Disrupting Drug Markets: The E ffects of Crackdowns on Rogue Opioid Suppliers
Adam Soliman (Duke University), Disrupting Drug Markets: The E ffects of Crackdowns on Rogue Opioid Suppliers, ERID Working Paper 313 (2023): More than 564,000 Americans have died from an opioid-related overdose since 1999. In this paper, I estimate the impacts of... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - February 2, 2023 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Gun crisis in America: Youth fatalities on the rise
In 2020, firearm fatalities displaced motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death of U.S. youth (ages 1 to 19). We long ago dramatically reduced infectious deaths (though vaccine hesitancy threatens to upend this victory), and the “big five” have been auto accidents, firearms, cancer, suffocation, and drug overdose – accidental in the youngest
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Gun crisis in America: Youth fatalities on the rise originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - January 23, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Edward Hoffer, MD Tags: Policy Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs
Fentanyl Test Strips Save Lives, Yet Most States Ban Them As “Drug Paraphernalia”
Jeffrey A. SingerToday ’s Wall Street Journalreports that recreational drug users at parties and nightclubs increasingly use fentanyl test strips before engaging in drug use. Singer ‐songwriter Kalie Shorr, who has lost a sister and childhood friend to drug overdoses, keeps them with her in her purse and offers them to partiers and nightclub goers:Just dissolve the cocaine in a small amount of water, she tells them. Then dip in the test strip, and wait a few minutes to see if one line (positive) or two lines (negative) appear. “You can put it up your nose if you feel so inclined,” she said. “But...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 19, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Drug Diversion – Can AI Monitoring Solve This Growing Issue?
The following is a guest article by Claire Reilly, Director of Clinical Operations at Imprivata and former Emergency Room Charge Nurse.
Although often overshadowed by major news and events, drug diversion – the rerouting of medications intended for patients by healthcare staff and is actually theft – has been a persistent problem in all healthcare settings. Pharmacies, doctors’ offices, hospitals, and care homes are all places drug diversion can occur if prescribing is not carefully monitored and managed.
In recent years, multiple factors have combined to create a perfect storm for drug diversion. Healthcar...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - January 19, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: AI/Machine Learning Analytics/Big Data Clinical Healthcare IT Regulations Adderall Alcohol Abuse Artificial Intelligence Big Data Technologies Claire Reilly COVID-19 Drug Abuse Drug Diversion Drug Overdoses EHR Electronic Hea Source Type: blogs
How were we duped and what can we do about the opioid overdose crisis?
Who among us as physicians and prescribers, not to mention the millions of families who have been affected and suffered deep personal loss due to the current crisis and record overdose deaths, regardless of whether the opioid was legally written or illicit. Let’s take a step back in time and review. As physicians, how have
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How were we duped and what can we do about the opioid overdose crisis? originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - January 13, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Ronald A. Zent, MD Tags: Meds Pain Management Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Analytics and Interoperability – 2023 Health IT Predictions
As we head into 2023, we wanted to kick off the new year with a series of 2023 Health IT predictions. We asked the Healthcare IT Today community to submit their predictions and we received a wide ranging set of responses that we grouped into a number of themes. Check out our communities predictions below and be sure to add your own thoughts and/or places you disagree with these predictions in the comments and on social media.
All of this year’s 2023 health IT predictions:
Healthcare Security and Risk
Healthcare AI
Business of Healthcare and Value Based Care
Healthcare Workforce
Telehealth and RPM
Pharma
Health E...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - January 11, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: John Lynn Tags: Analytics/Big Data Health IT Company Healthcare IT Interoperability 2023 Health IT Predictions Andy Palmer Arcion Ashley Basile Availity Bamboo Health Ben Herzberg Ciox Clarify Health Clay Ritchey David Navarro Diameter Healt Source Type: blogs
Is It Physical Assault to “Expose” Someone to Fentanyl?
