Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'We Have All These Kids Who Are In Survival Mode': Elementary Schools Adjust To Accommodate Generation Born Into Opioid Epidemic
The New York Times: Inside The Elementary School Where Drug Addiction Sets The Curriculum
Inside an elementary school classroom decorated with colorful floor mats, art supplies and building blocks, a little boy named Riley talked quietly with a teacher about how he had watched his mother take “knockout pills” and had seen his father shoot up “a thousand times.” Riley, who is 9 years old, described how he had often been left alone to care for his baby brother while his parents were somewhere else getting high. (Levin, 6/12)
The Associated Press: Nebraska's AG Is Lone Holdout In Pursuing Opioid Cases
Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson has fought prescription opioid abuse through public education campaigns, worked with lawmakers to tighten prescribing practices and even demanded documents from the maker of OxyContin. He has said the overdose crisis is ravaging families. What Peterson hasn't done is pursued a lawsuit seeking to hold any opioid manufacturer, distributor or pharmaceutical company accountable. That leaves him standing alone among state attorneys general. (6/12)
And in other news on the crisis —
Kaiser Health News: Drug Users Armed With Naloxone Double As Medics On Streets Of San Francisco
The man was out of his wheelchair and lay flat on his back just off San Francisco’s Market Street, waiting for the hypodermic needle to pierce his skin and that familiar euphoric feeling to wash over him. The old-timer, who appeared to be in his 60s, could not find a viable vein, so a 38-year-old man named Daniel Hogan helped him. Hogan, a longtime drug user originally from St. Louis, leaned over the older man, eyeing his neck as he readied a syringe loaded with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. (Rinker, 6/13)
The Associated Press: Man Pleads Guilty To Filing 90 Plus Fake Prescriptions In N.H.
A man has pleaded guilty in New Hampshire to filling more than 90 fake prescriptions at pharmacies and using numerous aliases to get them. Federal court documents say 32-year-old Theodoros Bahtsevanos, of Haverhill, Massachusetts, passed false prescriptions for Adderall at pharmacies in Nashua and Derry last year. They contained falsified signatures, but actual DEA registration numbers for doctors. (6/12)
