National legislation discussed

Elaine Pozycki and the Prevent Opioid Abuse team recently met with U.S. Representative, [TAG: David Trone], to discuss national legislation regarding the Patient Notification law. Our goal is to give all patients the right to know about the potential for dependence and addiction to #opioid-based painkillers at the time of prescription.
Thank you for your time, David!


Payout From a National Opioids Settlement Won’t Be as Big as Hoped

From the New York Times:

Expectations of a whopping payday set off thousands of lawsuits. But lawyers for the suing cities and states now concede that companies will shell out far less.

Read complete article here.


Babies born addicted to opioids cost U.S. more than half a billion dollars a year

From CBSNews.com:

Babies born addicted to opioids cost the U.S. health care system more than half a billion dollars a year, a new study finds.

The rate of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) was 6.7 per 1,000 hospital births in 2016, four times the rate of 1.5 per 1,000 in 2004 but down from the 8 per 1,000 rate in 2014, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Those births cost nearly $573 million in 2016, the study says, and 4 of 5 of those dollars came from Medicaid.

Watch video and read complete article here.


As Tens of Thousands Died, F.D.A. Failed to Police Opioids

From the New York Times:

The agency, whose oversight of opioid safety has largely eluded scrutiny, did not improve flawed programs designed to reduce addiction and overdoses, documents show.

Read complete article here.


‘It only took one pill’: How addiction starts

From the Washington Post:

The road to Paul Little’s addiction began during a hard day at work. He took one pill to ease a headache, which turned into nine-month habit.

“I got up to 20 to 30 Percocets a day,” the former Air Force doctor said. “I was eating them like M&Ms.”

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This Was The Decade Drug Overdoses Killed Nearly Half A Million Americans

From Buzz Feed News:

“It was also the decade we finally started treating drug addiction like a disease, spurred by an overdose epidemic that ravaged white, rural America.”

Read complete article here.


The Class of 2000 ‘Could Have Been Anything’

From the New York Times:

“The high school yearbook is a staple of teenage life. But for some, it reflects the devastating toll of the opioid crisis.” 

Read full article here.


How Germany averted an opioid crisis

From NBCNews.com

“Unlike in the U.S., opioids have never emerged as a front-line medical treatment in Germany.”

HAMBURG, Germany ― In 2016, 10 times as many Americans as Germans died as a result of drug overdoses, mostly opiates. Three times as many Americans as Germans experienced opioid addiction.

Even as the rates of addiction in the U.S. have risen dramatically in the past decade, Germany’s addiction rates have been flat.

That contrast, experts say, highlights a significant divergence in how the two countries view pain as well as distinct policy approaches to health care and substance abuse treatment.

Read full article here.


University Hospital STOMPs emergency department opioid scripts by 70 percent

From NJBiz.com:

University Hospital announced on Wednesday that its S.T.O.M.P. program successfully reduced emergency department opioid prescriptions for discharged patients by nearly 70 percent since 2016.

The program, which stands for  Stewardship to Transform OUD while Medicating for Pain, was developed at Newark’s University Hospital as a hospital-wide opioid stewardship program to directly address the prevention and treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (OUD).

Read complete article here.