The FDA has ordered Juul e-cigarettes to be pulled off the market after they determined the company lied about their products. Mike Papantonio is joined by journalist & podcast host, Rick Outzen, to discuss. Then, America is facing a nation-wide teacher shortage after years of treating the profession as a glorified baby sitting service. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
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Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The FDA has ordered Juul e-cigarettes to be pulled off the market after they determined that the company lied about their products. Can you imagine lying about their products?
Rick Outzen: No, no. Never, never.
Mike Papantonio: Joining me to talk about this is Rick Outzen, editor and publisher and owner of independent news. Rick, I looked at this story and, you know, there really are no surprises here, are there?
Rick Outzen: No.
Mike Papantonio: That the, Juul has been lying about this for what, what are we going on now, 15 years.
Rick Outzen: Well, they were, you know, they, we know they targeted high schoolers. They were going after, they created fruit flavor, mint flavored. This time they were coming back to the FDA and to say maybe we could get by, by with tobacco flavored e-cigarettes and again, that got rejected. Same issue as before. They have no scientific data showing that it will not cause harm. They didn’t do any of the studies they’re supposed to do. Now, and remember, one time this company had almost 55% of the e-cigarette market here, which is a $9 billion business.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Rick Outzen: So this is again, not wanting to do the studies, trying to avoid lawsuits that are out there. They’ve already had a couple of big settlements in North Carolina, I think for like 40 million there.
Mike Papantonio: That’s for the attorney general, yeah.
Rick Outzen: Right. Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you know, as you know, this law firm started the case against the tobacco industry. And so we, we had a chance to look at all the documents. We, we took a look at the fact that these are companies that have no moral compass.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: What they’re really trying to do with the e-cigarette thing is simply create another generation of folks that are addicted to nicotine. Now, you know, the, the people hearing this, the, the, that the loyalty is insane. The people who are e-cigarette lovers are insane about this product.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: You can give them all the information that’s out there about how dangerous it is, how the diseases it causes. You can give them all the information about how the company’s lying to them about being safe. Doesn’t make any difference. If they’re an e-cigarette user, they say, well, you know what? It got me off of cigarettes. I’m gonna stick with it. You know, I can’t, I can’t do anything else. So I gotta go to e-cigarettes. You cannot talk a vapor out of not vaping, no matter what you show that person.
Rick Outzen: Right. They, you know, they argue, well, it’s not, it’s better than, than smoking, than, you know, actually lighting up a cigarette. But we know, and I’ve talked to your researchers and, and your, your team and you and I’ve sat around it. It’s a direct hit of nicotine to the brain, I mean.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. We, we’re handling the case.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, just pure disclosure. We’re handling the case, going out in California right now, the documents are atrocious.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: The documents show that this is an industry that understands they had to back off with straight cigarettes. So what they’re trying to do now is get an entire new generation hooked on, hooked on nicotine. They can put, they make it goofy grape taste. Oli oli orange taste, whatever they want to do. And they seem to get away with it around the world. At least we’re, we’re, we’re cutting they’re cutting legs out from underneath them a little bit. We’re gonna hammer ’em in this lawsuit. I promise you.
Rick Outzen: Well, here’s the scary thing. There’s 6.5 million applications for more e-cigarettes that are in the FDA now. So it, it, we got a long way to go to make a dent in this one, brother.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, no question.
Mike Papantonio: America’s facing a nationwide teacher shortage after years of treating the profession as a glorified babysitting operation. Yeah, it is mass exodus. It’s getting to where now the only thing that we have, the only thing people are, are doing and, and, and this is a huge problem. The folks that can afford it are putting their kids in private schools where they actually pay decent wages. And there are benefits to the teachers and they’re not babysitting because they can kick ’em out if they’re a problem. That’s not the case in public schools. So it’s the demise of public schools that we’re talking about here, right?
Farron Cousins: Right. And I think a lot of people want to immediately attribute this nationwide teacher shortage to this, you know, attack on teachers we’ve seen from the last year. And sure that, that plays a role in it. But let’s understand something. This exodus of teachers did not just start within the last 12 months.
Mike Papantonio: Okay.
Farron Cousins: This is something that has been steadily happening for over a decade now. And part of it has to do with the shift in how parents view the teachers themselves.
Mike Papantonio: All right.
Farron Cousins: You know, 20 years ago, your kids coming home with bad grades, you get onto the kid, you take away whatever it is, you ground them until their grades come up. Now what happens is that those same parents go marching into that school, file a complaint against the teacher because they gave my kid an F.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: And this is not fair. This teacher is picking on my poor child.
Mike Papantonio: And the parent spends no time at home, actually helping them on their, on their homework. Spends no time trying to hit, you know, trying to help that kid with ADD or whatever it may be he’s suffering from. But they’re dropped off. Your, your wife is a teacher, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: So they’re dropped off in these classes and they say, look, not only you’re a babysitter, you’re a psychologist, you’re a parent. You have to solve this kid’s problems and if you don’t, we’re gonna make it hard on you. Who wants a job like that? I mean, really, who in the hell wants a job like that?
Farron Cousins: And, and the pay is absolutely abysmal, especially here in the state of Florida. Our teachers are paid, I think $12,000 per year below the national average. A lot of states in the South actually pay well below the national average. And you’re talking about individuals who are working 50 to 60 hours per week.
Mike Papantonio: Buying their own, buying their own supplies. I mean, that’s part of the story is where teachers are having to buy their own supplies. Arizona, good example. Arizona, they cut the, they cut the available money that was supposed to go to teachers and schools buy $100 million, $100 million. And they say to the teacher, ah, do the best you can, right?
Farron Cousins: I, I personally spend a couple hundred dollars every month sending supplies, not just to my wife’s classroom, but some of her other teachers there will, will email me, like I need a, a box of paper, which you can order online for $40, but they can’t afford it. So I, I’ll buy them a box of paper. I buy them printer cartridges for their printers because the school can’t afford to do it. And that’s what these teachers are going through. And again, as you said, I know this personally, I deal with this every single day.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And yeah, the attack on teachers right now is bad. But folks, there is a lot more happening than just, you know, oh, you teachers can’t do this or that. No, these people have been attacked for decades now and education is suffering because of it.
Mike Papantonio: It’s come home to roost, hasn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: If you don’t have money to send your child to private school, good luck, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
