Trump’s Trade War Forces Volvo To Shift Gears In South Carolina
Tremaine Smalls attaches parts to an engine at Volvo’s plant in Ridgeville, S.C. The automaker has shifted its exports to Europe as the result of the U.S. trade war with China.
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Volvo is a Chinese-owned Swedish company making cars in the U.S. When it decided to set up a plant in South Carolina to build cars to ship around the world, it was following a long tradition.
With its port, Charleston, S.C., has been a shipping hub for centuries. And the state has been home to international manufacturers for decades — BMW, Michelin and Bosch are among the many global firms with footholds there.
But before the plant opened last year, President Trump transformed America’s approach to trade policy.
Trump’s trade war with China has stretched for more than a year, and trade tensions remain high with Europe as well. Tariffs on steel and aluminum are pinching auto suppliers in the U.S., who face higher costs for raw materials to make parts. Meanwhile, tariffs on imported parts can cut into the budgets of automakers, who rely on thousands of different components from around the world to build each vehicle.
Volvo, owned by the Chinese firm Geely, intended to export many cars from the plant near Charleston to China, but the tit-for-tat tariffs between Beijing and Washington threw a wrench into those finely tuned plans. U.S.-made Volvos aren’t being sent to China after all.
“It’s kind of a disappointment, but we’re going to work through it,” says Trey Yonce, a supervisor at the plant, as he watches line workers assemble cars. “It wasn’t what we wanted to hear.”
But as Yonce notes, Volvo is adapting, not cutting back.
Analysts compare imposing tariffs to squeezing on a balloon. Put pressure in one spot and the global economy will shift to work around it.
Volvo’s new $1.1 billion plant in Ridgeville employs 1,500 people and is currently running at a fraction of its capacity
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Volvo’s new $1.1 billion plant in Ridgeville, S.C., employs 1,500 people. It’s currently running at a fraction of its capacity, manufacturing the S60, a luxury sedan. But Volvo has certainly not stopped production because of tariffs. In fact, the company is still planning to add an SUV to the plant in the next few years.
And half the cars made in the facility are still being exported — just not to China. A batch recently went to Belgium, for distribution across Europe. In coming months, Volvo says, it will ship cars to countries in the Middle East, Africa, Oceania and the Asia Pacific region — excluding China, of course.
The plant was designed to be flexible, handling gas engines, hybrids and eventually electric vehicles on the same line. Volvo has had to be flexible about where it builds cars and for which markets, too.
“We need to be able to change our manufacturing capabilities very fast,” says Anders Gustafsson, Volvo Cars’ vice president for the Americas and the CEO of Volvo Car USA. “We are fast, but it’s not easy.”
But he takes the long view.
“To run a plant or run a company, it’s a long-term decision,” Gustafsson says. “So you lose and you win.”
Across the entire industry, automakers are stuck waiting to see how the trade conflicts will pan out, says labor and manufacturing expert Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research.
“Essential investments are getting made,” she says. “Strategic investments are waiting to find out what the rules of the game [are] going to be.”
And it’s not just the car industry grappling with the unpredictable nature of these trade talks.
“I think that every industry has got some some skin in the game or some things that get messed up when trade becomes uncertain,” she says.
Jim Newsome, the CEO of the South Carolina Ports Authority, notes that his state depends heavily on global trade. “We ought to be trying to lower tariffs, not raise tariffs,” he says. “The global automotive industry could benefit from zero tariffs.”
How Well Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work?
A large new study finds mixed results for the effectiveness of programs aimed at motivating healthful behavior — such as more exercise and better nutrition — among employees.
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Workplace wellness programs — efforts to get workers to lose weight, eat better, stress less and sleep more — are an $8 billion industry in the U.S.
Most large employers offer some type of wellness program, with growth fueled by incentives in the federal Affordable Care Act.
But no one has been sure they work. Various studies over the years have provided conflicting results, with some showing savings and health improvements while others say the efforts fall short.
Many studies, however, faced a number of limitations, such as failing to have a comparison group, or figuring out whether people who sign up for such wellness programs are somehow healthier or more motivated than those who do not.
Researchers from the University of Chicago and Harvard may have overcome some of these obstacles with one of the first large-scale studies to be peer-reviewed and employ a randomized controlled trial design. They published their findings Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA.
The scientists randomly assigned 20 BJ’s Wholesale Club outlets to offer a wellness program to all employees, then compared results with 140 stores that did not.
The big-box retailer employed nearly 33,000 workers across all 160 clubs during the test.
The wellness program consisted of asking participating workers to fill out a health risk questionnaire, have some medical tests, such as blood pressure and blood glucose, and take up to eight classes on topics such as nutrition and exercise.
