Last weekend's frightening and widely reported string of overdoses in Philadelphia - nine deaths in 36 hours, according to police - was just part of what officials suspect was a devastating five days that left 35 people dead. It started Dec. 1, when 12 people died between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. "We have never seen that before," said Sam P. Gulino, the city's chief medical examiner. Then came four more deaths last Friday, seven on Saturday, nine on Sunday, and three on Monday. The total could still rise, as deaths that initially appeared natural are investigated for drug links. [continues 825 words]
[photo] Photo by Don Sapatkin / Staff Dr. Thomas C. Barone, a family physician, practiced in Center City until the State Board of Osteopathic Medicine suspended his license after four current and former patients died of opioid overdoses. Photo taken following his testimony at a reinstatement hearing in Harrisburg on Sept. 16, 2016. Don Sapatkin covers a wide-ranging public health beat and doubles as deputy health and science editor. He joined the Inquirerin 1987. The Pennsylvania Board of Osteopathic Medicine refused Wednesday to let Thomas C. Barone, a pain management physician whose prescribing practices were linked to the deaths of four patients, return to his Center City practice. [continues 452 words]
Patients fill significantly fewer prescriptions for conditions like nausea and pain in states where medical marijuana is available, researchers reported Wednesday in one of the first studies to examine how medical cannabis might be affecting approved treatments. Prescriptions for all drugs that treat pain combined, from cortisone to OxyContin, were nearly 6 percent lower in states with medical marijuana programs.Anxiety medication was 5 percent lower. The result was a drop of more than $165 million in health care spending in states that had medical marijuana programs running in 2013, according to the analysis of national Medicare data. The savings could equal 0.5 percent of the entire Medicare program's drug budget if medicinal cannabis was available in every state. [continues 223 words]
Fewer Meds Are Sought in States With Legal Marijuana. Patients fill significantly fewer prescriptions for such conditions as nausea and pain in states where medical marijuana is available, researchers reported Wednesday in one of the first studies to examine how medical cannabis might be affecting approved treatments. Prescriptions for all drugs that treat pain combined, from cortisone to OxyContin, were nearly 6 percent lower in states with medical marijuana programs. Anxiety medication was 5 percent lower. The result was a drop of more than $165 million in health-care spending in states that had medical marijuana programs running in 2013, including New Jersey, according to the analysis of national Medicare data. The savings would equal 0.5 percent of the entire Medicare program's drug budget if medicinal cannabis were available in every state, the authors projected. [continues 1156 words]
Guidelines Aim to Halt Steep Rise in Addiction. but Some Patients Are Worried. As a teen growing up in Lansdale, Pat Allan may have experimented with painkillers. But what put him in serious trouble, his family believes, was the Vicodin prescribed after his wisdom teeth were removed in high school. He escalated into abusing prescription opioids bought on the street and their cheaper cousin, heroin. He was 30 years old when New York City police called to say he had been found dead of an overdose. His little sister Kay listened on her dad's speakerphone. [continues 982 words]
Every year, hepatitis C kills significantly more Americans than HIV. Yet the liver-attacking virus doesn't get nearly the popular respect, or trigger the same fears. That understated reputation will be both a help and a hindrance as the public health community tries to control the spread of the virus. New cases of hepatitis C rose 150 percent between 2010 and 2013 nationwide, and even more in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By far the highest rates of new cases, according to studies around the country, were among adolescents and young adults who inject drugs - - particularly in rural areas. This latest wave of hepatitis C is linked to the epidemic of addiction to prescription pain pills. As tolerance built or money ran out, users began crushing and injecting the pills, or buying cheaper heroin, to avoid withdrawal sickness. [continues 990 words]
Public health officials are bracing for a new wave of hepatitis C infections, one unleashed by the epidemic of prescription painkiller addiction. The blood-borne virus, on the decline nationally until a few years ago, is rising rapidly among adolescents and young adults, especially in white, rural communities. Those are the same areas where an epidemic of prescription opioid deaths first showed up more than a decade ago, followed by a wave of heroin deaths. Most of the new hepatitis C patients have contracted the virus by injecting drugs, often crushed pain pills. For infectious disease, that's riskier. [continues 239 words]
With medical marijuana legal in nearly half the states and a narrow majority of Americans saying they favor recreational availability as well, worried medical researchers are scrambling to project the potential impact on public health issues ranging from addiction to cognition to traffic deaths. But here's a counterintuitive question: Could easier access to marijuana reduce fatal car crashes? The answer, according to a new study of traffic fatalities in nine states - including New Jersey - with high rates of toxicology testing, is admittedly hazy. [continues 583 words]
A. Thomas McLellan, a former University of Pennsylvania psychologist whose appointment last year as the top federal official on addiction treatment was seen as signaling a major shift in drug policy, is planning to step down in July. Friends and colleagues said Friday that McLellan, who is known as a straight-talking, get-it-done kind of scientist, likes everything about the job except bureaucracy and politics. Unfortunately, his title is deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. [continues 605 words]
To much of official Washington, the portrait of substance abuse in the United States is grim: More than 22 million Americans abuse drugs or alcohol. Just 10 percent of them get treated - and an alarming number relapse. At treatment centers designed to help them, half the counselors quit each year. Worse, the newest research-based therapies often do not reach clinics at all. In the dysfunction, A. Thomas McLellan sees opportunity. "We've got to put scientific information into policies that make sense and will deliver for Americans," said McLellan, who left Philadelphia six months ago to become the nation's No. 2 drug-policy official. [continues 1480 words]
The Senate yesterday confirmed University of Pennsylvania psychologist A. Thomas McLellan as deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The vote, by unanimous consent, means that McLellan will be the No. 2 to Gil Kerlikowske, the former police chief of Seattle, who was confirmed this year as the office's director, better known as the drug czar. McLellan, a leading researcher in addiction and treatment, will be charged with reducing the nation's demand for drugs. Until his nomination by President Obama in April, McLellan, 60, was executive director of the Treatment Research Institute, a nonprofit he cofounded 17 years ago to study and compare treatments and to translate scientific findings into clinical practice and public policy. [end]
