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The Trump administration announced Friday it is relaxing a federal privacy rule that prevents health providers from notifying family members about a drug overdose, one of the administration’s most significant policy shifts to combat the nation’s opioid crisis. The new rule will explicitly permit health-care providers to share information with family members, friends and legal representatives about a patient’s medical condition if the patient is in crisis or incapacitated, such as during an opioid overdose. (Hackman, 10/27)

Opioid addictions are hitting America’s workforce hard. President Donald Trump’s move to declare the crisis a national public health emergency offers some hope for relief: It means Labor Department dislocated-worker grants could be used to help provide jobs for people sidelined by the epidemic. But there’s an irony here. The president has proposed cutting that very grant program by nearly half in fiscal year 2018 -- shrinking the program to $117 million from $220.8 million. The spending bill reported out of the House Appropriations Committee would also reduce program funding, by slightly less. Congress has yet to agree on a 2018 spending package, so it remains to be seen whether a cut comes to fruition. (Smialek, 10/27)

President Donald Trump's formal declaration last week that the opioid epidemic is a public health emergency was light on details for the path forward. Nonetheless, the healthcare industry anticipates Trump's special commission will shed more light with its final set of policy recommendations, including ideas for improved coordination between federal agencies.The Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis is slated to release its final report Nov. 1, roughly seven months after the panel was formed to identify effective solutions to the opioid abuse epidemic. (Johnson, 10/28)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said in a Sunday interview that he expects President Trump to first ask for “billions” of dollars to fight the opioid epidemic. “I think it’s going to be the subject of negotiation with Congress,” Christie told ABC’s “This Week.” The comment from Christie, who heads Trump’s opioid commission, comes after the president on Thursday declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. (Shelbourne, 10/29)

Parents of children who overdosed on opioids have waited patiently for President Trump to declare the epidemic a "national emergency," as he twice promised he would. On Thursday, some were disappointed. To some survivors, the declaration instead of a public health emergency is too little, too late. (O'Donnell and DeMio, 10/26)

Advocates and doctors in opioid-ravaged Kentucky urged President Donald Trump's acting chief health official to spend more money on fighting the drug epidemic one day after he signed an order declaring the crisis a national public health emergency. Acting Health and Human Services Secretary Eric Hargan toured a clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, on Friday that specializes in treating pregnant women and their babies addicted to opioid-based drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers. (10/27)

Rachel Martin talks to Louisiana State Health Secretary Dr. Rebekah Gee, who was one of the people who met with the president before he declared a public health emergency. (Martin, 10/27)

While declaring the opioid crisis a national public health emergency Thursday, President Donald Trump said: "Nobody has seen anything like what's going on now." He was right, and he was wrong. Yes, this is the most widespread and deadly drug crisis in the nation's history. But there has been a long string of other such epidemics, each sharing chilling similarities with today's unfolding tragedy. (10/28)