The world is on the cusp of another potential medical emergency. Resistance Fighters investigates the global antibiotics crisis and explains how we got here. It reveals how negligence, greed, and short-sightedness have rendered the lifesaving effects of antibiotics powerless. And without the research and development of new antibiotics, we may be left with nothing to fight the superbugs which threaten the health of everyone on earth. Experts have called it a “slow-motion tsunami.” The United Nations and representatives from governments around the world have placed it at the top of their agenda. Drug resistant bacteria - pathogens resistant to all available antibiotics - kill 700,000 people worldwide each year. According to some, if nothing is done, by 2050 as many as 10 million people could die each year from antibiotic resistant infections. The economic fallout over the next 35 years is predicted to reach one hundred trillion dollars. Since mass-production in the 1940s, antibiotics have been nothing less than miraculous, saving countless lives and revolutionizing modern medicine. It’s virtually impossible to imagine hospitals or healthcare without them. A world without antibiotics would be very different from the world we live in today. As in the 19th century, masses of people would die from the simplest infections, life-saving operations and the treatment of serious diseases would no longer be feasible because of the consequential risks. But after years of abuse and mismanagement by the medical and agricultural communities, superbugs have become resistant to all available antibiotics and are putting the world at risk. How did this happen, and what can we do? Resistance Fighters hears from the people searching for answers at the centre of the crisis - disillusioned, fighting doctors, rebellious scientists, patients wrestling with life-threatening diseases and diplomats searching for a global solution. It demonstrates how the problem has been known, but ignored fo

For years, the National Rifle Association wielded its political power to dominate America’s conversation about gun rights and gun control — outlasting and overpowering the calls for change that followed mass shooting after mass shooting, from Columbine to Newtown. But as the 2020 election approaches, the once-unrivalled organization is facing both internal strife and a rising external threat: a movement led by student survivors of the Parkland mass shooting, whose gun-control advocacy has kept the issue in the headlines and motivated a groundswell of politicians willing to take on the NRA. In August 2020, New York’s Attorney General launched a civil lawsuit to dissolve the organization over financial misconduct. NRA Under Fire investigates the status of America’s gun debate — and why the organization that has dominated it for so long is now under attack on all sides. Drawing on interviews with leading voices on both sides, the documentary traces the NRA’s evolution from a group of gun enthusiasts and sportsmen with minimal political focus to a powerful lobbying force opposing any perceived infringement of the constitutional right to bear arms.

Could a lung cancer vaccine give hope to patients across the world? Innovative treatments developed in Cuba are transforming some cancers from life-threatening into chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. In Cuba, as in the United States, lung cancer is a leading cause of death. But after decades of a U.S. trade embargo, Cuba was economically and politically isolated and short on medical resources. Cuban scientists were forced to get creative, inventing their own immunotherapies. Among them are lung cancer vaccines that can help jumpstart the body’s immune response to cancer. These therapies show so much promise that some American patients are even defying their country’s embargo to travel to Cuba for treatment. Cuba’s Cancer Hope explores the history of how Cuba came to be a leader in biomedical research and follows the journey of two cancer patients—one from the island and one from the U.S—receiving the new vaccines. As they prove effective in some patients, Cuban scientists are teaming up with a leading U.S. cancer institute to develop an even more effective treatment by combining the best of both countries’ research and medical technologies. The goal is to make the medicines more widely available, but will the embargo stand in the way?

There’s a growing and potentially catastrophic threat to the future of public health - the anti-vaccine movement. Twenty years ago, former British doctor Andrew Wakefield made fraudulent claims that vaccines were dangerous and harmful, sparking a dangerous conspiracy. Campaigners claim that vaccines are unsafe, and the cause of a health catastrophe. Scientific research doesn’t back them up. Scientists have worked tirelessly for decades to disprove the message, but in an internet age of anti-experts, anti-science and mutating misinformation, the conspiracy not only persists, it is reaching around the globe. Vaccine Wars investigates just how the ‘anti-vax’ message has spread, what gives it currency and who may be benefiting. As four European nations, including the UK, lose their measles-free status and cases surge worldwide, the World Health Organisation has labelled ‘vaccine hesitancy’ one of the top ten threats to global health. Vaccine Wars examines the arguments of those who campaign against vaccines, and hears from people at the heart of the alleged conspiracies.

Did the plastics industry use the lure of recycling to sell even more plastic? With the industry expanding and the crisis of ocean pollution growing, Plastic Wars investigates the fight over the future of plastics. Plastic Wars examines the mounting crisis of plastic waste in the environment. Despite efforts to reduce the use of plastic, the plastics industry is rapidly scaling up new production and promoting a familiar solution: recycling. But some estimates say that no more than 10 percent of plastic produced has ever been recycled. The documentary reveals how plastic makers have publicly promoted recycling for decades, despite privately expressing doubts from almost the beginning that widespread plastic recycling would ever be economically viable. Top industry executives speak publicly for the first time, detailing the plastics industry’s strategy to promote recycling in the 1980s and 1990s. Along with a trove of internal documents uncovered in the film, these insider accounts shed new light on the industry’s efforts to overcome growing concern about plastic waste by pushing recycling. By marketing plastics as recyclable, and so a “green” product, the industry was able to continue selling and producing more plastics, rather than cutting back on how much was produced in the first place. Plastic Wars explores how, in the ‘90s and 2000s, much of the waste generated was shipped overseas to be recycled in China. But in 2018, responding to its own pollution problems, China closed its doors to imports of plastic waste. With the China market closed, the documentary team travels to Indonesia to see where some of the plastic waste from the U.S. is ending up now — finding that some plastics that are supposed to be recycled are instead being dumped in Indonesian communities already struggling to clean up their own waste.

How will artificial Intelligence change your job? New research shows how much of what you do could be done by robots. The AI Race provides insights on how the workplace will change in the coming years and it’s not just physical labour, professions like law and medicine could change just as much. The AI Race speaks to international leaders in the field including Google's Research Director Peter Norvig, an icon among AI researchers, who say the pace of change could be "a shock to the system" that will be "hard to recover from". One leading AI scientist, Toby Walsh, asks whether we need boundaries around how AI is developed and used in our lives. Economist Andrew Charlton says "Hundreds of thousands of jobs we do today will be replaced by machines...I don't think everyone needs to become a coder. If AI is any good, machines will be better at writing code than humans. People need to work with the output of those machines and turn it into valuable services." The AI Race brings workers face to face with AI experts to quiz them about what the future might look like and how they can prepare. Other interviews include US-based Australian data scientist Jeremy Howard, who brilliantly describes the wonderful and terrifying implications of AI, and Cathy O'Neil, the US author of Weapons of Math Destruction who believes AI could be used to undermine democracy.