prescription painkillers

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Drug Cops Want Open Access To Your Medical Records

Radley Balko | Washington Post | January 24, 2014

stories about ADHD drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, a number of politicians, pundits, and public health activists have demanded better monitoring of doctors and patients. [...] Read More »

Opioid Epidemic Makes EHRs Essential to Public Health

When public health is threatened by an outbreak of SARS or Zika or avian influenza, widely disseminated information becomes a crucial tool used to curtail the spread of disease. But transmittable diseases are not the lone threats to public health. Other metaphorically pathogenic events—the current opioid epidemic, for example—are more effectively managed by making sure doctors have complete information when evaluating patients and, especially, writing prescriptions.

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Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Death Points To Broader Opioid Drug Epidemic

Joel Achenbach | Washington Post | February 7, 2014

The death last Sunday of ­Oscar-winning actor Philip ­Seymour Hoffman at age 46 ­focused media attention on the nationwide surge in heroin use and overdoses. But the very real heroin epidemic is framed by an even more dramatic increase since the beginning of the century in overdoses from pharmaceutical drugs known as opioids. Read More »

Secret Document Trove Reveals Bold ‘Crusade’ to Make OxyContin a Blockbuster

David Armstrong | STAT | September 22, 2016

The doughnut ploy, highlighted in a trove of internal documents obtained by STAT, shows the lengths to which Abbott went to hook in doctors and make OxyContin a billion-dollar blockbuster. The sales force bought takeout dinners for doctors and met them at bookstores to pay for their purchases. In memos, the sales team referred to the marketing of the drug as a “crusade,” and their boss called himself the “King of Pain.”

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