marazepeda

“It was the best thing that ever happened. I was like OH. MY. LORD. This is a miracle pill.”

There’s a pill called Suboxone that treats addiction to heroin and pain pills like oxycontin. Doctors say it’s the holy grail. Drug dealers say it takes overdoses out on the street. Drug addicts say it’s a miracle pill. The government spent tens of millions of dollars developing Suboxone. Doctors can prescribe it in their offices. But a lot of people who want it can’t get it from a doctor, so they have to buy it on the street. On this episode of Planet Money’s podcast: why people have to turn to drug dealers to get a pill that fights addiction.

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{Photo: Mara Zepeda}

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“I would say we could multiply the number of docs who prescribe Suboxone by five and still not be meeting the need. ”

A prescription drug called Suboxone helps wean people off of heroin and pain pills, but addicts have a hard time getting prescriptions. So they’re turning to the black market to treat their opiate dependence. In some states like New Mexico, which has the highest drug overdose rate in the country, it comes down to a question of access. There just aren’t enough doctors out there to treat drug addiction.

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“I used to walk home, I started to repeat the same word like 10 times, you know? So that’s how I learned. And said, ‘Where do you want to go?’ and ‘What would you like to see?’ and everything.”

In Jaipur, India, thirty-year-old Sheikh Musharaf is supporting his family as a rickshaw driver. His profits tripled once he learned English, and now he’s spreading the wealth by teaching his secret to his colleagues.

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{Photo: Kate Joyce}

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“It just came to me. It was like, ‘Wow, it’s a very simple test. Can you knock over one kind of cup more than another?’”

Instant cups of soup — the kind that often come in a Styrofoam cup full of noodles — send children to the hospital every day. Doctors say these soups are dangerous because of the way the cups are designed. The cups are tall, lightweight, and have an unstable base that makes them tip over easily. Eight of the 12 burn units across the country contacted for this report treat this injury one to three times a week. In the colder months, a hospital in Washington D.C. sees as many as six children a week injured by these products.

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{Image: Courtesy of the Journal of Burn Care & Research}

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“He didn’t want to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He said ‘I don’t want that. What the hell is that? I don’t want that.’”

Many fallen soldiers have died in combat, but increasingly, for off-duty members of the National Guard and Army Reserves, soldiers are dying by their own hands. Nationally, the number of those who’ve committed suicide has nearly doubled from 80 in 2009 to 145 in 2010. The family and friends of Sgt. Ivan Lopez remember his life cut short by war.

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{Photo: Courtesy of Jadira Lopez}

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“We’ve actually asked homeless people to stay in abandoned properties to watch them for us.”

The day after a four-alarm fire engulfed the former Thomas Edison High School in North Philadelphia, several people were drawn to the abandoned building: a teenage urban explorer, the developer who owns the land, an alumnus of the school’s last all-male class. Each reflects on their relationship to this historic building, one of countless abandoned properties in the city.

Link to the story on WHYY

{Photo: Courtesy of Urban Atrophy}

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“I got this job through a temp agency.”

There’s a boom in medical simulation: students using fake patients to treat real problems. The industry could save the health care industry billions. It starts back in the 1980s. Dr. David Gaba noticed simulation training was standard for some professions. Pilots learned how to fly in fake cockpits. Soldiers practiced how to fight on replicated battlefields. So, why not doctors?

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Link to story and video on WHYY

{Photo and multimedia: Mara Zepeda}

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“We both had French class in Montgomery, Alabama…Our friendship blossomed from there. Were were just inseparable.”

When members of the armed forces are deployed, it’s often up to the other parent, or a family member, to care for their children. But what happens when there’s no family around to help? For Navy operations specialist Sheena Sullen, that meant calling on an old friend, Jihan Sanders. Sanders moved from Alabama to help care for Sullen’s children while she’s away.

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{Photo: Courtesy of Amanda Lucier and the Virginian Pilot’s While You Were Gone series}

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This video was created for the Virginian Pilot’s While You Were Gone series. I conducted a number of interviews with the families of service members, collected ambient sound and produced the audio in collaboration with photographer Amanda Lucier. The piece was awarded first place in the Online Slideshow category by the Virginia Press Association.

Additional interviews from this series are available on PRX

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“The people here are poor. And here it says to call a legal service in Texas, but we are in Philadelphia.”

Borinquen Federal Credit Union in North Philadelphia was the 11th to be liquidated in 2011 by the National Credit Union Administration. On the day of its closure, the Puerto Rican community it served was confused by the notice posted on the door with instructions on how to reclaim their money.

Link to the story and slideshow on WHYY

{Photo: Lindsay Lazarsky}

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“I know in my heart that he didn’t do nothing like this. The media is doing their job. But I’d like for them to get to the facts.”

In the aftermath of one of Philadelphia’s most deadly weekends, lives across the city are changed. A shooting at a local playground left three children injured, and one man dead. Police arrested Amir Jamal and charged him with the shootings. Jamal’s family and friends maintain he’s innocent. The police department disagrees.

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{Photo: Mara Zepeda}

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“Yep…we actually call them the 30-year-old interns.”

Thousands of people packed the Grand Slam Career Fair at Citizen’s Ballpark. The job fair included about 70 area employers, ranging from bartending schools to financial services to hospitals to WaWa. This spot news report relates six lessons learned.

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