Practical clinical trials can help find alternatives to opioids. Pressures on primary care doctors to move away from opioid pain management are increasing, but practitioners need practical, evidence-based information on how to employ multidisciplinary pain care successfully in everyday clinical practice. A senior investigator believes wider use of practical clinical trials and more emphasis on patient self-management are key solutions for achieving wider use of multidisciplinary pain care to improve patient function and help lower use and misuse of opioids. Ref. Source 9j.
Good, I'm not a believer of using opioids to the extent we use them now. I understand in some circumstances they are needed and I say use them then. But I think they are vastly over prescribed in today's world. I think we should manage pain at the lowest level of medication, not the highest. Often, it the highest out of laziness on the part of the doctor. So, use opioids when needed, but the weigh the risks and dangers and then make a determination.
Trump declares opioids a public health emergency: 'We can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic'. President Trump on Thursday declared a public health emergency to combat the opioid crisis - but stopped short of declaring a more sweeping state of national emergency. "No part of our society - not young or old, rich or poor, urban or rural - has been spared this horrible plague: Drug addiction," Trump said. Ref. USAToday.
Growing opioid epidemic forcing more children into foster care. The opioid crisis is causing serious consequences across the country. One of the biggest, illicit opioid abusers are neglecting their children, resulting in more kids being removed from their homes. A new study finds a direct correlation between the epidemic and growing number of children placed in foster care. Source 3y.
Opioid makers face hundreds of lawsuits for misleading public, doctors about drug’s addictive nature. Lawsuits accuse opioid makers of misleading health care professionals and the public by marketing opioids as rarely addictive. Every state attorney general has either filed a lawsuit against opioid makers or is involved in investigating whether health care providers were misled about the drug's addictiveness. Ref. USAToday.