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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the give-it-away dept.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams has urged more Americans to carry the opioid overdose reversal treatment naloxone, known under brand names such as Narcan and Evzio. However, the drug and its delivery systems have become more expensive in recent years:

As opioid-related deaths have continued to climb, naloxone, a drug that can reverse overdoses, has become an important part of the public health response. When people overdosing struggle to breathe, naloxone can restore normal breathing and save their lives. But the drug has to be given quickly.

On Thursday, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued an advisory that encouraged more people to routinely carry naloxone. "The call to action is to recognize if you're at risk," he tells Morning Edition's Rachel Martin. "And if you or a loved one are at risk, keep within reach, know how to use naloxone."

[...] The medicine is now available at retail pharmacies in most states without a prescription. Between 2013 and 2015, researchers found a tenfold increase in naloxone sold by retail pharmacies in the U.S. But prices have increased along with demand. Naloxone-filled syringes that used to cost $6 apiece now cost $30 and up. A two-pack of naloxone nasal spray can cost $135 or more. And a two-pack of automatic naloxone injectors runs more than $3,700. And while it's true that naloxone can prevent many opioid-related deaths, it doesn't solve the root cause of the problem.

Also at NYT and CNN.

Related: Kroger Supermarkets to Carry Naloxone Without a Prescription
Chicago Jail Handing Out Naloxone to Inmates Upon Release
Opioid Crisis Official; Insys Therapeutics Billionaire Founder Charged; Walgreens Stocks Narcan


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:56AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:56AM (#663659)

    Normally, that would be a contradiction, but a huge number of the people abusing opiods are people that got hooked following medical treatment. They were given painkillers that they may not have needed and were not given an adequate treatment plan to get them off the junk when they were no longer in need. To make matters worse, in much of the US doctors can't prescribe medical marijuana that doesn't carry the same risks that opiods do.

    The result is that you've got this unusual group of addicts that didn't start due to having issues, they started because their doctors got them hooked.

    And as long as we treat this like it's a personal failing and not a societal health crisis, we're going to see the bodies continue to pile up as people judge the addicts and treat them as pariahs.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @05:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @05:31PM (#663999)

    And some of it is because of stuff like this:
    http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ [latimes.com]

    But OxyContin’s stunning success masked a fundamental problem: The drug wears off hours early in many people, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. OxyContin is a chemical cousin of heroin, and when it doesn’t last, patients can experience excruciating symptoms of withdrawal, including an intense craving for the drug.

    Purdue has known about the problem for decades. Even before OxyContin went on the market, clinical trials showed many patients weren’t getting 12 hours of relief. Since the drug’s debut in 1996, the company has been confronted with additional evidence, including complaints from doctors, reports from its own sales reps and independent research.
            The company has held fast to the claim of 12-hour relief, in part to protect its revenue. OxyContin’s market dominance and its high price — up to hundreds of dollars per bottle — hinge on its 12-hour duration. Without that, it offers little advantage over less expensive painkillers.
            When many doctors began prescribing OxyContin at shorter intervals in the late 1990s, Purdue executives mobilized hundreds of sales reps to “refocus” physicians on 12-hour dosing. Anything shorter “needs to be nipped in the bud. NOW!!” one manager wrote to her staff.
            Purdue tells doctors to prescribe stronger doses, not more frequent ones, when patients complain that OxyContin doesn’t last 12 hours. That approach creates risks of its own. Research shows that the more potent the dose of an opioid such as OxyContin, the greater the possibility of overdose and death.
            More than half of long-term OxyContin users are on doses that public health officials consider dangerously high, according to an analysis of nationwide prescription data conducted for The Times.

    Your country is rather fucked up if you really need so many people carrying naloxone around. And if it is that fucked up one of your priorities should be jailing those responsible so stuff like this is less likely to happen.