Latest Drugs Headlines
All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Alabama ‘Pill Mill’ Doctor Gets 21 Years in Prison
May 31 2017 // An Alabama doctor was sentenced on Friday to 21 years in prison for running two clinics with a colleague that prosecutors called a massive “pill mill,” in a case tied to the U.S. probe of Insys Therapeutics...
Patients on Opioids Before Knee Surgery Have Worse Pain Outcomes
May 23 2017 // Six months after knee replacement surgery, pain outcomes were not as good for patients who previously took prescription opioids, according to a study in the May 17 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint...
Bipartisan Senators Look to Address Banking Risk for Marijuana Industry
May 18 2017 // Republican and Democratic senators on Wednesday renewed their drive to make banking easier for marijuana-based businesses in those U.S. states where the drug is legal, undeterred by signals from the Trump administration...
New York County Sues Purdue, J&J Over Opioid Marketing
May 18 2017 // A county in New York state has sued Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson & Johnson and other drugmakers, accusing them of engaging in fraudulent marketing that played down the risks of prescription opioid painkillers, leading to...
Drug Use at Work at Highest Rate in 12 Years: Quest
May 17 2017 // Drug use in the American workforce, fueled by illicit drugs including cocaine, reached the highest positivity rate in 12 years last year, according to an analysis of more than 10 million workforce drug test...
Louisiana Bill to Limit Opioids for Injured Workers Passes Committee
May 15 2017 // Hoping to prevent fatal overdoses, a House committee passed a bill to make it harder for injured Louisiana workers to access highly-addictive opioid drugs. Lawmakers voted 8-5 on May 11 to have prescribers consult a...
Feds Grant $5.9M to West Virginia for Drug Addiction Fight
May 15 2017 // West Virginia will receive $5.9 million from the federal government to help fight drug addiction. U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin announced the grant from the U.S. Department of Health...
Jury Clears J&J, Bayer of Liability in First Xarelto Product Liability Trial
May 5 2017 // Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG aren’t responsible for a Xarelto user’s internal bleeding, a jury found in the first trial over the blood-thinning drug. J&J and Bayer didn’t mislead a Louisiana man...
California DWC Posts Interim Report on Workers’ Comp Drug Formulary
May 1 2017 // California’s Division of Workers’ Compensation has posted the second interim status report on its efforts to promulgate regulations for an evidence-based workers’ compensation drug formulary. The...
Feds Grant $5.9M to West Virginia in Drug Addiction Fight
May 1 2017 // West Virginia will receive $5.9 million from the federal government to help fight drug addiction. U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin announced the grant Thursday from the U.S. Department...
Workers’ Comp Programs Assist Workers in Addiction Fight
May 1 2017 // Meet a victim of the nation’s opioid addiction scourge: The American worker. A number of U.S. states are taking steps through their worker’s compensation systems to stem the overprescribing of the powerful...
Feds Grant $5.9M to West Virginia for Drug Addiction Fight
Apr 24 2017 // West Virginia will receive $5.9 million from the federal government to help fight drug addiction. U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin announced the grant Thursday from the U.S. Department...
States to Get $485 Million for Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs
Apr 24 2017 // The federal government will provide states nearly half a billion dollars for prevention and treatment programs aimed at confronting the opioid epidemic, which Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price described last...
French Regulator Links Sanofi Epilepsy Drug to Birth Defects
Apr 21 2017 // Up to 4,100 children in France suffered major malformations in the womb after their mothers took a treatment against epilepsy and bipolar disorders known as valproate between 1967 and 2016, France’s drug regulator...
West Virginia Overdose Deaths Up 15% in 2016
Apr 17 2017 // The number of reported overdose deaths that occurred last year in West Virginia has continued to rise. Citing data released March 22, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that at least 844 people died in the state of drug...
New Study Backs Spinal Manipulation Therapy for Low Back Pain
Apr 13 2017 // A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) adds to a growing body of recent research supporting the use of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) as a first line treatment for acute low back...
West Virginia to Spend Opioid Lawsuit Funds on Addiction Treatment Facilities
Apr 13 2017 // With more than 30,000 West Virginians already in drug treatment, lawmakers struggling with the state’s addiction crisis have voted to spend $24 million from recent court settlements with opioid distributors to...
Identifying Surgical Patients at Risk of Becoming Long-Term Opioid Users
Apr 12 2017 // Having surgery always comes with risks. But a new study suggests a new one to add to the usual list: the risk of becoming a long-term opioid user. About six percent of people who hadn’t been taking opioids before...
Ohio Physician Pleads Guilty to Role in Pill Mill
Apr 11 2017 // Margaret Temponeras, 52, of Portsmouth, Ohio, has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, which she did through a pain clinic and dispensary, according to the U.S....
Georgia Jury Awards $20.5M in Civil Suit Against Drug Maker
Apr 10 2017 // A jury in central Georgia has awarded $20.5 million in damages to a retired teacher in her civil lawsuit against a drug company. The Telegraph of Macon reports Ann Pope sued Akorn Inc. in Houston County State Court, saying...
