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U.S. life expectancy falls for second straight year as drug overdose and Covid deaths take toll
Life expectancy for Americans fell for the second straight year in 2021, largely driven by…
Category: addiction
Under new rules, methadone clinics can offer more take-home doses. Will they?
Danielle Russell is, as she says, a “poster child” for methadone. For more than a…
Watch: Fentanyl test strips help prevent overdoses, why are they still controversial?
With much of the nation’s illicit drug supply contaminated by fentanyl, test strips that detect…
Addiction treatment got easier during Covid. A new proposal would keep it that way
Addiction treatment got easier during the Covid-19 pandemic — and the Biden administration wants to…
‘Out of control’: Dozens of telehealth startups sent sensitive health information to big tech companies
Open the website of Workit Health, and the path to treatment starts with a simple…
Opinion: Responsibly expanding access to methadone for people with opioid use disorder will save lives
The overdose epidemic continues to ravage communities across the country. In Washington state, where I…
Biden administration unveils dashboard to track nonfatal drug overdoses
The Biden administration is rolling out a new tool meant to help prevent drug deaths:…
Congress has its sights set too low on addiction, advocates charge
Judging by lawmakers’ words, addiction might be the most bipartisan topic in Washington. For years,…
In Philadelphia, ‘tranq’ is leaving drug users with horrific wounds. Other communities are bracing for the same
PHILADELPHIA — The volunteers were handing out the staples of harm reduction: safe injection and…
Resistance to FDA’s opioid-disposal plan raises concerns about CADCA, a powerful advocacy group
At its surface, it seems like a simple problem with a simple solution. Across the…
Top U.S. addiction researcher calls for broad deregulation of methadone
BOSTON — The U.S. government’s top addiction researcher is calling for broad deregulation of methadone,…
Fentanyl isn’t just causing overdoses. It’s making it harder to start addiction treatment
Doctors are reporting a troubling trend when it comes to fentanyl. The powerful drug, they…
STAT+: Telehealth companies that prescribed controlled substances during the pandemic brace for business to change
Health tech companies that have taken advantage of the possibility to prescribe controlled substances online…
Providers of methadone treatment say a big increase in access could backfire
BALTIMORE — Providers of methadone for addiction treatment have a message for advocates seeking a…
CVS, Walgreens announce opioid settlements totaling $10B
CVS Health and Walgreen Co. announced agreements in principle Wednesday to pay about $5 billion…
Opinion: Listen: Will opioid settlement money actually go to opioid prevention? Here’s hoping
As states begin to receive money from the multitude of lawsuits and settlements the opioid…
Opinion: Allocate opioid settlement dollars to real addiction-ending solutions
The crisis of opioid overdose deaths that sparked the multitude of lawsuits leading to a…
When it comes to addiction, Americans’ word choices are part of the problem
Who gets better medical care in the United States: “addicts,” or “people with substance use…
STAT+: Documents detail how pharmacy giants Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart failed patients in the opioid epidemic
In 2011, Walgreens executives were under pressure. Amid a growing addiction crisis, and with the…
Opinion: Medicare needs to cover the full spectrum of care for substance use disorders
Imagine if Medicare covered treatments for stage 1 or stage 4 cancers, but nothing in…
To stem overdoses, Canada is offering safer opioids. Advocates want the U.S. to do the same
TORONTO — The Finks, married just a month earlier, sat down for their appointment, Kim…
The meth crisis is worse than ever, but new treatments might be around the corner
When it comes to meth addiction, Thomas Robey has long been at a loss. As…
Medicare provides insufficient access to opioid addiction treatment, report finds
Medicare is vastly underserving older Americans with opioid use disorder, with only 18% of enrollees…
Fentanyl test strips could help save lives. In many states, they’re still illegal
Nothing has made the nation’s addiction epidemic more deadly than fentanyl’s infiltration of the drug…
Rahul Gupta, first physician to serve as drug czar, says stigma among doctors is key culprit in addiction crisis
