As drug overdose deaths surge in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration has ordered manufacturers of prescription painkillers to add information about the overdose reversal medication naloxone to labels. The move comes just weeks after the federal government released new data showing that overdose deaths rose to an all-time high last year, and are expected to continue climbing in 2020 as Americans face stress and economic losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The FDA says the move will help raise awareness about the potentially life-saving treatment, and is part of a wider effort to increase the availability of the drug to reduce overdose fatalities.
Meanwhile, a report in the New York Review of Books says that medical boards have routinely failed to take action against physicians who have overprescribed opioids and also operate shadowy pain clinics. The lack of oversight, the article says, has exposed systemic failures in the way medical boards deal with egregious examples of misconduct by doctors—despite the harm caused by their conduct.
And finally, cases of vaping-related illness are spiking in Minnesota, signaling a possible resurgence of the respiratory ailment that flared last year across the country but subsequently subsided. Health officials in the state say 11 cases—with a median age of 18—have been reported in the past two months, but that the corona virus has made it more difficult to detect the illness, which is directly linked to e-cigarettes and THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana.