Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Opioid Crackdown Disproportionately Affecting Elderly Patients With Chronic Issues
If you’ve come to rely on opioids for chronic pain, as a growing proportion of older adults has, you may have noticed that the drugs are becoming more difficult to get. Something had to be done, surely: More than 165,000 people died from overdoses from 1999 to 2014. But recent restrictions on access to these painkillers are likely to disproportionately affect the elderly — despite the fact that abuse and misuse of these painkillers have historically been lower among older patients than younger ones. (Span, 6/6)
A new synthetic drug that can be purchased online and is connected to at least 50 deaths nationwide has several states scrambling to stop its spread, with Kansas law enforcement agencies seeking an emergency ban. At least three other states — Ohio, Wyoming and Georgia — already have taken action to ban U-47700 after it was connected to overdoses. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said that the agency is studying the opioid but hasn't yet moved to control it. (6/6)
Pfizer Inc's experimental long-acting opioid painkiller has some abuse-resistant properties but addicts can still extract oxycodone from the drug using certain solvents, a preliminary review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded on Monday. Pfizer is seeking approval to claim the drug, whose proposed trade name is Troxyca ER, deters abuse. It wants to market the drug for patients with pain severe enough to require around-the-clock treatment for whom other drugs are not enough. (Grover, 6/6)
Doctors in states that adopted prescription drug monitoring databases to help prevent doctor-shopping were 30 percent less likely to prescribe the most powerful opioids after having access to the data, according to a new study in Health Affairs. (Norman, 6/6)
Abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers is a national epidemic, and it's having dire consequences, particularly in Indiana, officials said. U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., discussed the epidemic Monday with local law enforcement officers, educators and other state and federal officials at Merrillville High School and explained the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, passed in March. (Lazerus, 6/6)
