From Yale News Drug to Treat Alcohol Addiction Also Helps with Suppression of HIV by Ziba Kashef A medication commonly prescribed to treat alcohol use disorder also appears to help maintain or improve suppression of HIV among individuals at risk for relapse receiving HIV antiretroviral treatment, Yale researchers said. In a new study, a research […]
Spotlight
Did big pharma hide opioid addiction?
From the New York Times Origins of an Epidemic: Purdue Pharma Knew Its Opioids Were Widely Abused by Barry Meier Purdue Pharma, the company that planted the seeds of the opioid epidemic through its aggressive marketing of OxyContin, has long claimed it was unaware of the powerful opioid painkiller’s growing abuse until years after it […]
Opioid therapy may not always work for chronic pain
From NIH NIH study explains why opioid therapy may not always work well for chronic pain Researchers have shown that pain-induced changes in the rat brain’s opioid receptor system may explain the limited effectiveness of opioid therapy in chronic pain and may play a role in the depression that often accompanies it. These findings clearly […]
First FDA-Approved Medication for Opioid Withdrawal
From NIDA. NIDA-Supported Science Leads to First FDA-Approved Medication for Opioid Withdrawal In 2016, 115 Americans died every day from an overdose involving prescription or illicit opioids. Addiction to any drug has multiple components—altered functioning of the reward system, learned associations with drug cues that promote preoccupation and craving, and changes to prefrontal circuits necessary for proper exertion […]
Walmart to Restrict Opioids to 7-day Supply for Some
From CBS News. By Kate Gibson Walmart and Sam’s Club’s pharmacies will limit some customers to a seven-day supply of opioids, as the retail giant moves to help stem the epidemic that kills more than 100 Americans a day. The restrictions on initial opioid prescriptions for acute pain will start within the next 60 days, […]
Teen Develops ‘Wet Lung’ After Vaping for Just 3 Weeks
From CNN. Join our webinar on Vaping and Marijuana, Thursday, May 31st at 12noon EDT. By Susan Scutti, CNN An 18-year-old woman working as a hostess in a rural Pennsylvania restaurant decided to try e-cigarettes, perhaps another of the innumerable bistro workers hoping to calm frayed nerves with a smoke — or in this case, […]
New Study Suggests Overdose Deaths Now Caused Mainly By Synthetic Opioids
From JAMA. 2018;319(17):1819-1821. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.2844 Changes in Synthetic Opioid Involvement in Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2010-2016 Drug overdose deaths are at unprecedented levels in the United States.1 Prescription opioids have been the most common drug involved in overdose deaths, but heroin and synthetic opioids (primarily illicit fentanyl) are increasingly implicated in overdoses.2 In addition, synthetic opioids […]
Study upends conventional view of opioid mechanism of action
From NIDA. NIH-funded scientists find new molecular target for developing safer pain medications. A new discovery shows that opioids used to treat pain, such as morphine and oxycodone, produce their effects by binding to receptors inside neurons, contrary to conventional wisdom that they acted only on the same surface receptors as endogenous opioids, which are […]
All of Us study to gather data from a million Americans
From NIDA. Million-Participant NIH Study Could Yield Important Insights into Addiction and Pain We are on the verge of a new era in medicine, one that truly treats the patient as an individual and as a participant in their own care. New data-gathering and analytic capabilities are enabling the kinds of massive, long-term studies needed […]
New CDC Resource for HIV & HCV
From CDC. By Corinna Dan, R.N., M.P.H., Viral Hepatitis Policy Advisor CDC has released Managing HIV and Hepatitis C Outbreaks Among People Who Inject Drugs: A Guide for State and Local Health Departments, a guide to help state and local health departments plan for an outbreak of HIV or hepatitis C among people who inject drugs. […]