There are over 6,000 abandoned lead mines across the UK leaking hundreds of tons of metals into our rivers each year. With climate change causing an increase in flooding, contamination is likely to get worse. Is this lead ending up in our food chain, water system and blood?Presented by Lucy Taylor and Dan Ashby
Producers: Pūlama Kaufman and Kelly Windsor Burgin
Researcher: Charlie WestA Bite Your Tongue production for BBC Radio 4
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My Faulty Knee Replacement
File on 4 Investigates reveals how surgeons had raised concerns about a faulty replacement knee eight years before its US manufacturer finally decided to withdraw it from use.Knee replacement surgery is one of the most common operations carried out by the NHS, with over 100,000 procedures carried out each year. It’s a surgical success story - but things can go wrong. Around 10,000 problematic 'NexGen' knee implants, made by the US medical tech giant Zimmer Biomet, were fitted into UK patients over the past decade or so, until they were withdrawn in 2022. But File on 4 Investigates exclusively reveals that warnings were given to both the company and the government regulator eight years before the product was recalled. Reporter Adrian Goldberg talks to patients who had to endure the agony of new corrective surgery and orthopaedic surgeons whose reputations were thrown into doubt.Reporter: Adrian Goldberg
Producer: Jim Booth
Story and Development Producer: Nazrin Wilkinson
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Richard Fenton-SmithImage: Deborah Booker following her knee replacement operation in 2016
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Trip Shocked
Psychedelics are having a moment — hailed as miracle cures for depression, PTSD and addiction. But what happens when the trip doesn’t end?In Trip Shocked, writer and researcher Ed Prideaux takes a hard look at the risks lurking in the psychedelic renaissance. Drawing on his own long-term side effects from LSD, Ed explores a hidden history of harms: from persistent hallucinations and underground support groups to therapy sessions that crossed the line.As billionaires, biotech firms and media stars race to mainstream psychedelics, are we ignoring inconvenient truths about safety, science and consent?Producer: Nadia Mehdi
A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4
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We Are Not a Conspiracy School
In We Are Not A Conspiracy School, Darryl Morris sets out to meet the people behind HOPE Sussex, a community of home educators founded during the pandemic. On a sprawling site in the East Sussex countryside, a number of families gather to learn together, away from the mainstream. What’s taught there is contested. The media has called it a “conspiracy school", but the founders say it’s a community centre that encourages critical thinking. What are people actually doing there? And in a world where shared beliefs have fractured, and more are turning away from the mainstream, why do they feel a community like theirs is needed? Producer: Louisa Adams
Sound Design: Craig Edmondson
Executive Producer: Ailsa Rochester
An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4
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Hospital abuse caught on camera
When the parent of a patient in a psychiatric hospital questioned why he couldn’t see CCTV footage of an incident involving his son it led to a series of extraordinary discoveries.
Glynn Brown was told that cameras had never been switched on despite being present throughout wards at Muckamore Abbey Hospital, in Northern Ireland.
In fact, the cameras had been recording for six months without staff knowing. In all, they captured 300,000 hours of footage which is reported to show appalling abuse and cruelty against patients – many of whom are non-verbal and have complex needs. File on 4 Investigates has spent months examining what happened and highlights how – eight years on from the discovery – no criminal cases have yet come to trial. It also considers why the scandal has not drawn more public outrage, and what lessons are being learned to protect patients elsewhere?Reporter: Noel Titheradge
Producer: Fergus Hewison
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Richard Vadon