WASHINGTON — Rahul Gupta is no stranger to the nationwide addiction crisis. Drug use and…
Opinion: The FDA is at a crossroads for reducing tobacco-related disease and death
The U.S. is at a crossroads for tobacco use, the country’s leading cause of preventable…
Biden administration has simple way to cut overdose deaths, experts say: expand methadone access
WASHINGTON — When it comes to fighting opioid addiction, there’s no tool more effective than…
Opinion: The next generation of illicit drugs? Think ‘synthetic’
The illicit drug market continues to become more treacherous. Illicit drugs killed more than 107,000…
Drugmaker Teva latest to settle opioid lawsuits nationally
Drugmaker Teva announced Tuesday that it has agreed to contribute more than $4.3 billion in…
‘Critically important work’: Adm. Rachel Levine on efforts to combat gender-based discrimination in health care
A day after the Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to strengthen protections…
Two deadly days in St. Louis: An overdose cluster kills 8 Black people — and shows the new shape of the addiction crisis
ST. LOUIS — The calls for help poured in throughout the day: Overdose after overdose…
As overdose deaths exploded during the pandemic, racial disparities widened, CDC report shows
As U.S. overdose deaths soared to devastating new heights in the first year of the…
Relaxed methadone rules appear safe, researchers find
As the coronavirus pandemic shut down the nation in March of 2020, the U.S. government…
Opinion: Opioid-pushing executives should get jail time, not fines
The first time I heard the word “Oxy” was President’s Day, 2001, as my 18-year-old…
STAT+: What we know — and what we may never know — about why the FDA banned Juul
WASHINGTON – Even some of the nation’s top tobacco experts were surprised by the Food…
Listen: Juul’s doomsday, Merck’s buyout plans, & the next Theranos verdict
Just how powerful is the FDA? Is Merck about to spend $40 billion? And what’s…
FDA orders Juul e-cigarettes off the market in the U.S.
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration has ordered all vaping products made by the…
To protect people with addiction from discrimination, the Justice Dept. turns to a long-overlooked tool: the ADA
It was at Massachusetts General Hospital that Bryan found the care he needed for his…
STAT+: The American Medical Association is fighting an otherwise popular bill to require training doctors about opioid use disorder
WASHINGTON — The American Medical Association wants doctors to have more training on treating people…
U.S. overdose deaths hit record 107,000 in 2021, CDC says
NEW YORK — More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, setting another…
Opinion: Listen: How should doctors treat chronic pain in the wake of the opioid crisis?
Clinicians walk a tightrope when trying to help their patients with chronic pain. They want…
Opinion: Medicine needs to do right by patients prescribed opioids
As a medical student, the prism of pain helped me begin seeing patients as people…
Driven by fentanyl, rates of fatal teen overdoses doubled in 2020
After staying flat for a decade, the overdose death rate among U.S. adolescents nearly doubled…
STAT+: CVS, Teva, and Allergan reach massive deal with Florida over the opioid crisis
On the eve of a trial, the state of Florida has reached a massive settlement…
Opinion: The case for decriminalizing the street sale of buprenorphine
Isolation and anxiety caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has fueled an already out of control…
Opinion: Emergency response systems must not overlook people with substance use disorders
When the storm unofficially known as Winter Storm Uri barreled across much of North America…
With overdoses at record highs, a veterinary tranquilizer spreading through the U.S. drug supply poses new threats
It was in the mid-2010s, the researchers heard, when “tranq dope” took off in Philadelphia….
‘Scum of the earth’: Opioid crisis victims face Purdue Pharma owners
NEW YORK — Releasing years of anguish and anger, victims of opioid abuse and those…
Doctors, companies push to keep looser, pandemic-era rules for prescribing opioid addiction treatment via telemedicine
WASHINGTON — It got a lot easier for patients with opioid addiction to get their…
Opinion: Opioid overdoses are killing Americans. Improving access to methadone can save lives
The United States recently reached a grim milestone: 100,000 overdose deaths in one year. This…