April 21, 2022 – Pandemic conditions were ripe for a mental health disaster: Isolation, a crashing economy, and a mystery illness taking aim with deadly accuracy. But while instances of depression and anxiety increased, there seemed to be one comforting prospect: In the past 2 years, suicide numbers have dropped. “We all thought that suicides … Read more
March 24, 2022 — Raagini Jawa, MD, was high schooler in a small New England town when she experienced firsthand the shock and grief of a deadly drug overdose. Jawa lost a close friend — a classmate who had been to her house for countless dinners and sleepovers. That was 15 years ago. Since then, … Read more
Sept. 15, 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 … Read more
THURSDAY, July 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) — A proposed $26 billion settlement on opioid-related lawsuits has been reached with four large drug companies, a group of state attorneys general announced Wednesday. If enough states sign on to the deal with the country’s three major drug distributors — Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson — and pharmaceutical … Read more
Purdue Pharma, maker of the opioid painkiller OxyContin linked to the opioid epidemic, will plead guilty to three federal crimes as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. The company will plead guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback … Read more