Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Industrial Chemical BTMPS Found In Fentanyl Across US, Raising Alarm
Los Angeles Times: An Industrial Chemical Is Showing Up In Fentanyl In The U.S., Troubling Scientists
An industrial chemical used in plastic products has been cropping up in illegal drugs from California to Maine, a sudden and puzzling shift in the drug supply that has alarmed health researchers. ... In an analysis released Monday, researchers from UCLA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other academic institutions and harm reduction groups collected and tested more than 170 samples of drugs that had been sold as fentanyl in Los Angeles and Philadelphia this summer. They found roughly a quarter of the drugs contained BTMPS. (Alpert Reyes, 9/16)
More on opioids and addiction —
The Washington Post: Opioid-Maker Purdue Is Bankrupt, But Its Global Counterparts Make Millions
At home in the United States, Purdue Pharma, the drugmaker accused of fueling the opioid crisis through its aggressive marketing of highly addictive pain pills, is bankrupt and facing thousands of lawsuits. Abroad, its global counterparts are selling opioids — and still profiting. Among the beneficiaries: some members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue and also sit atop a group of international companies known as Mundipharma, records show. The family faces a wave of litigation over Purdue’s alleged role in an opioid crisis that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and ruined countless more across the United States. (Davies, Boytchev and Ovalle, 9/17)
Reuters: Baltimore To Take Drug Distributors To Trial Over Opioids
The city of Baltimore is scheduled to go to trial this week in its $11 billion lawsuit accusing drug distributors McKesson and Cencora of fueling an epidemic of opioid addiction and overdose deaths. The city, which has been especially hard hit by the opioid crisis, opted out of large national opioid settlements in recent years. It's now hoping it can win more money by taking companies to court on its own. Jury selection is expected to begin on Monday in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Maryland. (Pierson, 9/16)
San Francisco Chronicle: Overdose Deaths In SF Tick Up In August But Remain Below 2023 Levels
Forty-five people in San Francisco died from accidental drug overdoses in August, according to preliminary figures released Monday by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner — a small uptick after a promising but brief decline earlier in the summer. The city had previously reported two consecutive months of declines in overdose deaths, in June and again in July, when they fell to their lowest point in nearly two years. Health officials at the time expressed cautious optimism about the trend. (Ho, 9/16)
The Guardian: Fentanyl Was Killing Their Friends – And No One Was Talking About It. So These Teens Stepped Up
Eli Myers was only 15 when his close friend and classmate Chloe Kreutzer died from taking a counterfeit Percocet pill filled with fentanyl. Initially, he said, the response from officials at his Los Angeles high school was stony silence. Even years later, the information he and his classmates got about the risks of fentanyl poisoning amounted to little more than a droning lecture in health class, he said. The same thing happened at Kyle Santoro’s northern California high school, when a student was found overdosing in a bathroom and was revived by the principal with Narcan. (McCormick, 9/16)
Iowa Public Radio: The Vision For A New Iowa Treatment Center Evolved From Prison
Sioux City officially approved selling land to a nonprofit for an inpatient addiction treatment facility, which city officials say is greatly needed. The project is the dream of a woman who overcame her own addiction. (Brummer, 9/16)
