Category: Pharmaceuticals

New CDC Opioid Guidelines: Too Little, Too Late for Chronic Pain Patients?

In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines for prescribing opioids for pain, allowing physicians more flexibility. But doctors, patients, and advocates wonder if the updated standards will be too little, too late to help chronic pain patients in a country still focused on fighting the ongoing opioid crisis.

Jessica Layman estimates she has called more than 150 doctors in the past few years in her search for someone to prescribe opioids for her chronic pain.

“A lot of them are straight-up insulting,” said the 40-year-old, who lives in Dallas. “They say things like ‘We don’t treat drug addicts.’”

Layman has tried a host of non-opioid treatments to help with the intense daily pain caused by double scoliosis, a collapsed spinal disc, and facet joint arthritis. But she said nothing worked as well as methadone, an opioid she has taken since 2013.

The latest phone calls came late last year, after her previous doctor shuttered his pain medicine practice, she said. She hopes her current doctor won’t do the same. “If something should happen to him, there’s nowhere for me to go,” she said.

Layman is one of the millions in the U.S. living with chronic pain. Many have struggled to get opioid prescriptions written and filled since 2016 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention inspired laws cracking down on doctor and pharmacy practices. The CDC recently updated those recommendations to try to ease their impact, but doctors, patients, researchers, and advocates say the damage is done.

“We had a massive opioid problem that needed to be rectified,” said Antonio Ciaccia, president of 3 Axis Advisors, a consulting firm that analyzes prescription drug pricing. “But the federal crackdowns and guidelines have created collateral damage: patients left high and dry.”

Born of an effort to fight the nation’s overdose crisis, the guidance led to legal restrictions on doctors’ ability to prescribe painkillers. The recommendations left many patients grappling with the mental and physical health consequences of rapid dose tapering or abruptly stopping medication they’d been taking for years, which carries risks of withdrawal, depression, anxiety, and even suicide.

In November, the agency released new guidelines, encouraging physicians to focus on the individual needs of patients. While the guidelines still say opioids should not be the go-to option for pain, they ease recommendations about dose limits, which were widely viewed as hard rules in the CDC’s 2016 guidance. The new standards also warn doctors about risks associated with rapid dose changes after long-term use.

But some doctors worry the new recommendations will take a long time to make a meaningful change — and may be too little, too late for some patients. The reasons include a lack of coordination from other federal agencies, fear of legal consequences among providers, state policymakers hesitant to tweak laws, and widespread stigma surrounding opioid medication.

The 2016 guidelines for prescribing opioids to people with chronic pain filled a vacuum for state officials searching for solutions to the overdose crisis, said Dr. Pooja Lagisetty, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.

The dozens of laws that states passed limiting how providers prescribe or dispense those medications, she said, had an effect: a decline in opioid prescriptions even as overdoses continued to climb.

The first CDC guidelines “put everybody on notice,’’ said Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, chair of the American Medical Association’s Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force. Physicians reduced the number of opioid pills they prescribe after surgeries, he said. The 2022 revisions are “a dramatic change,” he said.

The human toll of the opioid crisis is hard to overstate. Opioid overdose deaths have risen steadily in the U.S. in the past two decades, with a spike early in the covid-19 pandemic. The CDC says illicit fentanyl has fueled a recent surge in overdose deaths.

Taking into account the perspective of chronic pain patients, the latest recommendations try to scale back some of the harms to people who had benefited from opioids but were cut off, said Dr. Jeanmarie Perrone, director of the Penn Medicine Center for Addiction Medicine and Policy.

“I hope we just continue to spread caution without spreading too much fear about never using opioids,” said Perrone, who helped craft the CDC’s latest recommendations.

Christopher Jones, director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said the updated recommendations are not a regulatory mandate but only a tool to help doctors “make informed, person-centered decisions related to pain care.”

Multiple studies question whether opioids are the most effective way to treat chronic pain in the long term. But drug tapering is associated with deaths from overdose and suicide, with risk increasing the longer a person had been taking opioids, according to research by Dr. Stefan Kertesz, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

He said the new CDC guidance reflects “an extraordinary amount of input” from chronic pain patients and their doctors but doubts it will have much of an impact if the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration don’t change how they enforce federal laws.

The FDA approves new drugs and their reformulations, but the guidance it provides for how to start or wean patients could urge clinicians to do so with caution, Kertesz said. The DEA, which investigates physicians suspected of illegally prescribing opioids, declined to comment.

The DEA’s pursuit of doctors put Danny Elliott of Warner Robins, Georgia, in a horrible predicament, said his brother, Jim.

In 1991, Danny, a pharmaceutical company rep, suffered an electric shock. He took pain medicine for the resulting brain injury for years until his doctor faced federal charges of illegally dispensing prescription opioids, Jim said.

Danny turned to doctors out of state — first in Texas and then in California. But Danny’s latest physician had his license suspended by the DEA last year, and he couldn’t find a new doctor who would prescribe those medications, Jim said.

Danny, 61, and his wife, Gretchen, 59, died by suicide in November. “I’m really frustrated and angry about pain patients being cut off,” Jim said.

Danny became an advocate against forced drug tapering before he died. Chronic pain patients who spoke with KHN pointed to his plight in calling for more access to opioid medications.

Even for people with prescriptions, it’s not always easy to get the drugs they need.

Pharmacy chains and drug wholesalers have settled lawsuits for billions of dollars over their alleged role in the opioid crisis. Some pharmacies have seen their opioid allocations limited or cut off, noted Ciaccia, with 3 Axis Advisors.

Rheba Smith, 61, of Atlanta, said that in December her pharmacy stopped filling her prescriptions for Percocet and MS Contin. She had taken those opioid medications for years to manage chronic pain after her iliac nerve was mistakenly cut during surgery, she said.

Smith said she visited nearly two dozen pharmacies in early January but could not find one that would fill her prescriptions. She finally found a local mail-order pharmacy that filled a one-month supply of Percocet. But now that drug and MS Contin are not available, the pharmacy told her.

“It has been a horrible three months. I have been in terrible pain,” Smith said.

Many patients fear a future of constant pain. Layman thinks about the lengths she’d go to in order to get medication.

“Would you be willing to buy drugs off the street? Would you be willing to go to an addiction clinic and try to get pain treatment there? What are you willing to do to stay alive?” she said. “That is what it comes down to.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Envíos ilegales de medicamentos por correo no son de opioides. Muchos contienen Viagra genérico

Los funcionarios de la FDA afirman que los medicamentos comprados en farmacias extranjeras tienen 10 veces más probabilidades de ser falsificados que los vendidos en Estados Unidos.

Durante años, la Administración de Drogas y Alimentos de los Estados Unidos (FDA) ha defendido sus esfuerzos por interceptar los medicamentos con receta que llegan del extranjero por correo como necesarios para impedir la entrada de opioides peligrosos, como el fentanilo.

