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In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids

June 25, 2019

Listen Now: The Inquiring Minds Podcast talks to bioethicist Travis Rieder about his new book In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids

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In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids

Tuesday, June 25th, 2019

Inquiring Minds Podcast

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Inquiring Minds Podcast

Insys, the Opioid Drug Maker, to Pay $225 Million to Settle Fraud Charges

June 6, 2019

Federal prosecutors accused the company of illegally marketing its powerful fentanyl painkiller and of defrauding government health care programs

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Insys, the Opioid Drug Maker, to Pay $225 Million to Settle Fraud Charges

Thursday, June 6th, 2019

The opioid manufacturer Insys Therapeutics agreed to pay $225 million to settle federal criminal and civil charges that it illegally marketed a highly addictive fentanyl painkiller to doctors, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.

As part of the deal, a subsidiary of Insys will plead guilty to five counts of mail fraud and the company will pay a $2 million fine and $28 million in forfeiture, according to a statement from the United States attorney’s office in Massachusetts. The company will also pay $195 million to settle allegations that it violated the federal False Claims Act, which involves defrauding the federal government through drug sales to health care programs like Medicare.

A month ago, a federal jury in Boston found the company’s top executives, including the founder, John Kapoor, guilty of conspiring to fuel sales of the drug, Subsys, by bribing doctors and misleading insurance companies.

…continue reading ‘Insys, the Opioid Drug Maker, to Pay $225 Million to Settle Fraud Charges’

Image via Flickr Some rights reserved by Senator McCaskill

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New York Times

AAAS: Machine Learning ‘Causing Science Crisis’

February 18, 2019

Machine-learning techniques used by thousands of scientists to analyse data are producing results that are misleading and often completely wrong.
Dr Genevera Allen from Rice University in Houston said that the increased use of such systems was contributing to a “crisis in science”

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AAAS: Machine Learning ‘Causing Science Crisis’

Monday, February 18th, 2019

She warned scientists that if they didn’t improve their techniques they would be wasting both time and money. Her research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

A growing amount of scientific research involves using machine learning software to analyse data that has already been collected. This happens across many subject areas ranging from biomedical research to astronomy. The data sets are very large and expensive.

…continue reading ‘AAAS: Machine Learning ‘Causing Science Crisis”

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BBC News

Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate

January 16, 2019

A filing in a Massachusetts lawsuit contains dozens of internal Purdue Pharma documents suggesting the family was far more involved than the company has long contended

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Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate

Wednesday, January 16th, 2019

Members of the Sackler family, which owns the company that makes OxyContin, directed years of efforts to mislead doctors and patients about the dangers of the powerful opioid painkiller, a court filing citing previously undisclosed documents contends.

When evidence of growing abuse of the drug became clear in the early 2000s, one of them, Richard Sackler, advised pushing blame onto people who had become addicted.

“We have to hammer on abusers in every way possible,” Mr. Sackler wrote in an email in 2001, when he was president of the company, Purdue Pharma. “They are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals.”

…continue reading ‘Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate’

Image: By John9474 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73019137

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New York Times

The Costs of Heroin and Naloxone

November 8, 2018

A tragic snapshot of the opioid crisis. The pricing and availability of drugs — legal and illegal — illuminate how markets chase profits and reward innovation

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The Costs of Heroin and Naloxone

Thursday, November 8th, 2018

A comparison of heroin (and other illicit opioids) with naloxone, the lifesaving antidote for opioid overdoses, offers a devastating peek into the overdose epidemic that is ravaging the United States.

Let’s start with the price of heroin. In the early 1980s, a gram of pure heroin cost about $2,200. Today that same amount costs less than $500, nearly an 80 percent decrease. A bag of heroin today will set you back about $5, the cost of a pumpkin spice latte. And prices continue to fall with the introduction of new and more powerful synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl.

Compared to heroin, which requires lengthy cultivation of poppy plants and cumbersome processing, fentanyl and its ilk are relatively cheap to make. Humans have been growing poppies and harvesting opium for at least 6,000 years; manufacturing has historically been constrained by the 120-day growth cycle of the opium poppy plant and the distant geography in which it grows.

