Latest Drugs Headlines
All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Arkansas Works to Reduce Prescription Drug Abuse
Jul 23 2013 // Prescription drug overdoses account for about one death per day in Arkansas and state officials are working with educators, health providers and law enforcement to bring down abuse rates. Alcohol remains the most commonly...
New Jersey Report Links Corrupt Doctors to Drug Abuse
Jul 12 2013 // The buzz came mostly by word-of-mouth but also from flyers circulated among New Jersey’s homeless Medicaid recipients and drug addicts. It told them where to get pain pills — and fast — prescribed by...
Drugmakers Work on Safer Painkillers as Opioid Abuse Epidemic Rages
Jul 2 2013 // Backed by a U.S. campaign to slow abuse of prescription painkillers, drugmakers are devising new forms of the medicines that don’t lead to misuse and new products that treat dependency in a bid to change the face of...
Kentucky to Study Laws Meant to Curb Prescription Drug Abuse
Jun 26 2013 // Kentucky officials will start a yearlong study next month to determine the effects of controversial new laws designed to curb prescription pill abuse. The Courier-Journal reported that the Cabinet for Health and Family...
Supreme Court Extends Ban on Suits Against Generic Drugs
Jun 25 2013 // The U.S. Supreme Court reinforced its bar on lawsuits by patients against generic-drug makers, overturning a $21 million award to a woman who suffered debilitating injuries after taking a generic painkiller. The justices,...
Drug Makers Can Be Sued for ‘Pay for Delay’: Supreme Court
Jun 18 2013 // Drugmakers can be sued for paying rivals to delay low-cost versions of popular medicines, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a decision that rewrites the rules governing the release of generic drugs. The 5-3 ruling is largely...
Southeast States Battle Prescription Drug Abuse
Jun 17 2013 // Deaths from prescription drug overdoses jumped 360 percent in the last decade in the Appalachian region, according to the Center for Clinical and Translation Science. As a result of this epidemic, states in the Southeast...
Massachusetts Health Insurer Ends Coverage of Compounded Drugs
Jun 14 2013 // The second largest health insurer in Massachusetts has announced that it will no longer cover specialty medications known as compounded drugs, months after a deadly nationwide meningitis outbreak was traced to a...
Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Utah Police Agency
Jun 14 2013 // The family of a young woman fatally shot by West Valley City police has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officers involved and the former police chief. Danielle Willard’s parents filed the lawsuit Wednesday...
Tennessee Tightens Regulations on Compounding Pharmacies
Jun 14 2013 // The Tennessee Board of Pharmacy said it has adopted new regulations for compounding pharmacies licensed by the state following recent outbreaks of illnesses associated with tainted medicines created at these specialty...
Iowa Pharmacist ‘Vehemently Denies’ Fraud Charges
Jun 13 2013 // An Iowa City pharmacist will contest federal criminal charges alleging that he improperly filed insurance claims for expensive drugs needed to treat patients with hemophilia, his attorney said. Michael F. Stein made an...
Arizona Man Seeks $500,000 Over Dismissed DUI Case
Jun 12 2013 // A man is seeking $500,000 from an Arizona city for his arrest on a drunken driving charge even though a breath-alcohol test showed he hadn’t consumed any alcohol. Jessie Thornton was cited in a Dec. 7 traffic stop in...
Alabama Drivers Part of National Alcohol, Drug Test
Jun 12 2013 // Drivers in St. Clair and Bibb counties who were stopped at roadblocks in the area over last weekend were asked to give anonymous breath, saliva and blood samples as part of a national study, authorities said Monday. Giving...
Walgreen Agrees to Record $80M Settlement Over Distribution of Painkillers
Jun 12 2013 // Walgreen Co., the largest U.S. drugstore chain, has agreed to pay $80 million in civil penalties to resolve allegations that it violated federal rules governing the distribution of prescription painkillers. The U.S. Drug...
Drug Maker to Pay $4M Oxycontin Settlement in Kentucky County Claim: Report
Jun 10 2013 // An eastern Kentucky official has announced a settlement in a lawsuit over the drug OxyContin. The Appalachian News-Express cited a statement from Pike Judge-Executive Wayne T. Rutherford in reporting that drug maker Purdue...
Proposed California Measure Requires Doctor Drug Tests
Jun 3 2013 // A proposed state ballot measure in California would require doctors to be randomly subjected to drug and alcohol testing, and the initiative might also seek to lift the cap on damages in medical malpractice cases. The...
Injured Workers Opioid Use on Rise in California, Washington
Jun 3 2013 // Editor’s Note: This is part of a larger report on opioid use by injured workers. This particular part covers the U.S. Western Region. A national story appeared in the last issue of Insurance Journal. That article can...
Oklahoma, Texas Take Aim at Overuse of Opioids in Workers’ Comp
Jun 3 2013 // In Texas and Oklahoma the battle against opioid abuse among injured workers is ongoing. Oklahoma in 2012 enacted legislation adopting the Work Loss Data Institute’s Official Disability Guidelines (ODG) as the...
Ohio Sees 12% Decrease in Narcotics Prescribed to Injured Workers
Jun 3 2013 // There are close to 40,000 drug overdose deaths each year in the United States, and the number continues to rise, according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, which show more than half of...
Court Tells Florida to Review Employee Drug Testing for Some Jobs
May 30 2013 // Specific government job categories must be considered for mandatory drug testing in Florida, an appeals court concluded in a ruling that said a judge went too far in blocking enforcement of across-the-board public employee...
