The country is in the grip of a deadly opioid epidemic ESTONIA HAS a lot going for it. The tiny Baltic state of 1.3m people has been touted as the most advanced digital society in the world; it boasts an adult literacy rate of 99.8%; it is sporty too, with …
The opioid crisis cost the U.S. economy $631 billion from 2015 through last year — and it may keep getting more expensive, according to a study released Tuesday by the Society of Actuaries. The biggest driver of the cost over the four-year period is unrealized lifetime earnings of those who …
US retailer CVS has become the latest to suspend the sale of a heartburn drug being investigated for links to cancer. It follows concern in several countries over the presence of impurities in Zantac and other ranitidine products. Canada and France have already announced Zantac recalls. The US and the …
NORMAN, Okla. — A judge Monday found Johnson & Johnson responsible for fueling Oklahoma’s opioid crisis, ordering the health-care company to pay $572 million to remedy the devastation wrought by the epidemic on the state and its residents. Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman’s landmark decision is the first to hold a …
The more opioid painkillers that heart and lung surgery patients are prescribed, the more likely they are to become dependent on them, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed insurance claims from more than 24,500 Medicare patients who had heart or lung surgery between 2009 and 2015. Those patients filled an …
Research suggests marijuana really does give you the munchies IT IS COMMON knowledge that smoking marijuana causes cravings for high-calorie snacks. The condition, known as the munchies, is a staple of popular culture. (Snoop Dogg, a rapper and notorious stoner, even penned a cookbook.) Yet empirical evidence of the phenomenon …
Josh Wilkerson was alone, in sleeping quarters above the Northern Virginia dog kennel where he worked, when he suffered a series of strokes that would prove fatal. He had aged out of his stepfather’s health insurance plan on his 26th birthday and eventually switched to over-the-counter insulin. Like many other …
Methamphetamine, an illegal drug that sends the body into overdrive, is surging through the United States. Federal drug data provided exclusively to NPR show seizures of meth by authorities have spiked, rising 142% between 2017 and 2018. “Seizures indicate increasing trafficking in these drugs,” says John Eadie, public health coordinator …
Some drugs classified as highly dangerous are less harmful than alcohol or tobacco WHY IS ALCOHOL legal but many other intoxicants not? That question is the subject of a report published today by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an independent group of 26 former presidents and other bigwigs. They …
Soon after he took over as medical director of the Urgent Care & Surgery Center in eastern Tennessee in 2012, Dr. Marc Valley realized he was supervising illegal drug dealers in lab coats. Platoons of patients socialized in the parking lot, none seemingly afflicted by injuries. The packed waiting room …
DENVER, June 7 (UPI) — A new law in Colorado capping the price of insulin for insured patients at $100 per month has generated interest in other states because the price of the life-saving diabetes drug has spiked, lawmakers said. Gov. Jared Polis signed HB 1216 in May, declaring “[T]he days of insulin price-gouging …
Unity Biotech’s drug to treat an intractable arthritic condition is in late-stage human trials. To hear Nathanial “Ned” David tell it, the osteoarthritis drug his Unity Biotechnology began testing in human subjects last fall is about far more than just helping aging weekend warriors regrow cartilage in their damaged knees. It’s the …