Jeffrey A. SingerAlmost every week,reports appear in the local news describing how police officers, exposed to fentanyl in the air or by contact, lose consciousness and need reviving with the opioid overdose antidote naloxone. Their coworkers take them to a nearby emergency room, where they are evaluated and released.This unscientific hysteria reached a new level when police near Wilmington, North Carolina, addedassault charges to a suspect they arrested and charged with possessing and trafficking heroin, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia. Police added the assault charges because the suspect tossed the drugs...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 9, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
The Symptoms Of Overdosing On Vitamin D
These symptoms of vitamin D intoxication are from a case report of nutritional supplement overdosing. (Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog)
Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog - January 3, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mina Dean Tags: Nutrition Source Type: blogs
If SAMHSA Seriously Wants to Destigmatize People with Substance Use Disorder, It Can Start by Destigmatizing How They Receive Treatment
Jeffrey A. SingerIn 2001, the Food and Drug Administration transferred regulation of methadone treatment programs for opioid use disorder (nowadays called Opioid Treatment Programs or OTPs) to the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. DEA and SAMHSA work together to establish and enforce criteria for treating people with substance use disorder and the regulations that govern how health care practitioners prescribe and administer opioids as medication assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder. The rules govern the dose and number of drugs clinicians prescri...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 3, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Congress Made it Easier to Treat Addiction but Harder to Treat Pain
Jeffrey A. SingerLate on the afternoon of December 23, the U.S. House of Representativespassed the approximately 1.7 trillion ‐dollar omnibus spending package, which now awaits President Biden’s signature. As is usually the case with such legislative monstrosities, the bill contains a few positive features and many negative ones. One positive part is that it repeals the so ‐called “X‑waiver” (an X is added to the DEA narcotics prescribing license), which the Drug Enforcement Administration has long required health care practitioners to apply for to prescribe the Schedule III opioid buprenorphine...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 23, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
DEA Seizes Record Amounts of Fentanyl in 2022
Jeffrey A. SingerAxiosreports that the Drug Enforcement Administration seized 379 million doses of fentanyl in 2022, which included 50.6 million fentanyl ‐laced counterfeit prescription pain pills and more than 10,000 pounds of powdered fentanyl (which can be mixed in with cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin or used to make counterfeit prescription pain pills). AsDavid J. Bier and I wrote recently, the vast majority of these drugs are seized at legal border crossings, mostly smuggled in by U.S. citizens working for Mexican drug cartels.In its December 20announcement, the DEA stated:“In the past year, the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 21, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Americans May Finally Get Access to OTC Naloxone
Jeffrey A. SingerI havewritten for years that the Food and Drug Administration should make the opioid overdose antidote naloxone over ‐the‐counter. Public health attorney Corey Davisspoke of how urgent it is for the FDA to move quickly to reclassify this safe and effective harm reduction tool and a Cato Institute conference in 2019.Even though, as I andothers have pointed out, the FDA Commissioner can unilaterally reclassify the prescription ‐only drug as over the counter, the FDA has been deferential to the naloxone manufacturers, who have been reticent to submit applications. Over the past s...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 7, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
It ’ s time for a reckoning in pain medicine
More than a million Americans have died since the late 1990s from drug overdoses, with the vast majority dying from an opioid overdose. This trend started with the heavy marketing of opioids to physicians as nonaddictive and effective. The number of deaths from overdose has escalated significantly in the past few years. Although many of
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It’s time for a reckoning in pain medicine originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 17, 2022 Category: General Medicine Authors: Cindy Perlin, LCSW Tags: Conditions Pain Management Source Type: blogs
FDA Takes Another Swing at OTC Naloxone Pitch
Jeffrey A. SingerAs I have beenwriting for years, the Food and Drug Administration should reclassify the opioid overdose antidote naloxone, approved for use in 1971 and used by non ‐physicians, including first responders, to rescue overdose victims for the past few decades, as an over‐the‐counter drug. The drug has been available OTC inAustralia since 2015 and inItaly for more than 20 years.Moreover,all 50 states have come up with ways to work around the prescription ‐only status of the drug—either by allowing state health directors and other licensed practitioners to issue standing orders t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 15, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
What Is GHB Anyway?
Let’s face it, there are a whole bunch of street drugs out there that we as EMS caregivers should understand. While we can’t always be expected to identify the exact drug a patient has ingested. We do need to be able to predict a given drugs effect on the body.
We should also be able to take a fair guess at the identity of an ingested drug based on our evaluation of the patient’s physical presentation. GHB is one of those drugs that can be hard to nail down based on the physical signs. But it does leave some clues – if you know what your look for.
What Is It? : A Multi-Receptor Stimulant
GHB is short for ...
Source: The EMT Spot - November 10, 2022 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Steve Whitehead Tags: EMT Source Type: blogs
