 A new dashboard released by the ISDH Drug Overdose Prevention Team displays drug overdose injury data in new, easy to understand graphics. The goal of the dashboard is to help communities tailor responses to the drug overdose epidemic by first understanding the data in their communities. Using this information, stakeholders can create well-informed and localized drug overdose education and prevention efforts and other targeted interventions. Access to data from a variety of sources is key to supporting both state and local overdose response and prevention activities.
Despite a nationwide surge in the number of deaths from opioid overdoses, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) permitted drug manufacturers to produce even more narcotic painkillers between 2002 and 2013, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general. The DEA continued setting higher quotas for oxycodone production during the 11-year period, amounting to a 400 percent increase in output, despite the fact that agency officials said the DEA has revoked roughly 900 licenses annually in the past eight years in an effort to tighten opioid distribution. Drug companies have long argued that they produced only as many as pills the DEA allowed each year.
The U.S. trustee overseeing the recent Purdue Pharma bankruptcy has appointed four people whose lives were touched by substance abuse to sit on the nine-member Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors. It is unusual for a creditors committee to include private citizens. In this instance, the private citizens could bring a touch of emotional persuasiveness to the case. The committee can hire lawyers and financial experts paid for by the debtor and investigate issues, such as the company’s value and even whether the Sackler family has improperly taken company money. It is expected to look out for the interests of all parties to whom Purdue owes money; so far, most of the attention in the case has been on the Purdue Pharma settlement talks with state and local governments.
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Over the last 10 years, the rate of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been increasing in the general U.S. population, especially among pregnant women. The HCV rate increase seems to be intertwined with the opioid crisis, with approximately 68 percent of pregnant women with HCV infection also having opioid use disorder. In this new report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the authors found an increase in the rate of HCV infection at delivery from 0.8 cases per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 4.1 cases per 1,000 live births in 2015. For mothers who also had an opioid use disorder, that rate was as high as 216.9 cases per 1,000 live births in 2015. This article recommend screening for and treatment of HCV and other related conditions as the standard of care for treating opioid use disorder.
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