Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
As Families Scramble To Find Good Treatment Programs During Opioid Epidemic, Addiction Specialists Offer Guidelines
Cincinnati Enquirer: Addiction Treatment: Where Are The Doctors? Help May Be On The Way
Fact is, more than a decade into a nationwide epidemic, many physicians in the United States may not know where to send people with an opioid addiction. So the addiction that killed more than 130 people a day in 2017 has families turning to the only people who they think know what to do: Each other. (DeMio, 1/23)
Kaiser Health News: Students With Addictions Immersed In The Sober Life At ‘Recovery’ High Schools
It’s the last class period of the day. The students lean back on couches and take turns describing the most important day of their lives: the day they became sober. For Marques Martinez, that date was Nov. 15, 2016. Until then, he had used OxyContin, Xanax and nearly every other drug he could get his hands on, he said. He had been suspended from school for selling drugs. “I knew what I was doing was bad,” he said. “But I didn’t think there was another way.” (Gorman, 1/24)
Kaiser Health News: Listen: ‘Death Certificate Project’ Aims At Opioid Crisis, But Doctors Cry Foul
On “All Things Considered” Thursday, KQED’s April Dembosky reports on the California medical board’s Death Certificate Project, which collected almost 3,000 death certificates of people who died of opioid overdoses, then cross-referenced those with the state’s drug prescription database. The board then sent letters to more than 500 doctors throughout the state who had prescribed the drugs to the people who died. The board has filed formal charges against 25 doctors, and left hundreds more, like Dr. Ako Jacintho of San Francisco, waiting to learn their fate. (Dembosky, 1/23)