After 18 months, it turned out that, yes, workers participating in the wellness programs self-reported healthier behavior than those not enrolled, such as exercising more or managing their weight better.
But the efforts did not result in differences in health measures, such as improved blood sugar or glucose levels, how much employers spent on health care or how often employees missed work. Their job performance and how long they stuck around in their jobs also seemed unaffected, the researchers say.
“The optimistic interpretation is there is no way we can get improvements in health or more efficient spending if we don’t first have changes in health behavior,” says Katherine Baicker, dean of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and one of the study’s authors. (Dr. Zirui Song, an assistant professor of health policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School, was its co-author.)
“But if employers are offering these programs in hopes that health spending and absenteeism will go down, this study should give them pause,” Baicker says.
The study comes amid widespread interest in wellness programs.
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey of employers found that 53 percent of small firms and 82 percent of large firms offer a program in at least one of these areas: smoking cessation, weight management, and behavioral or lifestyle change. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)
Some programs are simple, offering gift cards or other small incentives to fill out a health risk assessment; take a lunch-and-learn class; or join a gym or walking group. Others are far more invasive, asking employees to report on a variety of health-related questions and roll up their sleeves for blood tests.
A few employers offer financial incentives to workers who actually reduce their risk factors — lowering high blood pressure, for example, or reducing levels of bad cholesterol — or who make concerted efforts to participate in programs that might help them reduce these risk factors over time.
The Affordable Care Act allowed employers to offer financial incentives worth up to 30 percent of the cost of health insurance — that led some employers to entice workers with what could amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars in discounted insurance premiums or reduced deductibles.
Such large financial incentives led to court challenges about whether those programs are truly voluntary. The result of such cases is still unclear — a judge has asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to revise the rules governing the programs, but those revisions are not expected to be published this year.
In the study reported in JAMA, the incentives were modest. Participants got small-dollar gift cards for taking wellness courses on topics such as nutrition, exercise, disease management and stress control. Total potential incentives averaged $250. About 35 percent of eligible employees at the 20 participating sites completed at least one module.
Results from those workers — including attendance and tenure data, their self-reported health assessment and results from lab blood tests — were specifically compared with similar reports from 20 primary comparison sites where workers were not offered the wellness gift cards and classes. Overall employment and health spending data from all worksites were included in the study.
Wellness program vendors say details matter when considering whether efforts will be successful.
Jim Pshock, founder and CEO of Bravo Wellness, says the incentives offered to BJ’s workers might not have been large enough to spur the kinds of big changes needed to affect health outcomes.
Amounts “of less than $400 generally incentivize things people were going to do anyway,” Pshock says. “It’s simply too small to get them to do things they weren’t already excited about.”
An accompanying editorial in JAMA notes that “traditional, broad-based programs like the one analyzed by Song and Baicker may lack the necessary intensity, duration, and focus on particular employee segments to generate significant effects over a short time horizon.”
In other words, don’t give up entirely on wellness efforts, but consider “more targeted approaches” that focus on specific workers who have higher risks, or on “health behaviors [that] may yield larger health and economic benefits,” the editorial suggests.
It could be, the study acknowledges, that 18 months isn’t enough time to track such savings. So, Baicker and Song also plan to publish three-year results once they are finalized.
Still, similar findings were recently reported by the University of Illinois, where individuals were randomly selected to be offered wellness programs. This study, published in 2018 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, concluded that the workplace wellness program did not reduce health care costs or change health behaviors.
In one interesting point, that study found that wellness-program participants were likely already healthier and more motivated, “thus a primary benefit of these programs to employers may be their potential to attract and retain healthy workers with low medical spending,” the authors write.
Everyone involved in studying or conducting wellness agrees on one thing: Changing behavior, and getting people motivated to participate at all, can be difficult.
Steven Aldana, CEO of WellSteps, a wellness program vendor, says that for the efforts to be successful, they must cut across many areas — from the food served in company cafeterias to including spouses or significant others in helping people quit smoking, eat better or exercise more.
“Behavior is more complicated than simply taking a few wellness modules,” Aldana said. “It’s a lifestyle matrix or pattern you have to adopt.”
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent, nonprofit program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Tax Troubles, Tax Triumphs
Ah, April 15. The day most Americans come together as a nation and file their taxes. Maybe this year you used TurboTax? Or hired a tax preparer or some other service? Or you did them entirely by yourself the old-fashioned way?
One thing’s for sure – if Congress passes the so-called Taxpayer First Act, you won’t be able to file using free software via the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The bipartisan bill would prevent the IRS from creating its own tax filing service.
Here’s why critics of the bill are upset, according to ProPublica:
Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.
