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Rudy Giuliani’s consulting firm had hand in halting Florida’s opioid investigation

Six months after hiring former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm, Purdue Pharma settled a Florida state investigation that had threatened to expose early illegal marketing of its blockbuster drug OxyContin, company and state records show.

5 Sep 2018

Suicide by opioid: New research suggests overdoses should be classified as self-harm

There has been a steady stream of headlines declaring that life expectancy in the United States is decreasing.

28 Aug 2018

Drug overdose continues to be a significant cause of death in Australia

A new report has come up with alarming numbers of deaths due to drug overdose among Australians. The report states that common sedatives and sleeping pills may be responsible for over 142 deaths each month due to their overdose.

27 Aug 2018

Christiana Care Health System successfully reduces opioid prescriptions

Before surgeon Emily Penman, M.D., begins a mastectomy or lumpectomy, her lightly sedated patient receives a nerve block, an injection of medicine to control pain after surgery.

21 Aug 2018

Study may fuel need for effective drug testing in hospital emergency departments

At a time when drug overdoses are becoming more prevalent and lethal, a new report provides a snapshot of regional illicit drug use and, for the first time, highlights the complexity of detecting and treating patients at hospital emergency departments for a severe drug-related event.

21 Aug 2018

Yale researchers identify racial disparities in prescribing opioids for chronic pain

Yale researchers have identified racial disparities in the treatment of patients who are prescribed opioids for chronic pain.

20 Aug 2018

Illicit drug use is higher during celebratory events, may be worse than previously thought

America's drug problem may be even worse than officials realize. And illicit drugs are consumed at a higher rate during celebratory events. Those are just two of the conclusions scientists have drawn from recent studies of drug residues in sewage.

20 Aug 2018

New statewide program in North Dakota aims to stem opioid misuse

Preliminary estimates released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a nearly 7 percent increase in drug overdoses in 2017, with more than 72,000 deaths. Of the total deaths, almost 68 percent of them were tied to opioid use. A new statewide program in North Dakota called ONE Rx aims to stem opioid misuse by increasing awareness when patients first fill an opioid prescription.

17 Aug 2018

New modeling studies highlight urgent need for effective drug policy reforms to prevent HIV

While global incidence rates of HIV have declined notably in recent years, the virus that causes AIDS remains a major and, in some ways largely unmitigated, public health threat in some countries and regions.

17 Aug 2018

Advances in treating hep C lead to new option for transplant patients

After her kidneys failed from the same illness that took the lives of her mother and brother, Anne Rupp went on dialysis in May 2016, spending three hours a day, three times a week undergoing the blood-cleaning procedure. She hated it.

13 Aug 2018

College students may experience pressures from secondary exposure to opioid abuse

About one in five college students reported in a survey that they knew someone who was addicted to pain medications, and nearly a third said they knew somebody who overdosed on painkillers or heroin, according to a team of undergraduate Penn State Lehigh Valley researchers.

13 Aug 2018

Clinicians who learn of a patient’s opioid death modestly cut back on prescriptions

Physicians and other medical providers modestly reduced the volume of opioids they prescribed after being told one of their patients had died of an overdose, according to research published Thursday.

10 Aug 2018

Physicians who come to know about overdose deaths reduce opioid prescription

Will clinicians become more careful in prescribing opioids if they are made of aware of the risks of these drugs first-hand?

10 Aug 2018

FDA issues scientific recommendations to encourage development of novel drugs for treatment of OUD

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued new scientific recommendations aimed at encouraging more widespread innovation and development of novel medication-assisted treatment drugs for the treatment of opioid use disorder.

7 Aug 2018

Doctors reckon with high rate of suicide in their ranks

Alarms go off so frequently in emergency rooms, doctors barely notice. And then a colleague is wheeled in on a gurney, clinging to life, and that alarm becomes a deafening wake-up call.

3 Aug 2018

Mushrooms from the Far East area could be used to design novel anti-cancer drugs

Mushrooms from the Far East area contain the natural chemical compounds, which could be used for the design of the novel drugs with highly specific anti-tumor activities and low-toxicity.

2 Aug 2018

How rival opioid makers sought to cash in on alarm over oxycontin’s dangers

As Purdue Pharma faced mounting criticism over deaths linked to OxyContin, rival drugmakers saw a chance to boost sales by stepping up marketing of similarly dangerous painkillers, such as fentanyl, morphine and methadone, Purdue internal documents reveal.

2 Aug 2018

Patients with chronic pain feel caught in an opioid-prescribing debate

It started with a rolled ankle during a routine Army training exercise. Shannon Hubbard never imagined it was the prologue to one of the most debilitating pain conditions known to exist, called complex regional pain syndrome.

1 Aug 2018

FSMB partners with NAM to form Action Collaborative on countering opioid epidemic

In recognition of the need for a national coordinated and collective response to the epidemic of opioid addiction in the U.S., the Federation of State Medical Boards is partnering with the National Academy of Medicine and 35 organizations to form the Action Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic.