prescription painkillers

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CDC Proposes Softening Guidance on Opioids

Strict 2016 guidelines were 'misused and misapplied'

(Newser) - The nation's top public health agency on Thursday proposed changing—and in some instances softening—guidelines for US doctors prescribing oxycodone and other opioid painkillers. The CDC's previous guidance, issued six years ago, helped slow the kind of prescribing that ignited the worst overdose epidemic in US history,...

Court Overturns $465M Opioid Ruling Against Johnson & Johnson

It's the second blow to a case like this in the past month

(Newser) - The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a $465 million opioid ruling against drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, finding that a lower court wrongly interpreted the state's public nuisance law in the first case of its kind in the US to go to trial. The ruling was the second blow...

Jamie Lee Curtis: I 'Freebased' With Dad Tony Curtis

Actress, 20 years sober, opens up for Variety's 'recovery issue'

(Newser) - Jamie Lee Curtis has been open about her struggle with addiction and her recovery journey; she's been sober 20 years. She gets even more open in a new interview with Variety for its "recovery issue," revealing that dad Tony Curtis, whose addiction struggles were also well-known, "...

Cost of This Drug in 2013: $138. Cost Now: $2,979

Horizon Pharma's Vimovo just saw latest price hike, but maker says most will pay less than $10

(Newser) - A painkiller that cost $138 a bottle less than five years ago now hovers at close to $3,000—the latest price hike to put the pharmaceutical industry in the spotlight. CNNMoney reports Horizon Pharma's latest increase on Vimovo, which has seen nearly a dozen such rate rises since...

Stuck With Leftover Opioids? Walmart Has a Solution

Walmart to offer first-of-its-kind product to customers

(Newser) - Walmart is helping customers get rid of leftover opioids by giving them packets that turn the addictive painkillers into a useless gel. The retail giant announced Wednesday that it will provide the packets free with opioid prescriptions filled at its 4,700 US pharmacies. The small packets, made by DisposeRx...

Major Insurer Takes Big Step on OxyContin

Cigna will stop covering most prescriptions

(Newser) - A big change for a huge insurance company: Starting Jan. 1, Cigna will stop covering most OxyContin prescriptions in its group plans. OxyContin, an opioid painkiller, is an extended-release version of oxycodone; extended-release versions contain a higher dose of the active ingredients, which can make them ripe for abuse as...

Cherokees Sue: CVS, Walmart 'Flooded' Them With Opioids

Cherokee Nation files complaint against 6 companies in tribal court over Okla. 'epidemic'

(Newser) - Native American communities experience some of the highest substance-abuse rates in the US: Babies are born addicted to prescription drugs due to exposure in utero, while Native American high school students take OxyContin at much higher rates than other teens, per NPR . Now the Cherokee Nation is fighting back in...

Risk of Opioid Addiction May Hinge on Your ER Doctor
ER Docs All Over the Map
on Doling Out Opioids
new study

ER Docs All Over the Map on Doling Out Opioids

Patients of 'high-intensity' prescribers might pay the price, says study

(Newser) - Scientists trying to better understand the nation's rising opioid addictions have uncovered an interesting wrinkle: A patient's risk of getting hooked might depend on which ER doctor they happen to get. In a New England Journal of Medicine study, researchers found that patients whose ER doctors are more...

Even Kindergartners Get Lessons on Dangers of Opioids

Schools are going beyond 'Just Say No'

(Newser) - Schools are going beyond "Just Say No" as they teach students as young as kindergartners about the dangers of opioids in the hope that they don't later become part of the growing crisis, the AP reports. Some states have begun requiring instruction about prescription drugs and heroin, and...

Many Who Use Prescription Opioids for 2 Months or More Get Addicted

Extensive survey finds worrying results

(Newser) - A powerful survey from the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that, of the 622 long-term prescription opioid users (at least two months of use) surveyed, "virtually all" were introduced to the drugs not through illicit means but via a prescription from a doctor, more than 60%...

