Friday, April 19, 2013
Almost 70% of Underage Drinking Deaths Not Traffic-Related, MADD Finds
An analysis of deaths related to underage alcohol use finds 68 percent are not traffic-related, USA Today
reports. The study, by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), found 32
percent of these deaths are traffic-related, 30 percent are homicides,
14 percent are suicides, 9 percent are alcohol poisonings and 15 percent
are from other causes.
“These data show that taking away the keys truly does not take away
all of the risks when it comes to underage drinking,” MADD National
President Jan Withers said in a news release.
“MADD hopes this information will inspire parents to have ongoing
conversations with their kids about the dangers of drinking alcohol
before age 21, especially since we know that a majority of kids say
their parents are the biggest influence on their decisions about
alcohol.”
MADD released the report in advance of PowerTalk 21 Day on Sunday,
April 21, a national day for parents to start talking with their
children about alcohol.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Eight New Addiction Medicine Fellowship Programs Accredited
Eight new addiction medicine fellowship programs have been
accredited by the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM)
Foundation, bringing the total number of programs to 18, Newswise reports.
Doctors who complete one of these fellowships are eligible to sit for
the ABAM exam to become certified in addiction medicine. There are 47
addiction medicine fellowship slots available, although some slots are
not yet funded, according to the article.
“These new fellowships will help insure that trained addiction
medicine physicians join other addiction professionals in the
interdisciplinary care of patients with addictive disorders,” said
Jeffrey H. Samet, MD, MA, MPH, President of ABAM
and the ABAM Foundation Board of Directors. “This clinical training,
coupled with passage of our rigorous examination, will help to provide
evidence-based addiction treatment to those who need it.”
The new fellowship programs are located at the Betty Ford
Center/Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, California; Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Hartford
Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut; St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Ann Arbor,
Ypsilanti, Michigan; St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada; St. Vincent Charity Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio; Stanford
Hospital and Clinics, Stanford, California; and Yale-New Haven Hospital,
New Haven, Connecticut.
“Our workforce projections suggest that, by 2020, we will need 50
addiction medicine fellowship training programs with 200 physician
slots,” said Richard Blondell, MD, Chair of the Foundation’s Training
and Accreditation Committee. “One of the main obstacles to establishing
these programs is funding.”
Demand for addiction treatment will expand as the Affordable Care Act adds millions of new patients to the system. Addiction medicine courses are rarely offered in medical school, the article notes.
Millions of New Patients Could Receive Addiction Treatment Under Health Law
Between 3 million and 5 million new patients could soon
receive addiction treatment under the Affordable Care Act, according to
the Associated Press. The change will have a major impact on treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.
Currently only 1 cent of every health care dollar in the United
States is dedicated to addiction treatment, the AP reports.
Approximately 10 percent of the 23 million Americans with drug and
alcohol problems receive treatment, government figures indicate. Until
now, a major reason for the large number of people not receiving
treatment has been a lack of health insurance.
Under healthcare reform, millions of people will become eligible for
insurance coverage starting in January. The number of people seeking
addiction treatment could double, the article notes.
“There is no illness currently being treated that will be more
affected by the Affordable Care Act than addiction,” Tom McLellan, CEO
of the nonprofit Treatment Research Institute, told the AP. “That’s
because we have a system of treatment that was built for a time when
they didn’t understand that addiction was an illness.”
The change may overwhelm many treatment facilities. In more than
two-thirds of states, treatment clinics are at 100 percent capacity or
will reach that mark soon. The arrival of many new patients could lead
to waiting lists of months or longer, according to treatment agencies.
Many of them have been shrinking in recent years due to government
budget cuts.
The federal government is urging states to expand their Medicaid
programs. If 20 states do so, an additional 3.8 million patients with
addiction problems would receive insurance, the AP notes. If almost all
of the states expanded their Medicaid program, that number could reach
5.5 million. The law also designates addiction treatment as an
“essential health benefit” for most commercial health plans.
FDA Will Not Approve Generic Versions of Original OxyContin
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday it
will not approve any generic versions of the original form of
OxyContin. The move is aimed at preventing prescription drug abuse, Reuters reports. The original version of OxyContin could be crushed and then snorted or injected. Its patent was set to expire on Tuesday.
The FDA also approved new labeling for a reformulated version of the
drug, which will indicate it is more difficult to crush, and thus harder
to abuse than the original version. OxyContin’s manufacturer, Purdue
Pharma, introduced the tamper-resistant formula in 2010.
“The development of abuse-deterrent opioid analgesics is a public
health priority for the FDA,” Douglas Throckmorton, MD, Deputy Director
for Regulatory Programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and
Research, said in a statement.
“While both original and reformulated OxyContin are subject to abuse
and misuse, the FDA has determined that reformulated OxyContin can be
expected to make abuse by injection difficult and expected to reduce
abuse by snorting compared to original OxyContin.”
Representative Hal Rogers of Kentucky, Co-Chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse, said in a statement,
“This is a huge win for our region and for the thousands of families
who have seen painkillers become pain makers. The FDA undoubtedly saved
our nation from another deadly tidal wave of oxycodone abuse and
overdoses.”
Heroin Use Increasingly Seen in Suburbs Across the Country
As prescription painkillers become more difficult to obtain
and abuse, a growing number of people addicted to these drugs are
switching to heroin, USA Today reports. The trend is increasingly being seen in the suburbs.
Health officials and police report a significant rise in overdoses
and crime, the newspaper notes. Last fall, the Northern New England
Poison Center reported a jump in heroin overdoses in Maine, Vermont and
New Hampshire. “When you switch to heroin, you don’t know what’s in
there from batch to batch,” said the center’s director, Karen Simone.
“It’s a big jump to go to heroin. It may be strong; it may be weak. They
don’t know what they are getting. Suddenly, the whole game changes.”
Heroin is popular in large part because it is cheap, officials say.
While an 80-milligram OxyContin costs between $60 to $100 a pill on the
black market, heroin costs $45 to $60 for a multiple-dose supply.
OxyContin abuse has also been declining because the drug has been
reformulated so it is more difficult to crush and snort.
According to the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the number of people who were past-year heroin users in 2011 (620,000) was higher than the number in 2007 (373,000).
“Heroin is huge. We’ve never had anything like it in this state,”
said Carol Falkowski, the former drug abuse strategy officer for
Minnesota and a member of the Community Epidemiology Working Group at
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which tracks trends in drug use.
“It’s very affordable. It’s very high purity. Most people did not
believe that heroin would happen here in Lake Woebegone, but it really
has a grip, not only in the Twin Cities, but all around the state.”
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