La industria farmacéutica cita a menudo estas preocupaciones en su batalla para frenar las numerosas propuestas en Washington para permitir a los estadounidenses comprar medicamentos de Canadá y otros países, en donde los precios son casi siempre mucho más bajos.

Pero los propios datos de la agencia de los últimos años sobre las confiscaciones de estos envíos ofrecen escasas pruebas de que un número significativo de opioides entre por esta vía. En los dos años de los que KHN ha obtenido datos de la agencia, solo una ínfima parte de los fármacos inspeccionados contenían opioides.

La FDA señaló que encontró 33 paquetes de opioides y ningún fentanilo enviados por correo en 2022 de casi 53,000 envíos de medicamentos que sus inspectores intervinieron en instalaciones de correo internacional. Eso supone alrededor del 0.06% de los paquetes inspeccionados.

Según un desglose detallado de las drogas interceptadas en 2020, la mayor parte de lo que se confiscó —y con mayor frecuencia se destruyó— fueron productos farmacéuticos. El principal producto fueron pastillas baratas para la disfunción eréctil, como una versión genérica de Viagra. Pero también había medicamentos recetados para tratar el asma, la diabetes, el cáncer y el VIH.

Devin Koontz, vocero de la FDA, dijo que las cifras no reflejan el panorama completo porque el el principal inspector en las instalaciones de correos no es la FDA sino el Servicio de Aduanas y Protección de Fronteras de EE.UU.

Pero los datos obtenidos de la agencia de aduanas muestran que también encontró pocos opioides: de las más de 30,000 drogas que interceptó en 2022 en las instalaciones de correo internacional, solo 111 fueron de fentanilo y 116, de otros opioides.

En promedio, los estadounidenses pagan más del doble que los ciudadanos de otros países por exactamente los mismos medicamentos. En las encuestas, el 7% de los adultos estadounidenses afirma que no toman sus medicamentos porque no pueden costearlos.

Alrededor del 8% admite que ellos mismos o un familiar han pedido medicamentos al extranjero para ahorrar dinero, aunque técnicamente es ilegal en la mayoría de los casos. Al menos cuatro estados —Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire y Nuevo México—  han propuesto programas que permitirían a sus residentes importar medicamentos de Canadá.

Si bien la FDA ha encontrado solo un número relativamente pequeño de opioides, incluido el fentanilo, en paquetes de correo internacional, el Congreso otorgó a la agencia un total de $10 millones en 2022 y 2023 para ampliar los esfuerzos para interceptar los envíos de opioides y otros medicamentos no aprobados.

“Más personal, junto con mejoras tecnológicas, nos permitirán no solo inspeccionar más paquetes, sino que también aumentarán nuestras capacidades de focalización para garantizar que estamos inspeccionando paquetes con una alta probabilidad de contener productos que violan la ley”, dijo Dan Solis, comisionado adjunto para operaciones de importación de la FDA.

“La FDA sigue pidiendo cada vez más dinero de los contribuyentes para detener el fentanilo y los opioides en las instalaciones de correo internacional, pero parece estar utilizando ese dinero para rechazar y destruir un número cada vez mayor de pedidos internacionales regulares de medicamentos con receta”, indicó Gabe Levitt, presidente de PharmacyChecker.com, que acredita a las farmacias extranjeras en línea que venden medicamentos a clientes en Estados Unidos y a nivel mundial.

“El argumento de que la importación de medicamentos va a avivar la crisis de opioides no tiene ningún sentido”. “La crisis nacional de importación de fentanilo no debe confundirse con la importación personal segura de medicamentos”, afirmó Levitt.

A Levitt no le sorprende el bajo número de opioides que se envían por correo: en 2022, Prescription Justice, una organización que dirige, recibió datos de la FDA de 2020 mediante una solicitud de la Ley de Libertad de Información, que mostraban que los inspectores habían interceptado 214 paquetes con opioides y ningún fentanilo, entre unos 50,000 envíos de medicamentos.

En cambio, encontraron casi 12,000 paquetes que contenían pastillas para la disfunción eréctil. También bloquearon miles de paquetes que contenían medicamentos con receta para tratar distintas enfermedades.

Más del 90% de los medicamentos descubiertos en las instalaciones de correo internacional se destruyen o se les niega la entrada a Estados Unidos, dijeron funcionarios de la FDA.

En 2019, un documento de la FDA destacaba la labor de la agencia para impedir el ingreso de fentanilo por correo a Estados Unidos dentro de los esfuerzos por detener otras drogas ilegales.

Levitt se mostró satisfecho de que el Congreso agregara en diciembre a un proyecto de ley de gasto federal un texto que, en su opinión, reorientaría las inspecciones del correo de la FDA.

En este proyecto se decía que “los esfuerzos de la FDA en las instalaciones de correo internacional deben centrarse en impedir la entrada a Estados Unidos de productos farmacéuticos controlados, falsificados o peligrosos por otros motivos. Además, los fondos disponibles en esta ley deben dar prioridad a los casos en los que la importación suponga una amenaza significativa para la salud pública”.

Levitt dijo que con esta modificación, la FDA dejaría de detener los envíos que contienen medicamentos para el cáncer, enfermedades del corazón, y la disfunción eréctil para pasar a impedir la entrada de sustancias controladas, incluidos los opioides.

Aunque Koontz, de la FDA, indicó que ese texto no cambiará el tipo de medicamentos que examinan los inspectores de la FDA, porque todos los medicamentos son potencialmente peligrosos. “Importar medicamentos del extranjero simplemente para ahorrar costos no es razón suficiente para exponerse a riesgos adicionales”, dijo. “El fármaco puede estar bien, pero no lo sabemos, así que asumimos que no lo está”.

Agregó que incluso los medicamentos fabricados en las mismas instalaciones en las que se fabrican los destinados a la venta en Estados Unidos pueden ser peligrosos, porque carecen de etiquetado y envasado estadounidenses que garanticen que se han elaborado correctamente y se han manipulado dentro de la cadena de suministro estadounidense.

Los funcionarios de la FDA afirman que los medicamentos comprados en farmacias extranjeras tienen 10 veces más probabilidades de ser falsificados que los vendidos en Estados Unidos.

Para respaldar esta afirmación, la FDA cita el testimonio ante el Congreso de un ex funcionario de la agencia, quien dijo en 2005 estando trabajando para un grupo de expertos financiado por la industria farmacéutica, que entre el 8% y el 10% de la cadena mundial de suministro de medicamentos es falsificada.

La FDA indicó que no tiene datos que muestren cuáles medicamentos son falsificaciones poco seguras y cuáles son los que carecen de etiquetado o envasado adecuado. Los datos de Aduanas y Protección de Fronteras de EE.UU. indican que encontró 365 falsificaciones entre los más de 30,000 medicamentos que inspeccionó en 2022.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, el grupo comercial de la industria, financia una organización sin fines de lucro llamada Partnership for Safe Medicines, que ha hecho campañas en los medios para oponerse a los esfuerzos de importación de medicamentos con el argumento de que empeoraría la epidemia de fentanilo.

