Study Highlights Doctors’ Failures To Give Opioid Addiction Drugs To Kids

The Boston Globe: Pediatricians Fail To Prescribe Life-Saving Medications For Opioid Addiction
The summer before Becca Schmill entered her junior year of high school in 2018, she admitted to her parents that she was self-medicating with opioids and cocaine to cope with the trauma of being raped by a boy she met on social media. Becca’s mother, Deb Schmill of Needham, said she immediately notified Becca’s pediatrician and checked her into an outpatient treatment program for adolescents with substance use problems. Yet ... Becca never received a prescription for buprenorphine — a standard medication for treating opioid addictions. (Serres, 3/11)

Stat: Methadone Treatment Changes Are Coming. Do They Go Far Enough?
The federal government is reforming methadone care for the first time in over two decades. But how far do the changes actually go? To many methadone clinics, the Biden administration’s recent refresh of the rules governing opioid treatment programs represents an unprecedented opportunity to offer care that is more compassionate and responsive to patients’ needs. To many patient advocates, however, it simply nibbles around the edges. (Facher, 3/12)

Stat: Methadone Clinics' Rigid Rules Jeopardize Opioid Addiction Treatment
Every morning, Rebecca Smith, nursing a surgically repaired knee, carefully walks down the hallway of her brutalist brick apartment building, takes the elevator one floor to the lobby, and negotiates the sharply angled driveway outside. There, she waits for an Uber to take her to the last place she wants to go: her methadone clinic. (Facher, 3/12)

In other mental health news —

Stat: Acadia's Nuplazid Fails As Schizophrenia Medicine In Phase 3 Study
Acadia Pharmaceuticals said Monday that its approved medicine called Nuplazid failed to improve the social and emotional symptoms of schizophrenia in a late-stage clinical trial. (Feuerstein, 3/11)