A Tennessee doctor has pleaded guilty to causing the overdose death of a patient by illegally prescribing the painkiller hydrocodone, federal prosecutors said. Thomas K. Ballard III faces 20 years in prison under a plea agreement, the U.S. attorney’s office …
Fewer injured workers are receiving opioids to treat pain than in previous years, as medical providers are turning more to non-opioid medications and physical therapies. A new study of injured worker claims from 27 states by the Workers Compensation Research …
For the drug industry, building a better pain pill is a problem. Pharmaceutical companies have introduced new medicines to treat dependence, reverse overdoses, and deal with opioids’ side effects. But few effective and economically viable alternatives to addictive painkillers have …
At Dr. Fathalla Mashali’s pain management clinics, the waiting rooms were often so packed with patients that people sat on the floor, leaned against walls and spilled into the hallways. That’s because, federal prosecutors say, Mashali was prescribing oxycodone and …
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the dismissal of nearly all claims in 68 cases seeking to hold drug makers liable for injuries from the use of the prescription painkillers Darvon and Darvocet, which were pulled from the U.S. …
Two West Virginia agencies are joining a lawsuit against an Ohio drug company, alleging its negligent practices have helped fuel the state’s pain pill abuse epidemic. The Department of Health and Human Resources and the Department of Military Affairs and …
A South Florida doctor has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison for his role in a major pill mill operation that illegally dispensed oxycodone and other painkillers. Court documents show that 54-year-old Dr. Scott Becker of …
CVS Caremark Corp said on Wednesday that it has taken the unusual step of cutting off access to powerful painkillers for more than 36 doctors and other healthcare providers found to prescribe the drugs at an alarmingly high rate. The …
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 a $9.4 …
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 Enforcement Administration on Tuesday said the settlement …
