On May 7, 2020, the National Institute of Health issued a press release highlighting the findings of a new data analysis, which they had funded, and which had been published in the American Jour-nal of Preventative Medicine. The striking discovery found that patients who visited the emergency department for an opioid overdose are 100 times…
The Washington Post has reported that suspected overdoses ,not all of them fatal, nationally jumped 18% in March 2020, 29% in April 2020, and 42% in May 2020. These numbers were collected from data gathered from ambulance teams, hospitals, and police. The theory is that the culprit behind the spikes is the Coronavirus pandemic. The…
On April 19, 2018 it was announced by Carver County attorney Mark Metz, that no criminal charges will be filed in Prince’s death. Prince died on April 21,2016, from an accidental fentanyl overdose after taking counterfeit Vicodin pills that were laced with fentanyl. During a press conference it was reported that there was no evidence…
First launched in 1999, by the National Institute of Health (NIH), National Alcohol Screening Day (NASD) is an outreach, education, and screening program meant to raise awareness about the harmful consequences of problem drinking. NASD can also connect individuals who are at risk with different treatment options. Held annually, on the first Thursday of April,…
In a study conducted by Dr. Scott G. Weiner, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, one in ten Massachusetts patients who were saved from an overdose by the lifesaving drug Narcan went on to die within a year. The study followed what happened to thousands of patients who received the drug Naloxone, also known…
The National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control, estimates that drug overdoses killed 64,070 people in the United States last year, a rise of 21% from 2015. To put this into perspective, the drug overdoses in 2016 killed at almost double the rate from both firearms and vehicles. Additionally,…
On November 17th, 2016, the Surgeon General of the United States, Vivak H. Murthy, published a landmark report entitled, “Facing Addiction in America” a comprehensive review of substance use, misuse, and disorders. Previous reports of the Surgeon General have highlighted the public health crisis challenges of Tobacco, AIDS, and Mental Health issues, and the hope is that…
Is Congress Protecting Drug Makers? The former head of the DEA office what was responsible for preventing prescription medicine abuse, said that drug companies and their lobbyists have a “stranglehold” on Congress that protects the 9 billion dollar a year trade in opioid painkillers. Joseph Rannazzisi, who held his position with the DEA until a year ago,…