Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Judge Overseeing 200 Suits Against Painkiller Makers Holds Summit To Get To Root Of Crisis
Bloomberg: Purdue’s Oxycontin Targeted At Judge’s Opioid Summit
Local governments pressing lawsuits to hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for the opioid epidemic told a judge that taking the strongest version of Purdue Pharma Inc.’s Oxycontin painkiller off the market would have immediate results in addressing the crisis, according to people at the meeting. Purdue’s 80-milligram version of Oxycontin is snorted by thousands of abusers, so removing it would be a good first step, experts for cities and counties and state attorneys general told U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, according to three people in attendance at the Wednesday meeting. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the closed-door summit. (Feeley, 2/2)
Reuters: New York Accuses Insys Of Deceptively Marketing Opioid
Insys Therapeutics Inc's legal woes deepened on Thursday as New York's attorney general filed a lawsuit seeking at least $75 million from the company, which he said deceptively promoted a fentanyl-based cancer pain medicine for unsafe uses. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman alleged that the Chandler, Arizona-based drugmaker recklessly marketed its product Subsys for wider uses than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved and bribed doctors to prescribe it. (2/1)
Modern Healthcare: Trump's Opioid Priority Still Lacks Congressional Funding
Every 25 minutes an infant is born to an opioid-addicted mother, and that's when the intense care starts. The average hospital bill to Medicaid in Missouri is about $63,000 per birth of a child with so-called neonatal abstinence syndrome. These babies may experience difficulty eating and breathing, rapid weight loss and sometimes seizures; on average, they stay in the hospital for three weeks after birth. From 2009 to 2012, hospital billing for care of these infants soared from $732 million to $1.5 billion, according to the last comprehensive analysis by Journal of Perinatology. Since that study, addiction rates have only climbed but there has been no more recent estimate of the costs incurred. (Luthi, 2/1)
And in California —
Los Angeles Times: Orange County’s Only Needle Exchange Shuts Down After Santa Ana Denies Permit
Orange County's first and only needle exchange program has shut down after Santa Ana city officials denied its permit application, a move some local advocacy groups and the state's leading public health agency say could negatively affect public welfare. However, the city contends the move was necessary because of an increased number of discarded syringes in the Santa Ana Civic Center, for which it says the needle exchange was at fault. (Brazil, 2/1)
