• A Brief But Spectacular take on change and healing

    A Brief But Spectacular take on change and healing

    Mar 03, 2022 11:25 PM EST

    ... went to prison at 18 years old. That was just the way it was, just the way it is. My father died from a heroin overdose a week before we were born. My mom was a heroin addict well until my adulthood, witnessing overdoses in my house, and murder outside ...

  • Purdue Pharma, U.S. states agree to new settlement for opioid crisis

    Purdue Pharma, U.S. states agree to new settlement for opioid crisis

    Mar 03, 2022 09:09 PM EST

    ... decades. "We're pleased with the settlement achieved in mediation, under which all of the additional settlement funds will be used for opioid abatement programs, overdose rescue medicines, and victims," Purdue Pharma said in a statement issued separately from the family's. "With this mediation result, we continue on track ...

  • LISTEN: Supreme Court justices seem to favor doctors in case over pain pill prescription convictions

    LISTEN: Supreme Court justices seem to favor doctors in case over pain pill prescription convictions

    Mar 01, 2022 02:57 PM EST

    ... opioid pain reliever, and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Jessica Burch, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, was a patient of Kahn’s who died from an overdose in 2015. He wrote nearly 15,000 prescriptions for controlled substances between 2011 and the end of 2016, totaling nearly 2.2 million pills ...

  • Johnson & Johnson, distributors finalize $26B opioid settlement

    Johnson & Johnson, distributors finalize $26B opioid settlement

    Feb 25, 2022 02:27 PM EST

    ... expected $86 million share this year for youth opioid education and to train treatment providers, improve data collection and distribute naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses. In Florida's Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, the number of beds in a county-run detoxification facility could be expanded from 50 ...

  • Senate confirms Biden's FDA pick after narrow vote

    Senate confirms Biden's FDA pick after narrow vote

    Feb 15, 2022 07:00 PM EST

    "Nothing that Dr. Califf has said or done has led me to believe he will operate the FDA any differently than he did during his previous tenure," said Manchin, whose home state has been ravaged for decades by opioid addiction and overdoses. The White House long assumed enough Republicans ...

  • News Wrap: Inflation rises to highest level in 40 years

    News Wrap: Inflation rises to highest level in 40 years

    Feb 10, 2022 11:55 PM EST

    Back in this country, the CDC proposed today to ease guidelines on how doctors prescribe opioid painkillers. Since 2016, there have been strict limits on the drugs, in an effort to slow an overdose epidemic. The proposed changes would give doctors more leeway in treating patients with severe pain. The ...

  • Toxicologist testifies that drugs and heart disease did not kill George Floyd

    Toxicologist testifies that drugs and heart disease did not kill George Floyd

    Feb 10, 2022 12:30 AM EST

    ... that on video from inside a convenience store before his fatal encounter with police, Floyd did not appear to be seriously intoxicated or experiencing an overdose. But he did not dispute a store clerk's earlier testimony that Floyd seemed high. "He was awake, walking, communicating, walking quickly at times ...

  • New report details the scale of the U.S. opioid crisis and its link to drug trafficking

    New report details the scale of the U.S. opioid crisis and its link to drug trafficking

    Feb 09, 2022 11:40 PM EST

    William Brangham: Like many of us, I know that this issue is deeply personal for you. Your nephew Ian struggled for many years with addiction and eventually died of an overdose. And, as you have commented publicly, this touches so many people in this country, Republicans, Democrats and everybody else ...

  • News Wrap: CDC director stands by guidance for masks in schools

    News Wrap: CDC director stands by guidance for masks in schools

    Feb 08, 2022 11:50 PM EST

    ... had pledged that he would fire any abusive staffer on the spot. A bipartisan congressional commission is calling for a new strategy on the opioid overdose epidemic. In a report today, the group envisions stepped-up law enforcement and diplomacy to shut off ingredients for synthetic opioids. It also called ...

  • With housing costs rising, tiny homes offer one solution to address homelessness

    With housing costs rising, tiny homes offer one solution to address homelessness

    Feb 07, 2022 09:51 PM EST

    ... never thought in my lifetime I’d have to shoot Narcan into somebody, but I did,” he said, referring to the treatment that reverses opioid overdoses. “I witnessed a man be shot. I witnessed stabbings. That was not a good place.” The 54-year-old sets out on his bike ...