And tax policy is one of the main ways in which Americans directly interact with President Donald Trump’s policies.
That’s because one of President Trump’s signature pieces of legislation was the tax bill, passed on December 22, 2017.
While The Washington Post notes that this bill did not live up to the often-promised claim that your taxes would fit on a postcard, “the vast majority” of Americans did get a tax cut as a result of the law.
We also get into the nitty-gritty of filing. If you’re a person who needs to know about withholding or standard deductions or the six-month extension – fear not. We have experts on hand.
Produced by Morgan Givens.
Tiger Woods Makes Remarkable Return With Fifth Masters Win
NPR’s Ailsa Chang speaks with Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel about Tiger Woods’ comeback as a person and player, following his fifth Masters win on Sunday.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Just two years ago around this time, Tiger Woods was ranked the 780th best golfer in the world a far cry from where he stood during the late 90s and mid 2000s when he was considered one of the best golfers of all time. After dealing with both personal and medical problems for years, it was uncertain whether Woods would ever get back to the top of the sport. Well, that all changed yesterday when Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament, his first major championship since 2008.
And now President Trump has announced that he will be presenting Tiger Woods with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, quote, because of his “incredible success and comeback in sports – golf – and, more importantly, life.”
Here to help us wrap all of this up is Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports. Welcome.
DAN WETZEL: Thanks for having me on.
CHANG: So would you rate Tiger’s win on Sunday as one of the biggest comebacks you have ever seen in all of sports?
WETZEL: Absolutely because this looked like a guy spiraling completely out of control in every aspect. He’s turned his life around. He’s not only succeeding on the golf course, he seemed to be extremely healthy in all ways and maintains a terrific relationship with his children. He always wanted to be a terrific father, and you saw that, too, on Sunday.
CHANG: Speaking of that, you wrote a really moving piece about how special yesterday’s victory was, in part because of who was waiting for him at the very end. Can you take us back to that moment?
WETZEL: So when he first won in 1997 at the Masters at Augusta National, his father was waiting for him right off of the 18th green. And Tiger was 21 years old at that point. And it was really a culmination of a journey between a father and a son in shocking the world and becoming the youngest Masters champion of all time and the first African-American champion.
CHANG: Yeah.
WETZEL: It was a pioneering moment. Twenty-two years later, his father has passed away. But Tiger returns, wins even with more acclaim after all this tumult. And who’s waiting in the exact same spot where his dad was but his old 10-year-old son Charlie, his daughter Sam, his mom and stuff like that. But it was really Charlie who ran into him. And in the exact same spot…
CHANG: Wow.
WETZEL: …He’s now bear-hugging his 10-year-old son where he once bear-hugged his father. And even Tiger is not the most sentimental. But I guess as you get older, you become that.
CHANG: (Laughter).
WETZEL: And his dad got them there by teaching him how to play golf, how to be competitive, how to kick down doors. Charlie and Samantha (ph), his kids, taught him how to keep trying because they – he said they have the infectious happiness of a child. In their own way, they helped him get there, too – just a really interesting situation, the Woods family.
CHANG: Yeah. I want to play you this clip from Brooks Koepka. He finished second after Tiger yesterday. Here’s what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROOKS KOEPKA: It’s probably one of the coolest things to be a part of it. Even though I – you know, you finish second place. You know, you’re a little bummed out. But it’s – I wouldn’t want it any other way. You want to go toe-to-toe with him. And I can leave saying I gave it my all. And he’s a good, man.
CHANG: I mean, Koepka is a guy who grew up as a little kid watching Tiger dominate in those early years. Right?
WETZEL: Most of the guys Tiger Woods beat yesterday are playing golf because of Tiger Woods, they will tell you. They were 8 and 10 and 12 years old and said, I want to play like him and were drawn to that sport. Almost all the golfers who lost the tournament stuck around and waited when Tiger was going to win it. Usually, those guys are defeated, they’re depressed, and they want to get out of there as fast as possible.
CHANG: (Laughter).
WETZEL: Guys that lost and others stayed, and they just wanted to be a part of it and see Tiger Woods win that. The amount of respect that says without saying a word is incredible. It’s very, very rare.
CHANG: So when you were watching him play yesterday, did it feel like a different Tiger in the way he connected with people watching?
WETZEL: All weekend, he wore a smile – if nothing else – that you didn’t always see when he was a little bit more intense and robotic and more of a fierce competitor early in his career. I think, over this, he’s realized how many people really wanted him to succeed. Again, as we mentioned, he’d been in some dark places physically…
CHANG: Yeah.
WETZEL: …And in his personal life. And then here’s the support and everybody rooting him on. The crowd wanted him to win. He wanted to win. And it was like a journey he had to go with them together.
