other.  That love to hate relationship was cranked up another level with the withdrawal of the US from a Nuclear Deal, the reimposing of sanctions, and the increased economic pressure the United States has been placing on other countries forcing them not to deal with Iran.  As powder continues to be added to the keg, it seems like every day we inch closer to a military conflict with Iran.  In this episode of Lessons from the Screen we will be looking at the 65-year history and the growing issues between Iran and the United States.

​Many of us thought that after the last challenge to the Affordable Care Act was defeated, it would finally just be accepted as the law of the land.  President Trump said as much after his republican cohorts in congress failed to repeal it and failed to construct a suitable template for a replacement.  But that should have been one of all of our strongest indicators that it was not going to be allowed to exist and that they would not simply seek to plug the holes and build on it, Donald Trump’s words usually only carry the impact of a future assurance that the opposite will eventually happen.  Therefore, when he announced that the ACA was the law of the land, we should have been expecting it to be challenged more severely.  Well, that challenge is here, and it looks to be the most significant challenge to date with a very high chance of having the entire law thrown out for being unconstitutional.  In the episode of Lessons from the Screen, we will be looking at the current challenge to the Affordable Care Act.  

Thank you for listening and supporting Lessons from the Screen and the Freedom Train Network.  Unfortunately, due to various issues, we are not able to provide an episode of Lessons from the Screen this week.  We look forward to bringing you more high quality content and we will be back next with with an episode focused on the current efforts to dismantle Obama Care and we will be following that up with an episode focused on the current happenings in Iran.  Thank you again for your support and we apologize again for not being able to provide content this week.  Do feel free to contact us or to listen to previous episodes and share them with your friends and family.  

The questions remain, what does July Fourth mean to Black People and what has been done to change that meaning?  Just like last year, we want you to think about these questions and more as you listen to Douglass's Speech on the Fourth of July.  Leave your thoughts and comments below.

​In June of 2019 Netflix pulled back the curtain on Clarence Avant, a Black Man from Greensboro, North Carolina born in the 1930s who rose to become one of the most influential Black Persons in Entertainment.  Best friends with Quincy Jones, mentor to a slew of Black Entertainers of all strips, and supporter of politicians, this documentary pulled out all the stops featuring 2 former presidents and a whole host of A list Black Stars to tell their stories of Clarence Avant.  On this episode of Lessons from the Screen, we are going to be taking a look at The Black Godfather. 

​We are at this moment in the middle of a crisis.  Drug prices are simply out of control and superbugs are on the rise making drugs less effective.  However, out of control prices are the first issue of concern right now because millions of people have to make do without the drugs they need because they cannot afford them.  Enter generics, the low-cost option for those that cannot afford expensive brand name drugs.  However, before we get super excited about generics we have to ask the question, do they work.  On this episode of Lessons from the Screen, we are going to be looking primarily at that question, but we are also going to be digging into the process of how generics are made, approved, and brought to market.

Unfortunately, because of a serious of family emergencies and technical problems. We aren't able to put out the show that we wanted to put out today.  We will be back next Thursday with the show on Brands vs. Generics.  Thank you for your patience and support.  

Earlier this year a bomb dropped as Katherine Eban released the culmination of roughly a decade of research and investigative work on the Generic Drug Industry, and the explosion should be huge.  In this Episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be taking a look at Bottle of Lies: Inside the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban.

The book starts out introducing us to an FDA Inspector that ends up in a foot race down a hallway chasing a pharmaceutical plant manufacturing worker who is trying to destroy paperwork.  This sort of cat and mouse game is basically the narrative of the entire book and thus the narrative of what has been happening between the FDA and overseas generic drug manufacturers since the boom of the industry.  Which this book manages to tie to Gandhi as he leads the resistance against British colonialism and advocated for Indian corporations.  2 students, in particular, heeded his direct call and birthed the generic pharmaceutical industry.  While Gandhi wanted cheaper, high-quality drugs from Indians what ended up happening was lower quality drugs for India and the rest of the developing world in favor of profits.  

The point of profit over quality is especially clear with regards to AIDS medications in Africa at the onset of the AIDS global epidemic.  At several moments in the book, it is alleged that a very dismissive behavior was given to the fact that the drugs weren’t working in Africa because “they were just Black People,” which is a sentiment that probably also filter down through Gandhi.  These poor quality medications are mentioned as a potential reason why the AIDS epidemic in Africa never came under control like it did in other countries.  It speaks to those in Africa that tried to start legitimate pharmaceutical companies to supply high-quality drugs to the continent only to find that high quality, low cost was the biggest lie in the pharmaceutical industry and the entire generic drug sector was built on that lie.  In one occasion mentioned in the book, an African Drug Company wanted to purchase active ingredients for medications only to be presented with the option to by low-quality ingredients at the “African” rate.  A segment of these low-quality goods was regularly being set aside to sell to those making drugs for African Nations.  

But far from just being focused on the underprivileged, the book also takes a look at the impact of generic drugs on wealthy countries such as the European and Western Nations of the World.  While those implications have been minimized to an extent by the ability to create and pay for brand drugs, it details how the growing trend of resistant diseases could actually be attributed, in part, to substandard generics.  The concept of substandard generics causing treatment-resistant bacteria is a new development but evidence is quickly being amassed to prove the case.  As the generic drug industry continues to grow and expand, plants founded in corrupt areas of the world are also selling active ingredients to other manufacturing plants lowering the quality of the drugs made in potentially safe plants.  

