The rampant opioid crisis – involving escalating addictions to opioid prescription pain relievers, heroin and synthetic opioids, like fentanyl – has taken a toll on many American communities. Sadly, the human impacts are widespread and devastating. Overdose deaths from prescription opioids have increased five-fold from 2000 to 2016. Opioids accounted for more than 60% of overdose deaths in 2014, according to data from the CDC. The number of opioid prescriptions exceeds the population in some U.S. states. An entirely man-made epidemic Today’s opioid crisis traces its roots to the late 1990s when certain pharmaceutical companies misled the medical community into believing patients would not be
The Pusher Man You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round With tombstones in their eyes But the pusher don't care Ah, if you live or if you die God damn, the pusher God damn, I say the pusher I said God damn God damn the pusher man By Hoyt Axton Performed by Steppenwolf In 2017, Eric Eyre of the Charleston Gazette-Mail won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for his coverage of the opioid crisis in small-town West Virginia, according to Eyre’s home newspaper. The Pulitzer judges said Eyre won the prize “for courageous reporting, performed in the face of powerful opposition, to expose the flood of opioids flowing into depressed West Virginia counties with the highe
The opioid epidemic. Out of control CEO pay. Managers of mining companies who ignore safety warnings, leading to death and injuries. Wage theft and abuse of workers here and around the world in the supply chains that provide our everyday essentials. Firms skirting environmental regulations What the hell can we do about any of this? Join us Friday, July 20th at Noon to find out! The Heartland webinar series continues by covering the topic of Corporate Governance. Our speakers include David Webber, author of The Rise of the Working Class Shareholder: Labor's Last Best Weapon and Sarah Lewis, Esq., Senior Lead Researcher, Corporations & Capital Markets, AFL-CIO, who are featured in this week's
Our old friend Andy Levin, Congressman Sander’s son and Senator Carl’s nephew, is running for Michigan's 9th Congressional District, his father’s current seat. Here at Heartland and the SVA, we’ve worked extensively with Andy over the years. The Levin’s, of course, have been formidable champions of workers’ rights, civil rights, good health care, fair trade and responsible financial regulations, and many of the most important issues of the last five decades. They fought to save the auto industry and manufacturing in 2008, 2009; if US Auto had failed, one million Americans could have lost their jobs. Andy has followed in their giant footsteps. As Deputy Director and Acting Director, Michig
Responsible investing is widely understood as the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment processes and decision-making. ESG factors cover a wide spectrum of issues that traditionally are not part of financial analysis, yet may have financial relevance. This might include how corporations respond to climate change, how good they are with water management, how effective their health and safety policies are in the protection against accidents, how they manage their supply chains, how they treat their workers and whether they have a corporate culture that builds trust and fosters innovation. The term ESG was first coined in 2005 in a landmark study enti
A stubborn stereotype of Chicago is that it doesn’t make things anymore. It does. Among economic sectors, manufacturing remains one of the Chicago region’s biggest employers, with a workforce of more than 363,000 in 2017. Between April 2017 and March 2018, manufacturing yielded more than 58,000 job postings, according to a new study by the Century Foundation and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute. That outpaced more than a dozen other sectors, including retail, transportation/warehousing and education. Yes, the steel mills are gone, but “The City That Works” is still “The City That Makes.” There’s something wrong with this picture, however. Last year in the Chicag