CHANG: Yahoo Sports writer Dan Wetzel, thanks so much for joining us today.
WETZEL: Thanks for having me.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Breaking Down The Hollywood Dispute Between Writers And Agents
NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with Kim Masters, editor-at-large for The Hollywood Reporter, about the ongoing dispute between writers and agents.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now we turn to Hollywood to check in on the dispute between writers and talent agents. After groups representing both parties failed to reach an employment agreement, the Writers Guild instructed members to cut ties with their agents. That group represents thousands of writers, and the dispute could stall production of scripted TV shows and movies. Here to tell us what this means is Kim Masters. She’s an editor at large at The Hollywood Reporter.
Kim Masters, welcome back. Thanks so much for joining us once again.
KIM MASTERS: My pleasure.
MARTIN: Can you just tell us as briefly as you can how we got to this point?
MASTERS: There has been a process called packaging that goes back more than 40 years. It’s become an institution in this industry. And packaging means – this is primarily a thing now with television writers – when an agency puts together elements of a show and sells it to a studio, the studio pays the agency a fee directly. And this has various effects that the writers are now completely fed up with. They argue that the agents who are getting paid by the studios have a conflict because their job is to represent the writer and not make deals for themselves with the studios.
And they say that this causes writers to be underpaid. Oftentimes, writers don’t even know that they’re part of a package. They say that if you’re developing a TV show, these fees that the studio is paying the agencies can cut the budget for your own TV show, diminishing your chances for success, because you can’t necessarily hire the actor you want or get the location you want.
MARTIN: I think people could see their point. For example, if you were in a real estate transaction, and if you hired somebody to represent you, to then find out that that person was actually the person selling the house, for example – you would experience that as a conflict. So what do the agents say about that? What has their position been about that?
MASTERS: Well, what the agents give up in this scenario of packaging is you normally would pay a 10 percent commission to your agent for getting you a job, and you don’t pay if the packaging fee is involved. So the agents are saying this helps lower-level writers because they can make more money. But the writers argue that this is more than offset by the potential conflicts that these agents have collecting fees from the studios.
And they point out and argue that their compensation has gone down in recent years overall. One of the writers said how he had walked through an art gallery at his agency. These agencies have all of this wealth and accoutrements and try to look very, very successful. But at this point, the writers are looking at all of those signs of success and saying, wasn’t some of that money supposed to be mine?
MARTIN: So the Writers Guild leadership wrote to members saying that they are about to enter unchartered waters. What are some of the repercussions of this that we might see? Recognizing I’m asking you to speculate here since – as by definition, it’s uncharted – what do you think might happen? What are people concerned about?
MASTERS: Well, guild members as of now are expected to fire their agents. It is pilot season, so the shows are staffing up right now. And what the writers are trying to do is figure out alternate means to communicate about what jobs are available and help people find jobs without involving agents.
MARTIN: Is there any entity or group working to resolve this?
MASTERS: Right now, we are looking at what seems like impasse. These are very divergent interests right now. The agents feel they must produce. They certainly don’t want to give up these very, very lucrative packaging fees. Sometimes they make more than the writers from TV shows created by the writers. So this is really kind of an existential struggle, and I’m not sure how I see the way out.
MARTIN: That’s Kim Masters, editor at large for The Hollywood Reporter.
Kim, thank you so much for joining us.
MASTERS: Oh, thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE VERVE’S “BITTER SWEET SYMPHONY”)
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Tiger Woods Wins 2019 Masters
In a surprise comeback, Tiger Woods wins his first major title in more than a decade.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today in Augusta, Ga., what seemed impossible just a few years ago became a reality. Tiger Woods, who seemed a longshot to win another golf tournament – let alone another major championship – did just that, winning his fifth Masters by one stroke. It was his 15th major title and his first in almost 11 years.
Joining us now to tell us more about it is NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Tom, welcome.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Thank you. Hi, Michel.
MARTIN: So this story is all over social media. It’s all over the world. People are tweeting about what they were doing the last time he won – my personal favorite, that Destiny’s Child was beginning their final world tour. But Tiger has won a few times before – a few. So what makes this different?
GOLDMAN: Oh, boy. Well, you know, because a couple of years ago, Tiger Woods said he could barely walk. I think that’s what makes this significant. He thought his career might be over. His back problems were debilitating. So the talk of winning – of winning a major seemed farfetched to say the least. But then he had fusion surgery – that was his fourth back surgery – and it worked.
And last year, he started his climb back. He built to a victory in the prestigious TOUR Championship in September of last year. And that proved he could win again. And today, he proved he could win a major again. It’s the first major victory since 2008 – the 2008 U.S. Open – first Masters win since 2005. And the 14 intervening years are the longest gap between victories in Masters history.
