Federal moves to help opioid crisis not enough, experts say (NBCNews.com)

Thursday Apr 5th, 2018

Anybody who knows someone at risk of an opioid overdose should always carry naloxone, the anti-overdose drug, Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said Thursday. He said his office was working with manufacturers and insurance companies to help make it possible.

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said the plan is a good first step.

“Our problem isn’t the policies. It’s access to the medications,” Wen said. “We are being priced out of our ability to save lives.”

Wen said Baltimore needs $10 million a year from the federal government to fight the opioid epidemic.

“It cannot be one-time funding. It must be sustained,” she said. The discounted price offered by Kaleo is still too expensive," she said.

Read the entire story.

Related Stories

Lead poisoning cases fell 19 percent in Baltimore last year, even as more children tested for exposure (Baltimore Sun)

The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin.

Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday.

Read the entire story.

Trump declared an emergency over opioids. A new report finds it led to very little. (Vox)

To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

Read the entire story.

Azar Unveils Plan to Help Pregnant Patients Quit Opioids (MedPage Today)

States will get help from the federal government integrating services for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid patients with opioid use disorder under a pilot program announced Tuesday by Health and Hu

Visit the Newsroom