Scientists May Have Discovered Addiction-less Painkiller

PZM21 could potentially replace morphine and other opioids

(Newser) - The Los Angeles Times reports scientists are "tantalizingly close" to the perfect painkilling drug. Researchers announced the discovery of PZM21 in a study published Wednesday in Nature . In testing on mice, the chemical compound relieved nearly as much pain as morphine—87% to 92%—and lasted longer. At the...

Ex-Addict: I Got Prescription Opioids Way Too Easily

Doctors knew history, kept pills coming

(Newser) - Seth Mnookin is recovering from a three-year addiction to heroin, which he kicked in 1997. So when he went to Massachusetts General Hospital to be treated for kidney stones that left him in severe pain, he made sure to tell every medical professional he encountered about his history with addiction....

FDA: Imodium Misuse Could Be Fatal

The diarrhea medication is used to get high and cope with opioid withdrawals

(Newser) - An increasing amount of Americans are taking the diarrhea medication Imodium to get high or cope with withdrawals from opioid painkillers. Now, the FDA is warning that the misuse of Imodium—generically known as loperamide—could cause serious, possibly fatal heart problems. Thanks to America's increasing addiction to opioids,...

Doctor Database Abused by Users Seeking Opioids

ProPublica admits problem with "Prescriber Checkup"

(Newser) - Looks like a freely available online database that reveals which doctors are prescribing what pills has partly backfired. Stephen Engelberg, editor-in-chief at ProPublica—which unveiled Prescriber Checkup in 2013—admits as much. "Thousands of the people ... viewed the 'reporting recipe' we wrote to help local journalists identify doctors...

Jamie Lee Curtis: I, Too, Was Addicted to Painkillers

She shares her story in response to Prince's death

(Newser) - It's time to do something about painkiller addiction, writes Jamie Lee Curtis in the Huffington Post , where she reveals that she was once addicted, like Prince reportedly was. "I too, waited anxiously for a prescription to be filled for the opiate I was secretly addicted to. I too,...

How Prince Could Have Kept Such a Secret

The 'New York Times' delves into his private addiction

(Newser) - Prince's final days are coming into sharper focus, and it now appears the singer had developed an addiction to pain pills so serious that he was set to meet with an addiction specialist when he died. The New York Times delves into the question of how Prince—who had...

Prince Had Painkillers on Him When He Died

The DEA is getting involved in the investigation

(Newser) - Officials say Prince had prescription painkillers on him—as well as elsewhere in his home—when he died last Thursday at the age of 57, CBS News reports. According to NBC News , the sheriff's department has asked for help from the DEA to figure out where the drugs came...

CDC to Doctors: Cool It With the Painkiller Prescriptions

New recommendations aim to curb opioid abuse

(Newser) - Prescription painkillers should not be a first-choice for treating common ailments like back pain and arthritis, according to new federal guidelines designed to reshape how doctors prescribe drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin. Amid an epidemic of addiction and abuse tied to these powerful opioids drugs, the Centers for Disease Control...

More Middle-Aged White People Are Dying

Princeton study analyzes shift in death demographics

(Newser) - The US death rate has been falling for decades, but researchers have detected one group in which the rates have been steadily ticking up—middle-aged white people. Suicides and deaths from drug overdose and alcohol abuse are being blamed. Deaths rates for other races have continued to fall, as they...

Addicts Find Ways Around 'Abuse-Deterrent' OxyContin
Addicts Find Ways Around 'Abuse-Deterrent' OxyContin
STUDY SAYS

Addicts Find Ways Around 'Abuse-Deterrent' OxyContin

People find new ways to dissolve the pills—or turn to heroin, study says

(Newser) - When an "abuse-deterrent" version of OxyContin was introduced in 2010, the intent was clear: "to make OxyContin more difficult to solubilize or crush, thus discouraging abuse through injection and inhalation," the New England Journal of Medicine noted in 2012. Made with special binders, the revamped pills would...

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