And Michel, amazingly, this rekindles the question of, can he beat Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championships? Eleven years ago, when he won No. 14 – that U.S. Open in 2008 – it seemed like a matter of when and not if that would happen. But to come back now and again start this talk about Tiger catching Jack, we just never saw it coming.
MARTIN: How did he do it today? Tell me – because it was a wild tournament overall. I mean, at one point, like, there were five guys in contention, like, five people tied. You know, the whole thing was wild. So how did he do it today? How did he pull it off?
GOLDMAN: It was amazing. At first, I should say he won coming from behind, which is a first. This is his first major that he’s won without having at least a share of the lead going into the final round. And he started today’s final round two shots behind the leader, Italy’s Francesco Molinari.
Woods was kind of slow getting going, but he said afterwards that he just kept plodding – he used that word a bunch of times, plodding. And Molinari look great early on. He was sinking clutch putts. But then on hole 12, the par three in famed Amen Corner, Molinari put his tee shot in the creek in front of the green. And that changed the complexion of the tournament right there.
As Woods said later, it let a bunch of people back into the tournament. Really good players, some of the best in the world, like Brooks Koepka, who won two majors last year, world No. 2-ranked Dustin Johnson, they surged. But through it all, Woods played steady. And the last few holes, he did better than steady. He had three birdies – one under par – in his last six holes. And he won by a stroke.
MARTIN: We have about a minute left, Tom. So does this mean something for men’s golf? I know that there’s this whole question of, like, the Tiger effect and all of this. And, you know, he hasn’t been on the scene except as a – sort of a sad sidebar in recent years. Does this mean something for men’s golf overall for the sport?
GOLDMAN: I think it does. You know, Woods and his tremendous success years ago spawned a new generation of young athletic golfers with complete games. The golf out there is really good. And today, all those young golfers he spawned, he beat them in the biggest tournament when the pressure was greatest and when they were all playing really well. And so he again is on top, which I think is maybe disconcerting for the young guns who thought Woods was going to kind of fade off into the sunset. Not yet.
MARTIN: Exciting for the over-40 set overall, right? Now tell the truth, Tom. You’re going to watch it again right now, aren’t you?
GOLDMAN: I am.
MARTIN: All right. That’s NPR’s Tom Goldman. Tom, thank you.
GOLDMAN: You’re welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF BENNY SINGS’ “PASSIONFRUIT”)
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
How Philadelphia Mandated Vaccinations In 1991
NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, about the last time the U.S. mandated measles vaccinations.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Mandatory measles vaccinations have been ordered for people living in parts of Brooklyn, N.Y. That’s the order of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. And it was prompted by a measles outbreak in some ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities there. Vaccination rates are low in those communities, and an anti-vaccination movement is spreading there. Requiring vaccines is a rare public health move, but there is a precedent. During a 1991 outbreak in Philadelphia, city officials mandated vaccinations for children against their parents’ will. Dr. Paul Offit treated children during that outbreak. He’s director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. And he joins us to talk about the experience.
Dr. Offit, welcome.
PAUL OFFIT: Thank you.
PFEIFFER: In New York, Mayor de Blasio has said anyone who doesn’t comply will be fined. But he hasn’t said that people will be forced to get an injection or take a pill. In Philadelphia, was anyone actually forced to be vaccinated?
OFFIT: Yes. There’s a distinction between mandatory vaccination and compulsory vaccination. What de Blasio is asking for is mandatory vaccination, which is to say, get a vaccine. If you don’t get it, then you’ll pay some sort of societal price. You may have to pay a fine or something like that. Here in Philadelphia, we had compulsory vaccination, which is to say, your child got a vaccine whether you wanted your child to get a vaccine or not. It was a court order.
PFEIFFER: And how did Philadelphia get to that point?
OFFIT: Well, we – in that several-month period in early 1991, we had 1,400 cases of measles and nine deaths. It was a major epidemic. I mean, parents were scared to death in this city. The city became a feared destination. It was a nightmare.
PFEIFFER: You were treating children who came to the hospital with measles. What condition were those kids in?
OFFIT: Well, typically, when you’re hospitalized with measles it’s because you have severe pneumonia caused by the virus or you have a bacterial superinfection that was set up by the virus when it infected your lungs or you have severe dehydration. Those were generally the reasons children came into the hospital.
PFEIFFER: So they were – they – these kids were in tough shape.
OFFIT: Yes. And this was at the point where, actually, they were compelled to come in. This epidemic centered on two fundamentalist churches – Faith Tabernacle and First Century Gospel, which were faith-healing churches. So it wasn’t just that they didn’t immunize. They also didn’t choose medical care. And so they often let their children get very sick before, frankly, they were compelled by law to bring them to the hospital.
