Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Mothers Who Are Addicted Face Gut-Wrenching Choice: 'Lose Our Kids Or Save Our Lives'
Columbus Dispatch: Addicted Moms Often Torn Between Treatment, Kids
Fighting heroin is daunting for the hundreds of thousands of Americans hooked by this opiate addiction, but for women with children, seeking help can force nearly impossible choices. Like many who find that it takes multiple trips to rehab centers to beat their addictions, Duggan, 26, relapsed in her recovery program, and the state took her son into foster care. Child-welfare agents are considering putting Giovanni up for adoption if Duggan doesn’t agree to enter a residential treatment facility. But that would mean being away from her son for at least seven months, and probably longer. (McNamara, 9/23)
Boston Globe: These Grim Maps Show How Discarded Needles Litter ‘Methadone Mile’
No area of Boston is plagued by discarded drug needles like the so-called “Methadone Mile,” a stretch of blighted blocks along Massachusetts Avenue in the South End, Roxbury, and Dorchester where the use of heroin and other opioids is rampant. City data on recent constituent reports of discarded needles spotted in public places — on streets, sidewalks, alleys, and parks — demonstrates how the toll of drug use and the opioid epidemic has been widespread, leaving virtually no sections of the city unscathed. But records also show Methadone Mile, an area recently chronicled by the Globe, has been particularly troublesome. (Rocheleau, 9/22)
The Washington Post: As Overdoses Surge, Two Accused Of Selling Deadly Heroin Laced With Elephant Tranquilizer
A man and a woman from Cincinnati, were indicted Wednesday on charges of dealing heroin laced with carfentinal — the deadly animal tranquilizer officials blame for an unprecedented surge in overdoses in the U.S. — marking what may be the first carfentanil-related criminal case brought in the federal court. A grand jury charged Phillip Watkins, 31, and Jeannetta Crawford, 26, with distributing heroin cut with fentanyl and carfentanil, a heroin analogue that is 10,000 times stronger than the drug itself. (Hawkins, 9/23)
The Washington Post: The Pill Mill Doctor Who Prescribed Thousands Of Opioids And Billed Dead Patients
A former Michigan doctor who ran a pill mill for 16 months, distributing tens of thousands of narcotics and controlled substances to people who didn't need them for medical purposes, has agreed to pay $200,000 to settle a federal lawsuit that accused him of, among other things, falsifying records to charge dead patients, subjecting patients to unnecessary tests and billing for office visits that never happened. The settlement was announced Wednesday, amid National Heroin and Opioid Awareness Week, and came nearly four years after Hussein Awada, 46, was accused of defrauding Medicare, Medicaid and Blue Cross Blue Shield of about $2.3 million. (Guerra, 9/22)
The Baltimore Sun: Users Of Kratom Defend Herbal Supplement Ahead Of Federal Ban
The Southeast Asian plant derivative, which has been used for generations by people overseas for pain, and mood disorders, and to boost energy, is gaining a following in the United States. It can also help wean someone off addictive opioids, some say. But imports of capsules, teas and other kratom products will be cut off at the end of September, when a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration ban of the plant's active compounds goes into effect. The DEA says the goal of the ban is avoiding "an imminent hazard to public safety," as agency officials figure out how to regulate what they consider an increasingly popular recreational drug. (Cohn, 9/22)
