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Graphic: Opioid painkiller is top prescription in 11 states

Americans fill about 4.5 billion prescriptions each year, at a cost of more than $323 billion. But what are we actually buying? In 11 states, the top prescriptions are opioid pain pills that are mixtures of acetaminophen and hydrocodone (brand names Vicodin and Norco), according to new data from GoodRx, an online prescription cost service.

22 Mar 2018

As marijuana laws relax, doctors say pregnant women shouldn’t partake

Two-year-old Maverick Hawkins sits on a red, plastic car in his grandmother’s living room in the picturesque town of Nevada City, Calif., in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. His playpal Delilah Smith, a fellow 2-year-old, snacks on hummus and cashews and delights over the sounds of her Princess Peppa Pig stuffie.

31 Jan 2018

Death in the family: An uncle’s overdose spurs Medicaid official to change course

Andrey Ostrovsky's family did not discuss what killed his uncle. He was young, not quite two weeks past his 45th birthday, when he died, and he had lost touch with loved ones in his final months. Ostrovsky speculated he had committed suicide.

29 Jan 2018

In battleground races, health care lags as hot-button issue, poll finds

As the midterm elections approach, health care ranks as the top issue, mentioned more frequently among voters nationwide than among those living in areas with competitive races, a new poll finds.

27 Jan 2018

Researchers find link between negative emotions and higher opioid use in people with sickle cell disease

In a small study using data from daily electronic patient diaries, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found a link between negative emotions, such as sadness and anxiety, and higher opioid use in people with sickle cell disease whose pain levels were self-reported as relatively low.

27 Nov 2017

New pain relievers reduce opiate overdose risk

Scientists on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed new opioid pain relievers that reduce pain on par with morphine but do not slow or stop breathing-;the cause of opiate overdose.

16 Nov 2017

New online tool offers opioid prescribing recommendations after surgery

How many prescription pain pills should a patient receive after breast cancer surgery? Or a hernia repair? Or a gallbladder removal?

16 Oct 2017

Dying at home in an opioid crisis: Hospices grapple with stolen meds

Nothing seemed to help the patient — and hospice staff didn't know why. They sent home more painkillers for weeks. But the elderly woman, who had severe dementia and incurable breast cancer, kept calling out in pain.

22 Aug 2017

Climbing cost of decades-old drugs threatens to break Medicaid bank

Skyrocketing price tags for new drugs to treat rare diseases have stoked outrage nationwide. But hundreds of old, commonly used drugs cost the Medicaid program billions of extra dollars in 2016 vs. 2015, a Kaiser Health News data analysis shows.

14 Aug 2017

New discovery could aid in synthesis of radiotracers for use with PET scanning

Researchers have found a surprisingly versatile workaround to create chemical compounds that could prove useful for medical imaging and drug development.

27 Jul 2017

Mind-body therapies significantly reduce acute pain experienced by hospital patients

Mindfulness training and hypnotic suggestion significantly reduced acute pain experienced by hospital patients, according to a new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

25 Jul 2017

Fake contaminant opioids found in prescription pills leading to fatal overdoses in Georgia

There has been a spate of several overdoses in Georgia this week leading to four deaths according to the officials at Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The Bureau issued a statement saying that there is presence of two synthetic opioids in the fake prescription pills that led to these cases of overdose.

9 Jun 2017

Opana ER – a long acting opioid painkiller, to be pulled from the markets as per FDA directive

The US Food and Drug Administration this Thursday (8th June 2017) directed pharmaceutical company Endo Pharmaceuticals to remove one of its powerful opioid painkillers Opana ER, that provides a long term relief of pain but also poses a risk of drug abuse.

9 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

Six important things to know about opioid crisis

While opioid drugs play an important role in pain management, an alarming increase in opioid diversion, opioid use disorder, and opioid-related mortality and morbidity in recent years has created a healthcare crisis in the United States.

5 Apr 2017

SLU scientist examines potential biomarkers for pain linked to debilitating health conditions

With new funding from The Mayday Fund, a Saint Louis University researcher will leverage her discovery of a pain pathway to determine if either of two key molecules can be used as biomarkers for pain associated with four debilitating health conditions: chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis and vulvodynia.

16 Feb 2017