PFEIFFER: What did their parents tell you about why they hadn’t vaccinated their children?
OFFIT: They were profoundly of the belief that Jesus would protect their children. And they said Jesus was our doctor.
PFEIFFER: And did they also believe that vaccines could cause their kids harm? Were they skeptical about them in other ways?
OFFIT: I think they were just skeptical of modern medicine, period. They saw modern medicine as an act of man. They saw Jesus as someone who could protect their child, independent of whether or not man intervened.
PFEIFFER: In Philadelphia, when those mandatory vaccines were ordered, were there any legal challenges to them?
OFFIT: Yes. The pastor of the Faith Tabernacle Church actually did challenge that because, frankly, what he was doing was perfectly legal. We had had a religious exemption to vaccinations on the book for 10 years. There was nothing he was doing that was illegal. And so he asked the American Civil Liberties Union to represent him, but the ACLU was unwilling to take the case. They said, basically, while they believe that you are at liberty to martyr yourself to your religion, you’re not at liberty to martyr your child to your religion. So they didn’t take the case.
PFEIFFER: Given the fears that many people out there have about vaccines, do you have any qualms or concerns about mandatory vaccinations?
OFFIT: No. I think that were those fears well-founded, sure, I could understand it. I mean, if vaccines cause what they fear vaccines cause, like chronic diseases like autism or diabetes or multiple sclerosis or attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity disorder, sure. But vaccines don’t cause that, so they’re making bad decisions based on bad information that’s putting their children and other children at risk. I mean, at some point, somebody has to stand up for these children.
PFEIFFER: To take us back to present day, is there anything you think was learned from the Philadelphia experience that could be applied to New York City today?
OFFIT: Only just how bad it can get. I guess I just think we invariably fail to learn from history, which is why, occasionally, we’re condemned to repeat it. I mean, do we really need to learn that measles is a potentially fatal infection? Do we need to learn that? Before there was a measles vaccine, 500 people died every year in this country, and most of them were children. Forty-eight thousand people were hospitalized. Do we really need to keep learning that lesson? You know, we eliminated measles from this country in the year 2000. And I think not only did we largely eliminate that virus, I think we eliminated the memory of that virus. People don’t remember how sick it could make you. And that’s why, I think, they can be so cavalier about these kinds of choices.
PFEIFFER: Dr. Paul Offit is director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. And he treated children during a measles outbreak in Philly in 1991. Dr. Offit, thanks for talking with us.
OFFIT: Thank you.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
‘Uncharted Waters’: Union Tells Hollywood Writers To Fire Their Agents
Writers Guild of America West President David Goodman speaks in Los Angeles at the 2019 union award ceremony. The WGA instructed is writers to fire their agents on Friday.
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Thousands of Hollywood writers have been told by the Writers Guild of America to fire their agents — a drastic move that could impinge the production of new TV shows and films.
The abrupt directive on Friday followed a breakdown in negotiations over proposed changes to the agreement that has guided the basic business relationship between writers and agents for the past 43 years.
With talks stalled ahead of a midnight deadline, the WGA sent its 13,000 writers an email with instructions to notify their agents in writing that they cannot represent them until signing a new code of conduct.
“We know that, together, we are about to enter uncharted waters,” the message stated. “Life that deviates from the current system might be various degrees of disorienting. But it has become clear that a big change is necessary.”
It was a bold move for a group accustomed to writing its own scripts. “I guess the idea of taking on our agents is something people never thought we would do,” said David Goodman, the president of the Writers Guild of America West, in an interview with NPR.
“Studios and networks still need writers to do the work so until agents figure out that they need us more than we need them, we will carry this out,” said Goodman.
At the center of the conflict is a complaint among writers that their agents are not just drastically out-earning them, but preventing them from receiving better pay. The dispute threatens to hinder production at a time when the major broadcast networks are typically staffing up for their fall lineups. It could also lead to job losses in the industry.
“This whole fight is really about the fact that in a period of unprecedented profits and growth of our business … writers themselves are actually earning less,” said Goodman.
A main point of contention involves what are known as packaging fees, the money that agents get from a studio when they provide a roster of talent for a film or TV project. Traditionally, agents would earn a 10 percent commission for the work their clients receive from a studio. But with packaging fees, they are compensated by the studios directly. “They are not incentivized to increase the income of those writers,” Goodman said.
Writers are also protesting a shift in the business model in recent years at some of Hollywood’s largest talent agencies. Agents have increasingly entered the film and TV businesses as producers, and writers contend that such a dual-hat arrangement represents a conflict of interest.