…continue reading ‘The Costs of Heroin and Naloxone’

Image: By Mpv_51 at English Wikipedia – Transferred from English Wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=546164

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STAT

Solving America’s Painkiller Paradox

September 25, 2018

Here’s how to fix America’s painkiller problem — without leaving pain patients behind

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Solving America’s Painkiller Paradox

Tuesday, September 25th, 2018

This year, researchers uncovered a simple method for getting doctors to reduce profligate prescriptions of drugs like OxyContin and Percocet that have contributed to America’s opioid epidemic: informing doctors that one of their patients had died.

In their study, which was published in Science in August, researchers sent a letter, through the local medical examiner, to 388 clinicians in San Diego County, California, informing them that a patient they’d prescribed a drug to had overdosed and died. The letter, which was based on actual events, came with instructions and recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on proper opioid prescribing. Another 438 clinicians who had patients die were tracked but not sent letters; they were the comparison group.

The results: Clinicians who got the letters prescribed nearly 10 percent fewer opioids than those who did not receive a letter. The letter-receiving clinicians were also less likely to start patients on opioids and less likely to give patients higher doses of opioids.

…continue reading ‘Solving America’s Painkiller Paradox’

Image via Flickr License Some rights reserved by Jonathan Rolande

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Vox

Remembering the ‘Mother of All Pandemics,’ 100 Years Later

September 18, 2018

The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 offers important lessons in balancing truth and panic during public health crises

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Remembering the ‘Mother of All Pandemics,’ 100 Years Later

Tuesday, September 18th, 2018

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 came in three waves. When the first wave crept up in New York City during the spring, residents and officials alike saw it as just another round of the seasonal flu. By mid-summer, the number of related deaths waned, and that first wave barely received a mention in the health department’s weekly bulletins.

A century later, though, historians remember the 1918 Spanish flu as the “mother of all pandemics.” In the months after the first wave, it went on to kill an estimated 50 million to 100 million people worldwide. That surpasses the 20 million deaths reported during World War I, which was just coming to an end, and the 35 million HIV-related deaths over the last 40 years. It remains one of the most overlooked medical events in history, though its lessons still inform how public health crises are handled today.

…continue reading ‘Remembering the ‘Mother of All Pandemics,’ 100 Years Later’

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CityLab

Scientists Warn of Global Crisis Over Failure to Tackle Tuberculosis

September 17, 2018

With 10 million new cases each year, outcome of UN summit in New York could prove crucial

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Scientists Warn of Global Crisis Over Failure to Tackle Tuberculosis

Monday, September 17th, 2018

Heads of state, doctors and scientists will gather in New York next week to discuss one of the world’s most alarming medical crises: the failure of global efforts to tackle tuberculosis, the deadliest infectious disease on Earth.

More than 10 million new cases of TB are detected every year and about 1.7 million people die of the disease, according to a recent report by UK doctors. At the same time, the group describes current global anti-TB measures as “woefully inadequate”.

In a letter to Theresa May the group – UK Academics and Professionals to End Tuberculosis – says the intervention of world leaders is urgently needed to contain TB as the number of antibiotic-resistant cases continues to rise. The letter urges May to attend the UN general assembly meeting on ending TB on 26 September as the head of Britain’s delegation.

…continue reading ‘Scientists Warn of Global Crisis Over Failure to Tackle Tuberculosis’

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The Guardian

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In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids

In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids

Insys, the Opioid Drug Maker, to Pay $225 Million to Settle Fraud Charges

Insys, the Opioid Drug Maker, to Pay $225 Million to Settle Fraud Charges

AAAS: Machine Learning ‘Causing Science Crisis’

AAAS: Machine Learning ‘Causing Science Crisis’

Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate

Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate

The Costs of Heroin and Naloxone

The Costs of Heroin and Naloxone

Solving America’s Painkiller Paradox

Solving America’s Painkiller Paradox

Remembering the ‘Mother of All Pandemics,’ 100 Years Later

Remembering the ‘Mother of All Pandemics,’ 100 Years Later

Scientists Warn of Global Crisis Over Failure to Tackle Tuberculosis

Scientists Warn of Global Crisis Over Failure to Tackle Tuberculosis

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