Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
As OxyContin Falls Out Of Favor In U.S., Purdue Owners Think Global
Los Angeles Times: OxyContin Goes Global — “We’re Only Just Getting Started”
OxyContin is a dying business in America. With the nation in the grip of an opioid epidemic that has claimed more than 200,000 lives, the U.S. medical establishment is turning away from painkillers. Top health officials are discouraging primary care doctors from prescribing them for chronic pain, saying there is no proof they work long-term and substantial evidence they put patients at risk. ... So the company’s owners, the Sackler family, are pursuing a new strategy: Put the painkiller that set off the U.S. opioid crisis into medicine cabinets around the world. (Ryan, Girion and Glover, 12/18)
The Associated Press: Drug Overdose Deaths Increased Significantly In Past 5 Years
Drug overdose deaths have increased by 33 percent in the past five years across the country, with some states seeing jumps of nearly 200 percent. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 states saw increases in overdose deaths resulting from the abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers, a class of drugs known as opioids. New Hampshire saw a 191 percent increase while North Dakota, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine had death rates jump by over 100 percent. (Casey, 12/17)
Boston Globe: 'Heroin Is The Worst Thing In The World'
In an opioid crisis that shows little sign of subsiding, it’s an increasingly common arrangement. In Vermont, where heroin and fentanyl fatalities have risen sharply in recent years, substance abuse was a factor in about 28 percent of reports to the state’s child welfare agency in 2015. The Bruces are among an estimated 2.6 million grandparents nationally who care for their grandchildren, according to the US Census Bureau. That number has climbed as opioids have ensnared a wide swath of young parents, leaving them sick, incarcerated, or dead. (Allen, 12/18)
WBUR: The Detective And The Dealer: An Evening With Heroin In Framingham
Gov. Charlie Baker and others have focused a lot of attention on reducing the number of opioids prescribed for pain because that's where an addiction often starts. But if those former patients overdose and die, the killer is typically something bought on the street -- heroin or an illicit version of fentanyl. Many police and public health experts say that without more attention to the street supply of heroin and fentanyl, the opioid epidemic will rage on. (Bebinger and Becker, 12/16)
The Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com: Who's Using - And Dying Of - Heroin? You May Be Surprised
It's long been known that opioid abuse, often fueled by prescription painkillers, is a largely white, suburban phenomenon, particularly among younger men. But older white women are not immune. Last year, 15 white female heroin users died of drug overdoses at age 62 nationwide. That was up from four in 2014 and three in 2013. Going back more than a decade, no other year saw more than a single 62-year-old white woman die from heroin, according to federal statistics. (Sapatkin, 12/19)
The CT Mirror: Pharmacists Offer Overdose-Reversing Drug, But Say Demand Muted
Many pharmacists say they’ve had similar experiences since the 2015 law change that allowed pharmacists to prescribe opioid antagonists like naloxone. The change was intended to make it easier for relatives or friends of those at risk to have an overdose-reversing drug on hand. In 2015 there were 723 deaths from drug overdoses in Connecticut. (Levin Becker, 12/19)
The CT Mirror: St. Francis To Test Marijuana As Alternative To Opioids
With hopes of eventually helping to curb the opioid epidemic, doctors at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center will soon begin testing whether marijuana is a viable alternative to opioids for pain control in patients with rib fractures. The study will be the first state-approved research on medical marijuana, part of a law passed this spring that grants immunity under Connecticut law to those participating in approved studies. (Levin Becker, 12/16)