Goodman said that in order to break the impasse, the industry needs to return “to the traditional agent-writer relationship” where an agent takes 10 percent of a writer’s income.
On Saturday, some writers posted images of the letters they had signed and sent to their agents, showing solidarity if not total support.
“I have an amazing agency that represents me,” screenwriter, actor and comedian Patton Oswalt said on Twitter. “But I have an even better guild which stands for me.”
“Dammit,” wrote David Simon, a Baltimore-based author and television writer best known for The Wire. “Just realized that the [agency agreement] midnight deadline is PST. So I have to stay up another three hours and one minute to send a pic of my naked a** to [the Creative Artists Agency].”
The Association of Talent Agents, which represents the agencies, has promised more transparency when agencies are involved in the production of a film or TV show. The association committed to reopening talks on the issue after two years if the Writers Guild determines that members aren’t benefiting.
The association also offered concessions leading up to Friday’s breakdown, including a chance to share 80 percent of “a percentage” of their profits when packaging fees for a television series are involved.
The guild said that based on the offer they received from agents, that “percentage” amounted to 0.8 percent of the money agents make from packaging fees.
ATA also said agencies would spend $6 million over six years to foster a more inclusive environment and insisted they “are, and always have been, on the side of the writer.”
In a statement, Karen Stuart, the executive director of the ATA, said Friday’s failure “was driven by the Guild’s predetermined course for chaos.” She said it would ultimately harm artists.
“The WGA is mandating a ‘Code of Conduct’ that will hurt all artists, delivering an especially painful blow to mid-level and emerging writers, while dictating how agencies of all sizes should function.”
Goodman said writers are already hurt. He called the proposal “a ridiculous offer given the fact that the writers are the reason that any television show succeeds.”
Until the impasse is solved, members of the guild have told writers they could turn to managers or lawyers to handle their business affairs.
Lawyers for the ATA threatened to sue the guild, contending that the union was violating California and New York licensing laws. As part of its argument, it said in a letter that the union “cannot ‘delegate’ authority it does not have.”
Friday’s breakdown in negotiations marked just the latest chapter in the Writers Guild’s longstanding aversion to packaging fees. Goodman said the union sought reforms as far back as the 1970s.
“People are saying this is an unprecedented move, but it isn’t in the sense that 43 years ago we tried to get rid of packaging and we failed and now it’s gotten much worse,” Goodman said.
Saturday Sports: NBA Playoffs, Baseball Season Begins
ESPN’s Howard Bryant talks with Scott Simon about the start of the NBA playoffs and some of the story lines from the early days of baseball season.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Politics, policies, yada, yada. Time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: Two weeks into the baseball season, the standings look upside-down. And the NBA says so long to a couple of legends. Playoffs begin today with – what? – without LeBron. Howard Bryant of ESPN joins us. Hi, Howard.
HOWARD BRYANT, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott. How are you?
SIMON: I’m fine, thanks. But for the first time since 2005, LeBron James is not leading a team into the playoffs. Notice how I managed to make him the lead anyway?
BRYANT: He’s still the news. But the real news in the NBA, of course, is the same question we’ve been asking for about – what? – four years now.
SIMON: Yeah.
BRYANT: Can anybody beat the Golden State Warriors four times? I’m still unconvinced. I know that the Cleveland Cavaliers did it once, but I think the answer is no. I think they’re going to win their third straight championship. However, that does not mean that there’s not a lot of intrigue in here. I like the Milwaukee Bucks, as well. They had the best record in the NBA…
SIMON: Howard…
BRYANT: …Won 60 games.
SIMON: Howard…
BRYANT: Fear the deer.
SIMON: Fear the deer.
BRYANT: (Laughter) I knew that was coming.
SIMON: I love that. Yes, exactly.
BRYANT: We also want to know if the Boston Celtics can turn their disastrous season on – I mean, I know winning 49 games is not really disastrous, but still. They were supposed to be in Milwaukee, in the Warriors’ class, but they weren’t. I think it’s going to be interesting, also, to see what the Philadelphia 76ers do and also those Toronto Raptors, who were flustered by LeBron all those years. But now they’ve got Kawhi Leonard, and LeBron’s not here. So I think that the postseason’s going to be really interesting.
SIMON: Two great players and classy guys – Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat, Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks – have played their last game. How should we remember their careers?
BRYANT: Great, great players, and I think that this is – I’m an ’80s guy, of course. And I think when you look at the number of Hall of Famers that came out of that decade, I think that the numbers still show it was a pretty amazing decade. But this is a golden age, as well. I think that looking at Dirk and Dwyane Wade – met for a championship twice – in 2006, with the Heat winning that one, although I think Dallas should’ve won that one; and then, of course, in 2011 when – LeBron’s first year in Miami – Dallas winning that one when, of course, people thought Miami should’ve won that one.