Shabbir Safdar, director ejecutivo de Partnership for Safe Medicines,, dijo que le sorprendía que la cantidad de fentanilo y opioides encontrada por los inspectores de aduanas y de la FDA en el correo fuera tan baja. Afirmó que históricamente ha sido un problema, pero no pudo aportar pruebas.

Dijo que las agencias federales no están inspeccionando suficientes paquetes para tener una visión completa. “Con recursos limitados, puede que los contrabandistas nos estén engañando”, afirmó. “Necesitamos inspeccionar los 50,000 paquetes adecuados cada año”.

Durante décadas, millones de estadounidenses que buscan ahorrar dinero han comprado medicamentos en farmacias extranjeras, y la mayoría de las ventas se realizan por Internet. Aunque la FDA dice que no se puede hacer eso salvo en casos excepcionales, docenas de ciudades, condados y distritos escolares ayudan a sus empleados a comprar medicamentos en el extranjero.

La administración Trump dijo en 2020 que los medicamentos podrían importarse de forma segura y abrió la puerta a que los estados solicitaran a la FDA iniciar programas de importación. Pero la administración Biden aún no ha aprobado ninguno.

Levitt y otros defensores de la importación afirman que el proceso suele ser seguro en gran medida porque los medicamentos que se venden a personas con recetas válidas a través del correo internacional son fármacos aprobados por la FDA con un etiquetado diferente al de las farmacias estadounidenses, o versiones extranjeras de medicamentos aprobados por la FDA fabricados en las mismas instalaciones que los que se venden en EE.UU. o en instalaciones reguladas similares. La mayoría de los medicamentos que se venden en las farmacias estadounidenses ya se fabrican en el extranjero.

Debido al enorme volumen de correo, aunque la FDA ha aumentado el personal en las instalaciones de correo en los últimos años, la agencia puede inspeccionar físicamente menos del 1% de los paquetes que presumiblemente contienen medicamentos, dijeron funcionarios de la FDA.

Solís señaló que la agencia centra sus esfuerzos de incautación en los paquetes procedentes de países de los que cree que pueden llegar medicamentos falsificados o ilegales.

Los defensores de la importación afirman que los esfuerzos por bloquearla protegen los beneficios de la industria farmacéutica y perjudican a los estadounidenses que tratan de cubrir los gastos de sus medicamentos.

“Nunca hemos visto una oleada de muertes o de daños causados por medicamentos recetados que la gente entra por la frontera de farmacias verificadas, porque son los mismos medicamentos que la gente compra en las farmacias estadounidenses”, dijo Alex Lawson, director ejecutivo de Social Security Works, que aboga por precios de medicamentos más bajos. “La industria farmacéutica está utilizando a la FDA para proteger su monopolio de precios y mantenerlos altos”.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Despite Pharma Claims, Illicit Drug Shipments to US Aren’t Full of Opioids. It’s Generic Viagra.

The FDA has long blocked the importation of cheap medicine, agreeing with pharmaceutical manufacturers that it opens the door to opioids. The agency’s own data shows that rarely happens.

For years, the FDA has defended its efforts to intercept prescription drugs coming from abroad by mail as necessary to keep out dangerous opioids, including fentanyl.

The pharmaceutical industry frequently cites such concerns in its battle to stymie numerous proposals in Washington to allow Americans to buy drugs from Canada and other countries where prices are almost always much lower.

But the agency’s own data from recent years on its confiscation of packages containing drugs coming through international mail provides scant evidence that a significant number of opioids enters this way. In the two years for which KHN obtained data from the agency, only a tiny fraction of the drugs inspected contained opioids.

The overwhelming majority were uncontrolled prescription drugs that people had ordered, presumably because they can’t afford the prices at home.

The FDA still stops those drugs, because they lack U.S. labeling and packaging, which federal authorities say ensure they were made under U.S. supervision and tracking.

The FDA said it found 33 packages of opioids and no fentanyl sent by mail in 2022 out of nearly 53,000 drug shipments its inspectors examined at international mail facilities. That’s about 0.06% of examined packages.

According to a detailed breakdown of drugs intercepted in 2020, the lion’s share of what was intercepted — and most often destroyed — was pharmaceuticals. The No. 1 item was cheap erectile dysfunction pills, like generic Viagra. But there were also prescribed medicines to treat asthma, diabetes, cancer, and HIV.

FDA spokesperson Devin Koontz said the figures don’t reflect the full picture because U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the primary screener at the mail facilities.

But data obtained from the customs agency shows it likewise found few opioids: Of more than 30,000 drugs it intercepted in 2022 at the international mail facilities, only 111 were fentanyl and 116 were other opioids.

On average, Americans pay more than twice the price for exactly the same drugs as people in other countries. In polling, 7% of U.S. adults say they do not take their medicines because they can’t afford them. About 8% admit they or someone else in their household has ordered medicines from overseas to save money, though it is technically illegal in most cases. At least four states — Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire, and New Mexico — have proposed programs that would allow residents to import drugs from Canada.

While the FDA has found only a relatively small number of opioids, including fentanyl, in international mail, Congress gave the agency a total of $10 million in 2022 and 2023 to expand efforts to interdict shipments of opioids and other unapproved drugs.

“Additional staffing coupled with improved analytical technology and data analytics techniques will allow us to not only examine more packages but will also increase our targeting abilities to ensure we are examining packages with a high probability of containing violative products,” said Dan Solis, assistant commissioner for import operations at the FDA.

But drug importation proponents worry the increased inspections targeting opioids will result in more uncontrolled substances being blocked in the mail.

“The FDA continues to ask for more and more taxpayer money to stop fentanyl and opioids at international mail facilities, but it appears to be using that money to refuse and destroy an increasing number of regular international prescription drug orders,” said Gabe Levitt, president of PharmacyChecker.com, which accredits foreign online pharmacies that sell medicines to customers in the U.S. and worldwide. “The argument that importing drugs is going to inflame the opioid crisis doesn’t make any sense.”

“The nation’s fentanyl import crisis should not be conflated with safe personal drug importation,” Levitt said.

He was not surprised at the low number of opioids being sent through the mail: In 2022, an organization he heads called Prescription Justice received 2020 FDA data through a Freedom of Information Act request. It showed that FDA inspectors intercepted 214 packages with opioids and no fentanyl out of roughly 50,000 drug shipments. In contrast, they found nearly 12,000 packages containing erectile dysfunction pills. They also blocked thousands of packages containing prescription medicines to treat a host of other conditions.

Over 90% of the drugs found at international mail facilities are destroyed or denied entry into the United States, FDA officials said.

