Sep 10 Nearly 30 percent of patients prescribed opioids had no recorded pain diagnoses By Laura Santhanam The research team behind a new letter published in the Annals of Internal Medicine did not make a conclusion that these prescriptions were inappropriate. Continue reading
Jun 30 Justice Department announces crackdown on fraudulent opioid prescriptions By Lev Facher, STAT Federal agencies on Thursday announced charges in what Attorney General Jeff Sessions called “the largest health care fraud takedown in American history,” an investigation into over $2 billion in alleged fraud by doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. Continue reading
May 23 Watch 8:30 With highest hepatitis C mortality rate in U.S., Oregon expands access to life-saving drugs By Cat Wise New drugs can cure up to 95 percent of patients with hepatitis C, a virus that can be debilitating or deadly. And there’s been a 20 percent rise in new infections from 2015 to 2016 due to the opioid epidemic. Continue watching
Apr 24 Medicare doesn’t cover methadone treatment. Here’s how Congress may change that By Carla K. Johnson, Associated Press Federal money is flowing to states to open new methadone clinics through the 21st Century Cures Act, but despite the nation's deepening opioid crisis, the Medicare drug program for the elderly covers methadone only when prescribed for pain. Continue reading
Mar 14 Purdue Pharma promoted Oxycontin for years. Now, it is combating the opioid crisis By Jenny Gold, Kaiser Health News After years of aggressively promoting OxyContin as a safe and effective way to combat pain, the company is — equally aggressively — recasting itself as a fundamental player in the response to a crisis that many experts say it helped… Continue reading
Mar 07 Watch 5:58 ‘The Trade’ tells personal stories of far-reaching drug crisis By PBS News Hour, Frank Carlson The new Showtime documentary series "The Trade" shows the pain and consequences of the nation's opioids epidemic by putting a human face on the crisis. Best known for the Oscar-nominated film "Cartel Land," director Matthew Heineman wanted to show just… Continue watching
Mar 06 Watch 4:30 States are seeing startling increases in opioid overdoses By PBS News Hour The opioids crisis appears to be deepening across the country. That’s according to a stark new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found that emergency room visits for suspected overdoses rose by an average of 30… Continue watching
Mar 01 White House to host opioid summit and highlight Trump administration’s efforts By Darlene Superville, Associated Press According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids - including prescription opioids, heroin and fentanyl - killed more than 42,000 people in 2016, more than any year on record. Continue reading
Feb 22 Opioid overdose deaths dropped in these 14 states, prompting cautious optimism By Christine Vestal, Stateline In an opioid epidemic that began in the late 1990s, drug deaths have been climbing steadily every year, in nearly every state. A break in that trend, even if limited to just 14 states, has prompted cautious optimism among some… Continue reading
Feb 13 5 important stories that have nothing to do with the White House By Jessica Yarvin, Erica R. Hendry These days, it’s hard to stop news from Washington, D.C., from flooding your news feed. We take a moment every week to bring you important stories beyond the White House and the Capitol. Here’s what we’re reading now. Continue reading