Fake medicines and supplies are flooding developing countries amid the COVID-19 crisis, and it could spur a “parallel pandemic” of counterfeit products. Since the pandemic was declared, a global pharmaceutical crimes police unit has seized tens of thousands of counterfeit…
People in treatment for opioid addiction once joked about an “apocalypse” making it impossible for them to access treatment—now that nightmare is becoming a reality,BuzzFeed News reports.
People who rely on addiction support groups are finding themselves isolated and at risk of relapse amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Alcoholics Anonymous groups taken a range of actions. In Mexico City, meetings have hand sanitizer at the door; in Nairobi, some groups meet in…
A new paper in the journal Addiction suggests the opioid crisis is even worse than official death counts suggest.
After-school programs, basketball games, and babysitting classes are a new ground zero for Narcan training. In rural Carter County, Tennessee, kids as young as 6 are being trained to administer the overdose reversal medication. Then they’re sent home with their own…
They hoped that the drug would stop Alzheimer’s before it started—but “crushing” results have shown that 2 experimental drugs failed to slow cognitive decline. The study, led by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, involved healthy subjects with a rare…
If two people addicted to opioids help each other acquire drugs, and one of them dies of an overdose from those drugs—should the other be charged for murder? Yes, say a growing number of US prosecutors. These “overdose homicide” charges can also be a comfort to families…
Opioid makers teamed up with a tech company to create a computer pop-up alert system designed to maximize—and extend—prescriptions to the addictive painkillers, a government investigation revealed this week, Los Angeles Times reports.
There are 120+ safe consumption sites for controlled substances around the world—but none in opiod-battered US cities. But after a court victory for a planned facility in Philadelphia, momentum is growing. Baltimore is one city proposing new sites—but Maryland Gov.…
Every year fake medicines kill more than 120,000 children in Africa, which accounts for the bulk of substandard and fake medical products detected worldwide, Quartz Africa reports. 7 African countries are showing fresh political will to stop the scourge.