In 2019, an FDA document touted the agency’s efforts to stop fentanyl coming into the United States by mail amid efforts to stop other illegal drugs.

Levitt was pleased that Congress in December added language to a federal spending bill that he said would refocus the FDA mail inspections. It said the “FDA’s efforts at International Mail Facilities must focus on preventing controlled, counterfeit, or otherwise dangerous pharmaceuticals from entering the United States. Further, funds made available in this Act should prioritize cases in which importation poses a significant threat to public health.”

Levitt said the language should shift the FDA from stopping shipments containing drugs for cancer, heart conditions, and erectile dysfunction to blocking controlled substances, including opioids.

But the FDA’s Koontz said the language won’t change the type of drugs FDA inspectors examine, because every drug is potentially dangerous. “Importing drugs from abroad simply for cost savings is not a good enough reason to expose yourself to the additional risks,” he said. “The drug may be fine, but we don’t know, so we assume it is not.”

He said even drugs that are made in the same manufacturing facilities as drugs intended for sale in the United States can be dangerous because they lack U.S. labeling and packaging that ensure they were made properly and handled within the U.S. supply chain.

FDA officials say drugs bought from foreign pharmacies are 10 times as likely to be counterfeit as drugs sold in the United States.

To back up that claim, the FDA cites congressional testimony from a former agency official in 2005 who — while working for a drug industry-funded think tank — said between 8% and 10% of the global medicine supply chain is counterfeit.

The FDA said it doesn’t have data showing which drugs it finds are unsafe counterfeits and which drugs lack proper labeling or packaging. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that, among the more than 30,000 drugs it inspected in 2022, it found 365 counterfeits.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade group for the industry, funds a nonprofit advocacy organization called Partnership for Safe Medicines, which has run media campaigns to oppose drug importation efforts with the argument that it would worsen the fentanyl epidemic.

Shabbir Safdar, executive director of the Partnership for Safe Medicines, a group funded by U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers, said he was surprised the amount of fentanyl and opioids found by customs and FDA inspectors in the mail was so low. He said that historically it has been a problem, but he could not provide proof of that claim.

He said federal agencies are not inspecting enough packages to get the full picture. “With limited resources we may be getting fooled by the smugglers,” he said. “We need to be inspecting the right 50,000 packages each year.”

For decades, millions of Americans seeking to save money have bought drugs from foreign pharmacies, with most sales done online. Although the FDA says people are not allowed to bring prescription drugs into the United States except in rare cases, dozens of cities, county governments, and school districts help their employees buy drugs from abroad.

The Trump administration said in 2020 that drugs could be safely imported and opened the door for states to apply to the FDA to start importation programs. But the Biden administration has yet to approve any.

A federal judge in February threw out a lawsuit filed by PhRMA and the Partnership for Safe Medicines to block the federal drug importation program, saying it’s unclear when, if ever, the federal government would approve any state programs.

Levitt and other importation advocates say the process is often safe largely because the drugs being sold to people with valid prescriptions via international mail are FDA-approved drugs with labeling different from that found at U.S. pharmacies, or foreign versions of FDA-approved drugs made at the same facilities as drugs sold in the U.S. or similarly regulated facilities. Most drugs sold at U.S. pharmacies are already produced abroad.

Because of the sheer volume of mail, even as the FDA has stepped up staffing at the mail facilities in recent years, the agency can physically inspect fewer than 1% of packages presumed to contain drugs, FDA officials said.

Solis said the agency targets its interdiction efforts to packages from countries from which it believes counterfeit or illegal drugs are more likely to come.

Advocates for importation say efforts to block it protect the pharmaceutical industry’s profits and hurt U.S. residents trying to afford their medicines.

“We have never seen a rash of deaths or harm from prescription drugs that people bring across the border from verified pharmacies, because these are the same drugs that people buy in American pharmacies,” said Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, which advocates for lower drug prices. “The pharmaceutical industry is using the FDA to protect their price monopoly to keep their prices high.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Alarmante desafío de salud: venden opioides mezclados con tranquizilantes para animales en barrio de Philadelphia

Los traficantes utilizan xilacina, un sedante barato no autorizado, para cortar el fentanilo, un opioide sintético 50 veces más potente que la heroína. El nombre callejero de la xilacina es “tranq”, y el fentanilo cortado con xilacina se llama “tranq dope”.

Muchas personas del barrio de Kensington, en Philadelphia —el mayor mercado abierto de drogas al aire libre de la costa este— son adictas y aspiran, fuman o se inyectan al aire libre, encorvadas sobre cajas o en los escalones de las casas. A veces es difícil saber si están vivos o muertos. Las jeringuillas ensucian las aceras y el hedor de la orina inunda el aire.

Las aflicciones del barrio se remontan a principios de los años 70, cuando la industria desapareció y el tráfico de drogas se afianzó. Con cada nueva oleada de drogas, la situación se agrava. Ahora está peor que nunca. Ahora, con la llegada de la xilacina, un tranquilizante de uso veterinario, nuevas complicaciones están sobrecargando un sistema ya desbordado.

“Hay que poner manos a la obra”, dijo Dave Malloy, un veterano trabajador social de Philadelphia que trabaja en Kensington y otros lugares de la ciudad.

Los traficantes utilizan xilacina, un sedante barato no autorizado, para cortar el fentanilo, un opioide sintético 50 veces más potente que la heroína. El nombre callejero de la xilacina es “tranq”, y el fentanilo cortado con xilacina se llama “tranq dope”.

La xilacina lleva una década diseminándose por el país, según la Agencia Antidroga (DEA). Su aparición ha seguido la ruta del fentanilo: empezando en los mercados de heroína en polvo blanco del noreste y desplazándose después hacia el sur y el oeste.

Además, ha demostrado ser fácil de fabricar, vender y transportar en grandes cantidades para los narcotraficantes extranjeros, que acaban introduciéndola en Estados Unidos, donde circula a menudo en paquetes de correo exprés.

La xilacina se detectó por primera vez en Philadelphia en 2006. En 2021 se encontró en el 90% de las muestras de opioides callejeros. En ese año, el 44% de todas las muertes por sobredosis no intencionales relacionadas con el fentanilo incluyeron xilacina, según estadísticas de la ciudad. Dado que los procedimientos de análisis durante las autopsias varían mucho de un estado a otro, no hay datos exhaustivos sobre las muertes por sobredosis con xilacina a nivel nacional, según la DEA.

Aquí en Kensington, los resultados están a la vista. Usuarios demacrados caminan por las calles con heridas necróticas en piernas, brazos y manos, que a veces llegan al hueso.

La vasoconstricción que provoca la xilacina y las condiciones antihigiénicas dificultan la cicatrización de cualquier herida, y mucho más de las úlceras graves provocadas por la xilacina, explicó Silvana Mazzella, directora ejecutiva de Prevention Point Philadelphia, un grupo que ofrece servicios conocidos como “reducción del daño”.  

