Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Opioid-Overdose Death Toll Continues To Rise In West Due To Availability Of Potent, Illicit Fentanyl
The Washington Post: U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths Rise In West And Drop In East
Downstairs at the medical examiner's office, the bodies lay side by side on stainless-steel tables and shelves, shrouded and anonymized in white bags, each person identifiable only by a protruding foot that had been toe-tagged. Upstairs, Luke Rodda, the chief forensic toxicologist, looked over his morning docket and the terse reports from first responders. Male, 33, "prior history of fentanyl overdose," found at bus stop. (Achenbach, 2/21)
NPR: When Probation Rules Are An Obstacle To Opioid Addiction's Best Treatment
She was in medical school. He was just out of prison. Sarah Ziegenhorn and Andy Beeler's romance grew out of a shared passion to do more about the country's drug overdose crisis. Ziegenhorn moved back to her home state of Iowa when she was 26. She had been working in Washington, D.C., where she also volunteered at a needle exchange. She was ambitious and driven to help those in her community who were overdosing and dying, including people she had grown up with. (Stone, 2/24)
NH Times Union: Opioid Treatment Business Partners With AmeriHealth Caritas NH
Jocelyne Wood knows the effects that the opioid addiction crisis has had on lives across New Hampshire. Wood, the state director of Groups Recover Together, an opioid abuse treatment organization, said she was approached to come work for the organization a few years after her father died from an opioid overdose. (Fisher, 2/23)
The CT Mirror: Purdue Pharma Payouts Decline As Fewer Clinicians Report Taking Money
Purdue Pharma, in bankruptcy and embroiled in thousands of lawsuits for its role in the opioid crisis, paid Connecticut doctors and nurse practitioners $394,662 in 2018, a slight drop of 9% from $433,246 the prior year, federal data show. But more significantly, the number of doctors and nurse practitioners who reported receiving payments shrunk by 51%, from 204 to 99. (Srinivasan, 2/21)
Boston Globe: Alkermes Sued Over Death Of Man Who Overdosed After Taking Addiction Treatment Vivitrol
The parents of a 26-year-old California man who died of an opioid overdose have sued the Waltham manufacturer of Vivitrol, the medication he took to treat his addiction, in a case that highlights the controversies surrounding the response to the nation’s opioid crisis. The wrongful-death suit alleges Alkermes failed to warn of the high risk of overdose when patients stop taking Vivitrol and then relapse into opioid use. It also claims Vivitrol is ineffective and deceptively marketed. (Freyer, 2/23)
