Oct 14th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. Individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) have a twofold increased risk for COVID-related hospitalization and death even after vaccination, new research shows. Investigators analyzed data on over 10,000 vaccinated individuals with various SUDs and almost 600,000 vaccinated individuals with...

Oct 13th, 2021 - Providing addiction treatment remotely via telehealth has the potential to boost patients' engagement in treatment by improving access and convenience. However, whether telehealth results in better retention or other outcomes than in-person treatment remains an open question, new research indicates. "Telehealth really might be a game changer for getting people into addiction treatment, but we s...

Oct 12th, 2021 - The night before Brian Gorzney planned to check into rehab for alcohol use, he began vomiting blood. First at 2 a.m. Then 5. And again at 11. When he arrived at the rehab facility in North Kansas City, Missouri, they sent him directly to the adjoining hospital. There, Gorzney, then 50, and his family learned he had severe alcoholic hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver typically associated wi...

Oct 11th, 2021 - SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom has rejected a bill that would have made California the first state to pay people to stay sober. But just because Newsom vetoed the bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener on Friday does not mean the drug treatment program won't happen in California. Newsom supports the treatment, known as "contingency management." But he wants to test it out first before sig...

Oct 8th, 2021 - Experts are calling for a public health approach to the prevention and treatment of harmful gambling following the publication of a report by Public Health England (PHE) which estimates that 0.5% of the English population meet the threshold for problem gambling and a further 3.8% are at-risk gamblers. The Gambling-related harms evidence review reports that people with gambling disorder have an ...

Oct 4th, 2021 - The proportion of patients who obtained an opioid prescription for hydrocodone after Mohs micrographic surgery fell by 21.7% between 2011 and 2020, while the use of tramadol increased by 26.3% between 2009 and 2020, according to a cross-sectional analysis of national insurance claims data. The findings suggest that dermatologic surgeons generally understood opioid prescription risks and public ...

Oct 4th, 2021 - CLEVELAND (AP) — Opening statements are scheduled for Monday afternoon in Cleveland in a federal court trial to determine whether retail pharmacy chains created a public nuisance in how they dispensed addictive painkillers in two Ohio counties where the opioid crisis continues to rage. One of the attorneys representing Lake and Trumbull counties outside Cleveland has said the cost of abating th...

Oct 1st, 2021 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hello. This is Dr Jeffrey Lieberman of Columbia University, speaking to you today for Medscape. My topic is something that has been in the news quite a bit in recent months: the mental health of competitive athletes. You may have noticed this past summer, as competitive athletes spoke out publicly about their mental unwellness. This was particularly ...

Sep 29th, 2021 - (Reuters) - The three largest U.S. drug distributors will pay more than $75 million to resolve claims they fueled an opioid epidemic in the Cherokee Nation's territory in Oklahoma, marking the first settlement with a tribal government in the litigation over the U.S. addiction crisis. The deal announced by the Cherokee Nation on Tuesday came after McKesson Corp, AmerisourceBergen Corp and Cardin...

Sep 29th, 2021 - Objections to a historic settlement with Purdue Pharma are mounting in the form of appeals, with Rhode Island's attorney general saying Wednesday the plan doesn't hold the OxyContin maker or its owners accountable for its role in sparking the opioid crisis. Rhode Island appealed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Separate appeals have already been filed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee...

Sep 27th, 2021 - The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has issued a public safety alert over an "alarming" increase in fake prescription pills laced with the synthetic opioid fentanyl or the stimulant methamphetamine. "The United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of overdose deaths fueled by illegally manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in the alert. "Co...

Sep 22nd, 2021 - How often do you find yourself on social media? The first thing I do when I wake up is check my email and text messages, as well as my Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram notifications. Some 150,000 messages are shared on Facebook each minute; 293 million daily active users worldwide were recorded on Snapchat during the second quarter of 2021; 127.2 million monthly active users in the United Stat...

Sep 20th, 2021 - A judge formally approved a plan Friday to turn OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma into a new company no longer owned by members of the Sackler family and with its profits going to fight the opioid epidemic. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain officially confirmed the reorganization Friday, more than two weeks after he announced he would do so pending two largely technical changes to the plan present...

Sep 17th, 2021 - Opioid overdoses usually aren't fatal, but a new review of numerous studies, mostly case reports and case series, suggests that they can have long-lasting effects on cognition, possibly because of hypoxia resulting from respiratory depression. Erin L. Winstanley, PhD, MA, and associates noted in the review that opioids cause about 80% of worldwide deaths from illicit drug use, and the Centers f...

Sep 16th, 2021 - Opioid-related drug overdose deaths in the United States exploded to an estimated record high of 69,031 people in 2020, topping the 49,860 deaths logged in 2019, according to a new report from the CDC. Most of the deaths involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. President Joe Biden has pledged more than $10 billion to expand access to prevention, treatment and recovery services. The money is...

Sep 14th, 2021 - Observational data indicate that the number of hospitalizations for cardiac arrests linked to opioid use roughly doubled from 2012 to 2018. "This was an observational study, so we cannot conclude that all of the arrests were caused by opioids, but the findings do suggest the opioid epidemic is a contributor to increasing rates," Senada S. Malik, of the University of New England, Portland, Maine...

Sep 9th, 2021 - It is hard to quantify exactly how many nurses have a problem with drugs or alcohol. Nursing is a challenging profession, and stressors remain higher than ever. Nurses struggling with substance abuse often work off-shifts or travel, and they may leave employment before assistance for issues can be addressed. They may also develop coping mechanisms that "allow them to cover up their diminished c...

Sep 8th, 2021 - Dr Stefan Leucht A middle-of-the-road dose of an antipsychotic appears to be optimal for relapse prevention in stable schizophrenia, new research suggests. Results of a meta-analysis show a 5-mg/day equivalent risperidone dose worked best. Higher doses were associated with more adverse events without showing substantial gains in relapse prevention, and lower doses were associated with greater r...

Sep 3rd, 2021 - The Government is seeking advice on whether to make possession of 'laughing gas' a crime. The Home Office has asked the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to review the harm caused by nitrous oxide. It is acting following what it calls a "concerning" rise in use among young people, with the substance the second most-used drug among UK 16 to 24-year-olds. Drugs experts sa...

Sep 3rd, 2021 - Among the families who lost children and other loved ones in the nation's opioid crisis, many had held out hope of someday facing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and its owners in a courtroom. That prospect all but vanished Wednesday after a bankruptcy judge conditionally approved a settlement worth an estimated $10 billion. It was a deal that left many of those families feeling they didn't get w...