Opioid Addiction News and Research

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Right after Trump blamed high drug prices on campaign cash, drugmakers gave more

"The cost of medicine in this country is outrageous," President Donald Trump said at a rally in Louisville, Ky., two months after his inauguration. He went on about how identical pills have vastly lower price tags in Europe.

27 Sep 2017

For low-income drug users, Medi-Cal offers a fresh start

Breann Johnson stopped using heroin on Mother's Day this year, determined to end her 13-year addiction. Days later, she began three months of residential treatment in Riverside, Calif. — all paid for by California's Medicaid program.

8 Sep 2017

Collaborative care model can expand access to treatment for opioid or alcohol addiction

Combining substance abuse treatment with regular medical care can successfully treat people with opioid or alcohol addiction, providing an option that might expand treatment and lower the cost of caring for people caught up in the nation's opioid epidemic, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

6 Sep 2017

Researchers use zebrafish animal model to explore drug-seeking behavior

As the opioid crisis escalates, the science behind addiction remains poorly understood. To address this need, researchers at University of Utah Health devised a system that allowed zebrafish, a small tropical fish, to self-administer doses of hydrocodone, an opioid commonly prescribed to people for pain.

26 Aug 2017

Opioid crisis strains foster care system; programs aim to keep kids with mom

After Raven Mosser gave birth six years ago, she woke up to a social worker in her hospital room. Her newborn son had been born exposed to opioids — drugs she had been abusing for years. If she didn't get clean, she was at risk of losing him.

18 Aug 2017

A long and winding road: Kicking heroin in an opioid ‘treatment desert’

Heather Menzel squirmed in her seat, unable to sleep on the Greyhound bus as it rolled through the early morning darkness toward Bakersfield, in California's Central Valley.

11 Aug 2017

Opioid crisis results in increased admissions to hospital ICUs and deaths

The opioid crisis in the United States is resulting in increased admissions to hospital intensive care units and in increased numbers of ICU deaths from opioid overdoses, according to new research published online, ahead of print in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

11 Aug 2017

Researchers explore why physicians underprescribe drug approved to treat opioid addiction

A drug approved for private physicians to treat opioid addiction is being underprescribed, and a survey of addiction specialists suggests that many of them are not willing to increase their use of it, despite an expanding opioid addiction epidemic in the United States, according to research presented at the 125th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.

4 Aug 2017

Survey explores how Ohio's ED administrators perceive role of state opioid prescribing guidelines

A survey led by a team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center reports that the majority of Ohio's emergency department administrators and physicians are in support of the most recent state guidelines for prescribing opioids, but challenges still exist in implementation.

1 Aug 2017

Opioid use disorder rises with little being done to curb the menace says new study

A new study has found that more and more Americans are being diagnosed with opioid addiction and the numbers that receive treatment are still very few. This finding is consistent with earlier findings from Blue Cross Blue Shield when analyzing member data.

29 Jun 2017

Poll: Most Americans unaware GOP plans would make deep funding cuts to Medicaid

Congress is moving fast toward repealing the Affordable Care Act, with an eye on revamping Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people. But most Americans say the program — which Republicans call a "broken system" — is working well on the national level and within their states.

23 Jun 2017

People in recovery worry GOP Medicaid cuts would put treatment out of reach

Republicans in both the House and the Senate are considering big cuts to Medicaid. But those cuts endanger addiction treatment, which many people receive through the government health insurance program.

14 Jun 2017

Impairment of specific gene increases susceptibility to opioid addiction and binge eating, study shows

Impairment of a particular gene raises increases susceptibility to opioid addiction liability as well as vulnerability to binge eating according to a new study.

13 Jun 2017

Medical responses to opioid addiction vary by state, analysis finds

Location, location, location. That mantra may apply even when it comes to how opioid addiction is treated.

12 Jun 2017

Cesarean patients prescribed more opioid pain medications than needed, study shows

Most women who undergo a cesarean childbirth are prescribed more opioid (narcotic) pain medications than needed upon release from the hospital, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study shows.

9 Jun 2017

Anti-heroin vaccine developed at TSRI proven effective in primate models

A vaccine developed at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) to block the "high" of heroin has proven effective in non-human primates. This is the first vaccine against an opioid to pass this stage of preclinical testing.

6 Jun 2017

Innocuous start to opioid addition: A 1980 letter that started it all

In a letter to the Editor published this Wednesday (31st May 2017), a group of Canadian researchers have disclosed how a sting of words coming from a notable doctor nearly 4 decades ago was the seed that led to a nationwide epidemic of misuse and abuse of opioid painkiller drugs such as Vicodin and OxyContin.

1 Jun 2017