Stephanie Klipp, enfermera que se dedica al cuidado de heridas y a la reducción de daños en Kensington, dijo que ha visto a personas “viviendo literalmente con lo que les queda de sus extremidades, con lo que obviamente debería ser amputado”.

El papel que desempeña la xilacina en las sobredosis mortales pone de relieve uno de sus atributos más complicados. Al ser un depresor del sistema nervioso central, la naloxona no funciona cuando se trata de un sedante.

Aunque la naloxona puede revertir el opioide de una sobredosis de “tranq dope”, alguien debe iniciar la respiración artificial hasta que lleguen los servicios de emergencia o la persona consiga llegar a un hospital, cosa que a menudo no ocurre. “Tenemos que mantener a las personas con vida el tiempo suficiente para tratarlas, y eso aquí es diferente cada día”, explicó Klipp.

Si un paciente llega al hospital, el siguiente paso es tratar el síndrome de abstinencia agudo de “tranq dope”, que es algo delicado. Apenas existen estudios sobre cómo actúa la xilacina en humanos.

Melanie Beddis vivió con su adicción dentro y fuera de las calles de Kensington durante unos cinco años. Recuerda el ciclo de desintoxicación de la heroína. Fue horrible, pero después de unos tres días de dolores, escalofríos y vómitos, podía “retener la comida y posiblemente dormir”. Con la “tranq dope” fue peor. Cuando intentó dejar esa mezcla en la cárcel, no pudo comer ni dormir durante unas tres semanas.

Las personas que se desintoxican de la “tranq dope” necesitan más medicamentos, explicó Beddis, ahora en recuperación, quien ahora es directora de programas de Savage Sisters Recovery, que ofrece alojamiento, asistencia y reducción de daños en Kensington.

“Necesitamos una receta que sea eficaz”, señaló Jeanmarie Perrone, médica y directora fundadora del Centro de Medicina de Adicciones de Penn Medicine.

Perrone dijo que primero trata la abstinencia de opioides, y luego, si un paciente sigue experimentando malestar, a menudo utiliza clonidina, un medicamento para la presión arterial que también funciona para la ansiedad. Otros médicos han probado distintos fármacos, como la gabapentina, un medicamento anticonvulsivo, o la metadona.

“Es necesario que haya más diálogo sobre lo que funciona y lo que no, y que se ajuste en tiempo real”, afirmó Malloy.

Philadelphia ha anunciado recientemente que va a poner en marcha un servicio móvil de atención de heridas como parte de su plan de gastos de los fondos del acuerdo sobre opioides, con la esperanza de que esto ayude al problema de la xilacina.

Lo mejor que pueden hacer los especialistas en las calles es limpiar y vendar las úlceras, proporcionar suministros, aconsejar a la gente que no se inyecte en las heridas y recomendar tratamiento en centros médicos, explicó Klipp, que no cree que un hospital pueda ofrecer a sus pacientes un tratamiento adecuado contra el dolor. Muchas personas no pueden quebrar el ciclo de la adicción y no hacen seguimiento.

Mientras que la heroína solía dar un margen de 6-8 horas antes de necesitar otra dosis, la “tranq dope” solo da 3-4 horas, estimó Malloy. “Es la principal causa de que la gente no reciba la atención médica adecuada”, añadió. “No pueden estar el tiempo suficiente en urgencias”.

Además, aunque las úlceras resultantes suelen ser muy dolorosas, los médicos son reacios a dar a los usuarios analgésicos fuertes. “Muchos médicos ven eso como que buscan medicación en lugar de lo que está pasando la gente”, dijo Beddis.

Por su parte, Jerry Daley, director ejecutivo de la sección local de un programa de subvenciones gestionado por la Oficina de Política Nacional de Control de Drogas (ONDCP), dijo que los funcionarios de salud y las fuerzas del orden deben comenzar a tomar medidas enérgicas contra la cadena de suministro de xilacina y transmitir el mensaje de que las empresas deshonestas que la fabrican están “literalmente beneficiándose de la vida y las extremidades de las personas”.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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As Opioids Mixed With Animal Tranquilizers Arrive in Kensington, So Do Alarming Health Challenges

The veterinary tranquilizer xylazine, the choice du jour of local drug dealers to cut fentanyl, leads to necrotic ulcers and leaves street medics and physicians confused about how best to deal with this wave of the opioid crisis.

Many people living on the streets in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood — the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast — are in full-blown addiction, openly snorting, smoking, or injecting illicit drugs, hunched over crates or on stoops. Syringes litter sidewalks, and the stench of urine fouls the air.

The neighborhood’s afflictions date to the early 1970s, when industry left and the drug trade took hold. With each new wave of drugs, the situation grows grimmer. Now, with the arrival of xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer, new complications are burdening an already overtaxed system.

“It’s all hands on deck,” said Dave Malloy, a longtime Philadelphia social worker who does mobile outreach in Kensington and around the city.

Dealers are using xylazine, which is uncontrolled by the federal government and cheap, to cut fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin. The street name for xylazine is “tranq,” and fentanyl cut with xylazine is “tranq dope.” Mixed with the narcotic, xylazine amplifies and extends the high of fentanyl or heroin.

But it also has dire health effects: It leaves users with unhealing necrotic ulcers, because xylazine restricts blood flow through skin tissue. Also, since xylazine is a sedative rather than a narcotic, overdoses of tranq dope do not respond as well to the usual antidote — naloxone — which reverses the effects of only the latter.

Xylazine has been spreading across the country for at least a decade, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, starting in the Northeast and then moving south and west. Plus, it has proven to be easy for offshore bad actors to manufacture, sell, and ship in large quantities, eventually getting it into the U.S., where it often circulates by express delivery.

First detected in Philadelphia in 2006, xylazine was found in 90% of street opioid samples in the city by 2021. That year, 44% of all unintentional fentanyl-related overdose deaths involved xylazine, city statistics show. Since testing procedures during postmortems vary widely from state to state, no comprehensive data for xylazine-positive overdose deaths nationally exists, according to the DEA.

Here in Kensington, the results are on display. Emaciated users walk the streets with necrotic wounds on their legs, arms, and hands, sometimes reaching the bone.

Efforts to treat these ulcers are complicated by the narrowing of blood vessels that xylazine causes as well as dehydration and the unhygienic living conditions that many users experience while living homeless, said Silvana Mazzella, associate executive officer of the public health nonprofit Prevention Point Philadelphia, a group that provides services known as harm reduction.

Stephanie Klipp, a nurse who does wound care and is active in harm reduction efforts in Kensington, said she has seen people “literally living with what’s left of their limbs — with what obviously should be amputated.”

