Serious, chronic pain affects at least 116 million Americans each year, many of whom are inadequately treated by the health-care system, according to a new report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The report offers a blueprint …
opioids
Study: Most Addicts Get Painkillers from Friends or Family, Not Doctors
Only 1 in 5 people who misuse opioid painkillers like Vicodin get their drugs exclusively from doctors, and 69% never obtain any of these drugs from medical sources, according to a recent study published in the Archives of …
Study: A Mysterious Gene Variant That Makes Quitting Smoking Easier
Smokers with a variant gene linked to higher risk for heroin addiction and more relapse in alcoholism actually have an easier time quitting cigarettes — and a new study finds that their pleasure from nicotine varies with the …
U.S. Aims to Reduce Overdose Deaths, But Will the New Plan Work?
The Obama administration announced on Tuesday a new initiative to reduce prescription painkiller misuse and overdose, a problem that has become the leading cause of accidental death in 17 states, surpassing car accidents — and …
Placebos Work Even if You Know They’re Fake: But How?
Physicians have long believed that some form of deception is essential to the placebo effect: after all, if you tell people that you’re giving them a fake drug, why would they respond by getting better?
Pharmageddon Deferred: New Measures to Stop Opioid Abuse
There’s a party going on and the entire country is invited. The problem is, it’s an opioid party—and too many Americans have been accepting the invitation.
FDA Announces New Effort to Fight Drug Errors, Surgical Fires
Around 1.5 million preventable medication errors occur in the American health system each year at a cost of over $4 billion annually, according to a new report released yesterday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The report’s release marks the start of a new effort to reduce those numbers.
The FDA’s “Safe Use” …