The book spoke passively to the fact that well-meaning activist where being used to place the FDA in a tough position.  The public largely sees generic drugs as a lower cost version of brand drugs and as such demands and champions generics.  Unfortunately, this is far from the case and the book makes this point over and over again.  But the FDA is not treated as the victim, they are in a lot of ways treated as an accomplice to what is happening and in a lot of ways they are an encouraging accomplice but so is the uninformed populace.

Most of the story is told from the perspective of Ranbaxy and Dinesh Thakur, the whistleblower that ended up getting $48 million from the $500 million dollar settlement Ranbaxy agreed to with the FDA.  It veers off into necessary and informative tangents where necessary, quickly coming back to the main story after a tangent has been sufficiently explored.  Like all books, this one is another must read. I actually struggled with what to share and what not too because I wanted to share everything.  What I settled on is that next week's show will be on Generic vs. Brand drugs.  So get ready.  

Data manipulation, governmental politics, dirty plants, compromised drugs, villains, heroes, evil schemes with deadly consequences it's all here and it’s all real.   It’s hard to read this book and believe that drugs are drugs.  But reading this book and understanding that drugs aren’t drugs is something that I believe all people must do.  

​​​During this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be looking at the Women that have been profiled thus far highlighting the fact that everyone can make up their minds to do something beneficial for the community and have an impact.  It doesn’t matter whether you get famous or not, it simply matters what you are doing. ​

​​During this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be looking at the Women that have been profiled thus far highlighting the fact that everyone can make up their minds to do something beneficial for the community and have an impact.  It doesn’t matter whether you get famous or not, it simply matters what you are doing. ​

During this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be looking at the Women that have been profiled thus far highlighting the fact that everyone can make up their minds to do something beneficial for the community and have an impact.  It doesn’t matter whether you get famous or not, it simply matters what you are doing. ​

Unfortunately we weren't able to produce the show we wanted to as an introduction to our Black Women's Celebration Month of May for technical reasons.  But we have decided that, given the current political environment, to re-run the show on How Democracies Die.  To go directly to that show post Click Here. 

​The turmoil happening in Venezuela while definitely extreme is not totally unique when the extremeness of the situation is removed.  A less extreme but potentially more explosive situation is occurring right now in Sudan.  Most of us are somewhat familiar with Sudan with the southern portion of it becoming a separate nation in July of 2011.  This made South Sudan the first new country to come into existence in Africa since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993.  But as of this moment, the Sudanese Military is in the middle of a tense standoff with civilian protesters after deposing longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.  In this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be talking about what’s going on in Sudan and how we got here.

​In 2000 the US declared itself Measles free.  Thanks to a measles vaccine that had proven to be very effective at preventing the spread of the disease, measles went from infecting 3 to 4 million people per year to infecting less than 100 in 2005.  But the disease won’t fully go away and the numbers of the infected have begun to rise.  We are currently experiencing outbreaks of various levels in more than 25 states some of which have declared a state of emergency.  In this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be getting into what the measles is, what it can do to you, and why it isn’t going away.    

​In February of 2019 Larry Charles produced a docuseries on exploring comedy in various places around the world.  While the written show description mentions him traveling to china russia and various other places, I will say right here that I only recall him going to Africa, the Middle East, and the US.  But despite that, the 4 episode series did take a look at some interesting places and some interesting concepts.  In this episode of Lessons from the Screen, we are going to be talking about Larry Charles Dangerously Funny.

In 2001 Venezuela was the richest nation in South America largely on the back of its oil production.  It boasts the largest oil reserves in the world and for a period it was a shining example of what some would call socialism, others would call democratic socialism, others would call a government taking care of its people, others would call a government covering corruption and nepotism, and others would call a nation headed for disaster.  And while in some form or another all of those people would be right, it can’t be denied that the country had cut its poverty in half, raised its literacy rates, raised the quality of life for its people, and in general was a better nation than it had been.

All of that is a far cry from where the country is now.  A country that has seen more than 3 million of its 30 million people fleeing as refugees.  A country with an inflation level currently at 2.6 million percent (and expected to reach 10 million percent at some point this year if things continue).  A country that has had to change its currency 3 times in the last 10 years to combat inflation. Which you’d have to do if a 99 cent pack of gum all of a sudden cost $25,000 which is roughly what 2.6 million percent inflation looks like (for further reference, imagine that same $1 pack of gum costing $100,000 and you are now thinking about 10 million percent inflation).  A country that has 2 presidents fighting for power and has become another staging ground for the ongoing standoffs between China, the US, and Russia. In 2017 some sources say that the average Venezuelan lost 24 pounds of body weight and 90% of the people live in poverty. On this episode of lessons from the screen we are going to be talking Venezuela, how did we get here, and what can we learn from it.

In March of 2019 Joseph Ward released the 3rd volume of his On the Shoulders of Giants Series of books with this one being focused on South America.  The book gives a brief summary of the life and impact of 12 South American Heroes and 1 South American Culture group from the view of the Black Diaspora in South America.  In this episode of Lessons from the Screen we are going to be taking a look at this book in typical Lessons from the Screen fashion.

In 2018 a documentary was released with a focus on vitamins.  The documentary seeks to answer one question: how do we decide whether or not to take vitamins?  The film takes us on a journey that is one part Sesame Street (or maybe schoolhouse rock would be a better fit), one part hardcore documentary.  We are taken on a journey to explore the history and modern state of vitamins.  In this episode of lessons from the screen, we are going to look at this documentary and do what we do, is it worth watching or not and what are the takeaways.