Fatal overdoses are rising because of xylazine’s resistance to naloxone. When breathing is suppressed by a sedative, the treatment is CPR and transfer to a hospital to be put on a ventilator. “We have to keep people alive long enough to treat them, and that looks different every day here,” Klipp said.

If a patient reaches the hospital, the focus becomes managing acute withdrawal from tranq dope, which is dicey. Little to no research exists on how xylazine acts in humans.

Melanie Beddis lived with her addiction on and off the streets in Kensington for about five years. She remembers the cycle of detoxing from heroin cold turkey. It was awful, but usually, after about three days of aches, chills, and vomiting, she could “hold down food and possibly sleep.” Tranq dope upped that ante, said Beddis, now director of programs for Savage Sisters Recovery, which offers housing, outreach, and harm reduction in Kensington.

She recalled that when she tried to kick this mix in jail, she couldn’t eat or sleep for about three weeks.

There is no clear formula for what works to aid detoxing from opiates mixed with xylazine.

“We do need a recipe that’s effective,” said Dr. Jeanmarie Perrone, founding director of the Penn Medicine Center for Addiction Medicine and Policy.

Perrone said she treats opioid withdrawal first, and then, if a patient is still uncomfortable, she often uses clonidine, a blood pressure medication that also lessens anxiety. Other doctors have tried gabapentin, an anticonvulsant medication sometimes used for anxiety.

Methadone, a medication for opioid use disorder, which blunts the effects of opioids and can be used for pain management, seems to help people in tranq dope withdrawal, too.

In the hospital, after stabilizing a patient, caring for xylazine wounds may take priority. This can range from cleaning, or debridement, to antibiotic treatment — sometimes intravenously for periods as long as weeks — to amputation.

Philadelphia recently announced it is launching mobile wound care as part of its spending plan for opioid settlement funds, hopeful that this will help the xylazine problem.

The best wound care that specialists on the street can do is clean and bandage ulcers, provide supplies, advise people not to inject into wounds, and recommend treatment in medical settings, said Klipp. But many people are lost in the cycle of addiction and don’t follow through.

While heroin has a six- to eight-hour window before the user needs another hit, tranq dope wanes in just three or four, Malloy estimated. “It’s the main driver why people don’t get the proper medical care,” he said. “They can’t sit long enough in the ER.”

Also, while the resulting ulcers are typically severely painful, doctors are reluctant to give users strong pain meds. “A lot of docs see that as med-seeking rather than what people are going through,” Beddis said.

In the meantime, Jerry Daley, executive director of the local chapter of a grant program run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said health officials and law enforcement need to start cracking down on the xylazine supply chain and driving home the message that rogue companies that make xylazine are “literally profiting off of people’s life and limb.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Some Addiction Treatment Centers Turn Big Profits by Scaling Back Care

Private equity groups are cashing in on rising rates of alcohol and drug addiction in the U.S. But they aren’t necessarily investing in centers with the best treatment standards, and they often cut extra services.

Near the end of his scheduled three-month stay at a rehab center outside Austin, Texas, Daniel McKegney was forced to tell his father in North Carolina that he needed more time and more money, he recently recalled.

His father had already received bills from BRC Recovery totaling about $150,000 to cover McKegney’s treatment for addiction to the powerful opioid fentanyl, according to insurance statements shared with KHN. But McKegney, 20, said he found the program “suffocating” and wasn’t happy with his care.

He was advised against the long-term use of Suboxone, a medication often recommended to treat opioid addiction, because BRC does not consider it a form of abstinence. After an initial five-day detox period last April, McKegney’s care plan mostly included a weekly therapy session and 12-step group meetings, which are free around the country.

McKegney said a BRC staffer recommended he stay a fourth month and even sat in on the call to his dad.

“They used my life and [my] father’s love for me to pull another 20 grand out of him,” said McKegney, who told KHN he began using fentanyl again after the costly stay.

BRC did not respond to specific concerns raised by McKegney. But in an emailed statement, Mandy Baker, president and chief clinical officer of BRC Healthcare, said that many of the complaints patients and former employees shared with KHN are “no longer accurate” or were related to covid safety measures.

But addiction researchers and private equity watchdogs said models like the one used by BRC — charging high patient fees without guaranteeing access to evidence-based care — are common throughout the country’s addiction treatment industry.

The model and growing demand are why addiction treatment has become increasingly attractive to private equity firms looking for big returns. And they’re banking on forecasts that predict the market will grow by $10 billion — doubling in size — by the end of the decade as drug overdose and alcohol-induced death rates mount.

“There is a lot of money to be made,” said Eileen O’Grady, research and campaign director at the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a watchdog nonprofit that tracks private equity investment in health care, housing, and other industries. “But it’s not necessarily dovetailing with high-quality treatment.”

In 2021, 127 mergers and acquisitions took place in the behavioral health sector, which includes treatment for substance use disorders, a rebound after several years of decline, according to investment banking firm Capstone Partners. Private equity investment drove much of the activity in an industry that is highly fragmented and rapidly growing, and has historically had few guardrails to ensure patients get appropriate care.

Roughly 14,000 treatment centers dot the country. They’ve proliferated as addiction rates rise and as health insurance plans are required to offer better coverage of drug and alcohol treatment. The treatment options vary widely and are not always consistent with those recommended by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. While efforts to standardize treatment advance, industry critics say private equity groups are investing in centers with unproven practices and cutting services that, while unprofitable, might support long-term recovery.

Baker said BRC treats people who have been unsuccessful in other facilities and does so with input from both clients and their families.

Private Equity Skimps on the Known Standards

Centers that discourage or prohibit the use of Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for the treatment of substance use disorder are plentiful, but in doing so they do not align with the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s guidelines on how to manage opioid use disorder over the long term.

Suboxone, for example, combines the pain reliever buprenorphine and the opioid-reversal medication naloxone. The drug blocks an overdose while also reducing a patient’s cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

“It is inconceivable to me that an addiction treatment provider purporting to address opioid use disorder would not offer medications,” said Robert Lubran, a former federal official and chairman of the board at the Danya Institute, a nonprofit that supports states and treatment providers.

Residential inpatient facilities, where patients stay for weeks or months, have a role in addiction treatment but are often overused, said Brendan Saloner, an associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Many patients return to drug and alcohol use after staying in inpatient settings, but studies show that the use of medications can decrease the relapse rate for certain addictions. McKegney said he now regularly takes Suboxone.

“The last three years of my life were hell,” he said.

Along with access to medications, high-quality addiction treatment usually requires long-term care, according to Shatterproof, a nonprofit focused on improving addiction treatment. And, ideally, treatment is customized to the patient. While the “Twelve Steps” program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous may help some patients, others might need different behavioral health therapies.

But, when looking for investments, private equity groups focus on profit, not necessarily how well the program is designed, said Laura Katz Olson, a political science professor at Lehigh University who wrote a book about private equity’s investment in American health care.