So two phenomenal players – lovely that Dirk played 21 years with one team, which you don’t really see anymore. And I think that both of these guys are going to be remembered as the icons for their cities that they were – and also, Dirk, especially, in terms of growing the international game – coming in from Germany; changing the perception, in a lot of ways, of what European players could be; and also, really immersing himself in the culture in Dallas. He’s the greatest player they’ve had.
SIMON: Come into the studio this morning – Stu Rushfield, our technical director, has a scrap of west – wastepaper on our…
BRYANT: (Laughter).
SIMON: …On my reading stand showing the New York – and can’t – Mets – thought they played basketball – in first place. The Cubs – well, not doing well, although they beat the Angels last night. What’s going on? The standings seem upside-down.
BRYANT: Yeah, what’s up with your ball club, Scott Simon? The Cubs are a really interesting team because I think when they won it in 2016, I think people were expecting a long run of success. And now Joe Maddon didn’t get his extension, so you’re starting to wonder what is – what his future’s going to be.
I think when you’re looking at the Mets, obviously, they’re 9-4. They’re in first place and ahead of the Phillies by a game. I think the Red Sox, the defending world champions in the crazy American League East – there’s only one team in that division that has a winning record, and it is the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees don’t have any players right now.
I think it’s fascinating. It’s – and it’s good. This is one of the things that makes baseball different. It’s a sprint up – it’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon. It’s going to take a long time. You’re starting to wonder, do these teams have what it takes to just be there? Even at the All-Star break, what are they built for? But when you start the season, it is kind of interesting that the San Diego Padres are in first place. It’s not what we’re used to.
SIMON: Howard Bryant, thanks so much.
BRYANT: Thank you.
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Dervish Finds New Ways To Celebrate Tradition With ‘The Great Irish Songbook’
Dervish’s latest album Irish Songbook is out now.
Colin Gillen/Courtesy of the artist
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For the past three decades, Dervish has been at the forefront of reinventing traditional Irish folk songs. The Sligo-based band is “breathing new life” into the beloved music of its homeland with The Great Irish Songbook, an album pulling from an eclectic range of genres and the voices of over a dozen featured artists.
Collaborators on the album include Steve Earle, David Gray and Rhiannon Giddens and this project encompasses everything from traditional dance music to love ballads, including a W.B. Yeats-penned serenade “Down by the Sally Gardens” and the classic “The Rocky Road to Dublin.”
The Great Irish Songbook is out now. Founding Dervish member Shane Mitchell and longtime vocalist Cathy Jordan spoke with NPR’s Scott Simon about the band’s unlikely beginnings, the soul of Irish music and the making of The Great Irish Songbook. Hear the radio version of their conversation in the audio link and read on for interview highlights.
Interview Highlights
On the origin of Dervish
Mitchell: We basically were a group of friends that were growing up together. We were asked to make a recording of local music one time and we had to come up with a title for the album pretty quickly. And we were just called The Boys of Sligo.
Jordan: I wrecked it. [Laughs] They couldn’t be The Boys of Sligo anymore!
It was about ’91 when when I joined. I was, at that time, making cakes and making pastries in County Longford and singing on the weekends. I had known the guys for quite some time and they decided that it was time to get a singer and I decided that I was fed up making cakes. I hitchhiked down to Sligo with my rucksack on my back and never came back.
On why the Irish excel at songs about heartbreak
Jordan: The heartbreak, I guess, comes in many forms. It can come in immigration, leaving loved ones behind, of course, the affairs of the heart. We have far more songs about love unrequited than songs with happy endings, which I found [out] one time when I was asked to sing as somebody’s wedding. They wanted a lovely traditional Irish ballad with a happy ending and I couldn’t find one. There’s usually somebody dead by the third verse and betrayed by the fourth or whatever. So, I’m not quite sure, there could be many reasons for it, but we have a few happy endings songs, you’ll be delighted to know on The Great Irish Songbook.
On how beloved Irish music is around the globe
Mitchell: We continue to be surprised by how loved Irish music is. I suppose when we started this project nearly two years ago, the idea was to try and find people who had a love for Irish music from different genres of music. We found a lot of closet Irish folk music fans. In fact, we have enough to make three albums, somebody said at one stage.
I am so proud of our music, that there’s so much love and people get emotionally attached to us. It’s a very positive genre of music and this was one of the reasons why we looked at this project. These are iconic songs that we all grew up with. You know, Irish pub music, people come together and it was a great sense of camaraderie when people would sing together. We just think that this was a great way to approach an album — breathe new life into these wonderful old songs.
