- Opioid Overdose Deaths Are Still Rising in Nearly Every Segment of the Country, CDC Says Los Angeles Times by Karen Kaplan — A report issued Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presents some alarming new statistics about the opioid epidemic that claims the lives of 115 Americans each day. Researchers from the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control examined data on fatal overdoses from the 31 states that made reliable reports of drug-related causes of death to the CDC's National Vital Statistics System. The District of Columbia was included as well. The picture that emerges is of a public health crisis that touches just about every population segment of the country.
- Medicare Is Cracking Down on Opioids. Doctors Fear Pain Patients Will Suffer New York Times by Jan Hoffman — Officials are close to limiting doses of the painkillers, but doctors say doing so could put older patients into withdrawal or lead them to buy deadly street drugs. Medicare officials thought they had finally figured out how to do their part to fix the troubling problem of opioids being overprescribed to the old and disabled: In 2016, a staggering one in three of the 43.6 million beneficiaries of the program's drug plan had been prescribed the painkillers. Medicare, they decided, would now refuse to pay for long-term, high-dose prescriptions; a rule to that effect is expected to be approved on April 2. Some medical experts have praised the regulation as a check on addiction. But the proposal has also drawn a broad and clamorous blowback from many people who would be directly affected by it, including patients with chronic pain, primary care doctors and experts in pain management and addiction medicine.
- Dentist Group Puts Teeth in Push to Curb Opioid Painkillers Associated Press by Lindsey Tanner — The American Dental Association wants dentists to drastically cut back on prescribing opioid painkillers. The association announced a new policy Monday that "essentially says eliminate opioids from your arsenal if at all possible," said Dr. Joseph Crowley, the group's president. The Chicago-based group represents around 161,000 dentists. The group is also pushing for limiting opioid prescriptions to no more than a week and mandatory education for dentists that encourages using other painkillers. In many dental cases involving opioids, dentists prescribe Vicodin or Percocet for short-term pain from procedures including removing wisdom teeth and other tooth extractions, root canal work, or dental implants. But nonsteroidal anti-inflammation drugs including ibuprofen (sold as Motrin and Advil) are as effective for these conditions; and ibuprofen plus acetaminophen (Tylenol) can provide better pain relief in some cases, according to an analysis of five studies published in the Journal of the American Dental Association.