With health care companies, investors often cut services and trim staff costs by using fewer and less-trained workers, she said. Commonly, private equity companies buy “a place that does really excellent work, and then cut it down to bare bones,” Olson said. During his stay, McKegney said, outings to movies or a lake abruptly stopped, food went from poke bowls and pork tenderloin to chili that tasted like “dish soap,” and staff turnover was high.

Nearly three years ago, BRC landed backing from NewSpring Capital and Veronis Suhler Stevenson, two private equity firms with broad portfolios. Their holdings include a payroll processor, a bridal wear designer, and a doughnut franchise. With the fresh funds, BRC started an expansion push and bought several Tennessee treatment facilities.

NewSpring Capital and Veronis Suhler Stevenson did not respond to emails and phone calls from KHN.

High Prices and Low Overhead = Big Business

Before the sale to BRC, Nashville Recovery Center co-founder Ryan Cain said, roughly 80% of the center’s offerings were free. Anyone could drop by for 12-step meetings, to meet a sponsor, or just to play pool. But the new owners focused on a new high-end sober living program that cost thousands of dollars per month and relied on staffers who were in recovery themselves.

In 2021, Nanci Milam, 48, emptied her 401(k) retirement fund to go through the sober living program and tackle her alcohol addiction. She had been sober for only six months when she was hired as a house manager, overseeing some of the same residents she had gone through the program with. She had to handle other residents’ medications, which she said she could have abused. Milam said she was fortunate to maintain sobriety.

“I think it served their need. And I was ambitious. But it should not have happened,” said Milam, adding that she left because the company hadn’t helped her start her certification as a drug counselor as promised.

A licensing violation reported to Tennessee regulators in late 2021 involved a staffer who was later fired for having sex with a resident in a storage area. And KHN obtained a copy of a 911 call placed in August 2022 — after a resident drank half a bottle of mouthwash — during which a staffer admitted there was no nurse on-site, which some other states require.

Removing the Burden from Consumers

The regulations of treatment providers largely focus on health and safety rather than clinical guidelines. Only a handful of states, including New York and Massachusetts, require that licensed addiction treatment centers offer medication for opioid use disorder and follow other best practices.

“We have a huge issue in the field where licensing standards don’t comport with what we know to be the most effective quality-of-care standards,” said Michael Botticelli, former director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy during the Obama administration and a member of a clinical advisory board for private equity-backed Behavioral Health Group. Some organizations, including Shatterproof, guide patients toward appropriate care. The federal and state governments largely direct public funds to centers that meet clinical quality-of-care standards.

But access to treatment is limited, and desperate patients and their families often don’t know where to turn. State or federal regulators aren’t policing claims from rehab facilities, like the “99% success rate” touted by BRC.

“We cannot put the burden on patients and their families” to navigate the system, said Johns Hopkins’ Saloner. “My heart really breaks for people who have thrown thousands of their dollars at programs that are bogus.”

When her niece was ready for inpatient rehab in summer 2020, Marina said, sending her to BRC was a “knee-jerk reaction.” Marina, a physician in Southern California, requested to be identified only by her middle name to protect the privacy of her niece, who suffers from alcohol addiction.

She had researched the facility three years earlier but didn’t investigate deeper because she was worried her niece would change her mind. BRC advertised success stories on the television show “Dr. Phil” and posted affirmations on social media.

Marina agreed to BRC’s upfront cost of $30,000 a month for a three-month stay in Texas, which she paid for out-of-pocket because her niece lacked insurance. She allowed KHN to review some of her niece’s pharmacy and treatment bills.

Marina said she paid for a fourth month, but said ultimately the program didn’t help her niece, who remains “horribly sick.” She said her niece felt constant guilt and shame at rehab. Marina thought there was inadequate medical oversight, and said the program “nickeled and dimed” her for additional services, like physicians’ visits, that she thought would be included.

“It almost doesn’t matter if you are educated and intelligent,” Marina said. “When it’s your loved one, you are just desperate.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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NY requiere que doctores receten naloxona a algunos pacientes que toman analgésicos opioides

Aunque los titulares son por las muertes por sobredosis de drogas ilícitas vendidas en la calle, el riesgo de sufrirlas también es real para los pacientes que toman opioides recetados por sus médicos.

Sin analgésicos opioides para aliviar el dolor de rodillas y otras articulaciones, Arnold Wilson no podría caminar media cuadra. El ex enfermero de la ciudad de Nueva York, de 63 años, tiene una artritis incapacitante y toma OxyContin dos veces al día, y oxicodona cuando necesita un alivio adicional.

En los últimos años, también ha tenido otro remedio a mano: naloxona, un medicamento para revertir una sobredosis, al que generalmente se menciona con el nombre de marca Narcan.

Aunque los titulares son por las muertes por sobredosis de drogas ilícitas vendidas en la calle, el riesgo de sufrirlas también es real para los pacientes que toman opioides recetados por sus médicos.

“Me da una sensación de alivio y seguridad”, dijo Wilson, quien tiene aerosol nasal Narcan en su auto y en su casa. Su médico en el Centro Médico Montefiore, en el Bronx, le recetó opioides en 2013, después que un episodio de meningitis exacerbara los problemas en las articulaciones que Wilson tenía como resultado de dos aneurismas cerebrales y varios accidentes cerebrovasculares. Su médico lo instó a comenzar a tener Narcan en 2017.

Generalmente otras personas administran la naloxona, que comienza a revertir una sobredosis en cuestión de minutos. Aunque nunca la ha necesitado, la hija de Wilson, de 18 años, sabe cómo usarla. “Le he dado instrucciones sobre cómo hacerlo, en caso de que esté letárgico”, dijo. Su novia y sus amigos también saben qué hacer.

Una ley recientemente promulgada en Nueva York tiene como objetivo garantizar que la naloxona esté disponible si la necesitan personas como Wilson que toman opioides recetados.

Según la ley, vigente desde el verano pasado, los médicos deben recetar naloxona junto con la primera receta de opioides cada año.

Los factores de riesgo que activarían el requisito incluyen tomar una dosis diaria alta de un opioide (al menos el equivalente a 90 miligramos de morfina, o MME); tomar ciertos medicamentos, como sedantes hipnóticos; o tener antecedentes de adicciones.

Al menos otros 10 estados tienen leyes similares, según una investigación de Network for Public Health Law.

“A veces, los pacientes, especialmente si han estado tomando opioides durante mucho tiempo, no entienden los riesgos”, dijo la doctora Laila Khalid, codirectora de la clínica de dolor crónico del Centro Médico Montefiore. La clínica proporciona naloxona gratis a los pacientes a través del programa de prevención de sobredosis de opioides del estado.

Por ejemplo, la persona puede haberse olvidado cuándo tomó la última dosis y, sin darse cuenta, tomar demasiado, o tomar algunos tragos adicionales en una fiesta, dijo Khalid. El alcohol y algunos medicamentos, como las benzodiazepinas, amplifican los efectos de los opioides.

“Las muertes por sobredosis de drogas continúan aumentando, como cada año durante más de dos décadas”, dijo Emily Einstein, jefa del área de Política Científica del Instituto Nacional sobre el Abuso de Drogas.

En 2021, apuntó Einstein, las muertes por sobredosis en Estados Unidos superaron las 100,000 estimadas por primera vez, según datos provisionales de los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades (CDC). Según estos datos, la gran mayoría de esas muertes, más de 80,000, involucraron a opioides, agregó. Si bien la mayoría de las muertes por sobredosis de opioides se atribuyeron al fentanilo ilegal, aproximadamente 17,000 muertes involucraron opioides recetados, incluida la metadona.

La naloxona, disponible como aerosol nasal o inyección, se considera segura y causa pocos efectos secundarios. No es adictiva. Los CDC recomiendan que las personas con riesgo de sobredosis la lleven consigo para que un familiar o transeúnte pueda administrarla si es necesario.

Los expertos en política de drogas señalan una estadística clave que leyes como la de Nueva York pretenden abordar: en casi el 40% de las muertes por sobredosis, otra persona está presente, según los CDC.

Si los transeúntes hubieran tenido la naloxona, “la mayoría de esas personas no habrían muerto”, dijo Corey Davis, director del Harm Reduction Legal Project en la Network for Public Health Law.

En todos los estados, incluido Nueva York, los farmacéuticos están autorizados a dispensar naloxona, a menudo bajo “órdenes permanentes” que permiten dispensarlo sin una receta, por lo general a personas que corren el riesgo de sufrir una sobredosis o están en condiciones de ayudar a alguien en riesgo.

Entonces, ¿por qué exigir que los médicos hagan recetas?

Obligar es más efectivo que recomendar, dicen expertos. Al requerir que los médicos receten el medicamento, más personas que podrían necesitar naloxona la tendrían a mano, si surten la receta. Pero no hay garantía de que lo hagan.

Una receta también puede ayudar a eliminar el estigma persistente de pedir una fármaco contra la sobredosis en el mostrador de una farmacia.

“Elimina los puntos de fricción”, dijo Davis. “Simplemente vas al mostrador y lo recoges”.

En un análisis de 2019, los farmacéuticos en los estados que requerían la receta conjunta de naloxona con opioides surtieron casi ocho veces más recetas de naloxona por cada 100,000 personas que los de los estados que no la requerían.

Missouri no tiene una ley de receta conjunta, pero el médico que ayuda a manejar el dolor a Danielle Muscato sugirió recientemente que llevara Narcan. La activista de derechos civiles de 38 años, que vive en Columbia, toma el opioide recetado tramadol y varios otros medicamentos para controlar su dolor lumbar severo y crónico. Está contenta de tener el aerosol nasal guardado en su bolso, por si acaso.

“Creo que es algo maravilloso” que la gente lo lleve y sepa cómo usarlo, dijo. “Ojalá esto fuera estándar en todas partes”.

Desde que entró en vigencia la ley de Nueva York, “definitivamente he visto un aumento de recetas que agregan naloxona a los opioides, especialmente si se trata de un pedido grande”, dijo Ambar Keluskar, gerente de farmacia de Rossi Pharmacy en Brooklyn.

Sin embargo, los pacientes no siempre entienden por qué lo obtienen, afirmó Toni Tompkins, farmacéutica supervisora de Phelps Hometown Pharmacy en la ciudad de Phelps, en el norte del estado de Nueva York.

Un caja de dos dosis de aerosol de naloxona generalmente cuesta alrededor de $150. El medicamento ahora está disponible en forma genérica, lo que puede reducir el costo de bolsillo. La mayoría de las aseguradoras lo cubren, aunque los pacientes suelen tener un copago.

Las personas sin seguro generalmente pueden obtener naloxona a través de programas estatales.

En Nueva York, las aseguradoras privadas están obligadas a cubrir la naloxona, y Medicaid también la cubre, dijo Monica Pomeroy, vocera del Departamento de Salud del estado. El Programa de asistencia de copago de naloxona (N-CAP) del estado cubre el costo de los copagos de hasta $40 para las personas con seguro, dijo Pomeroy.

Las personas sin seguro o aquellas que no han alcanzado su deducible pueden obtenerla gratis en uno de los sitios de prevención de sobredosis de opioides del estado.

En noviembre, la Administración de Alimentos y Drogas (FDA) anunció que está considerando que la naloxona esté disponible sin receta.

Aunque ofrecerla sin receta facilitaría la obtención del medicamento, a algunas personas les preocupa que el seguro no lo cubra. Además, “si un paciente simplemente lo recoge en algún lugar sin recibir orientación sobre cómo usarlo, eso podría ser un inconveniente”, dijo Anne Burns, vicepresidenta de asuntos profesionales de la Asociación Estadounidense de Farmacéuticos.

Algunos profesionales creen que se debe dispensar naloxona con cada receta de opioides, independientemente de los factores de riesgo. Así es en Rochester, Nueva York, y en los alrededores del condado de Monroe. En 2021, el ejecutivo del condado, Adam Bello, firmó la Ley de Maisie, que lleva el nombre de una niña local de 9 meses que murió después de tragarse una pastilla de metadona que encontró en el piso de la cocina de un vecino.

“Es horrible lo que pasó”, dijo Karl Williams, profesor de derecho farmacéutico y presidente de la junta de la Sociedad de Farmacéuticos del Estado de Nueva York. “Tal vez sea el próximo estándar que debería convertirse en ley”.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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NY Docs Are Now Required to Prescribe Naloxone to Some Patients on Opioid Painkillers

This strategy — now in place in at least 10 states — is part of an effort to curb accidental opioid overdose deaths by patients who take these powerful medications.

Without opioid painkillers to dull the ache in his knees and other joints, Arnold Wilson wouldn’t be able to walk half a block. The 63-year-old former New York City nurse has crippling arthritis for which he takes OxyContin twice a day and oxycodone when he needs additional relief.

For the past several years, he’s kept another drug on hand as well: naloxone, an overdose reversal drug often referred to by the brand name Narcan.

Although overdose deaths from illicit drugs sold on the street make headlines, the risk of overdose is just as real for patients who take opioids prescribed by their doctors.

“It gives me a sense of relief and security,” said Wilson, who keeps Narcan nasal spray in his car and at home. His pain management doctor at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx prescribed the opioids in 2013, after a bout with meningitis exacerbated joint problems Wilson had as a result of two brain aneurysms and several strokes. His doctor urged him to start carrying Narcan in 2017.

Naloxone, which begins to reverse an overdose within minutes, is typically administered by others. Though he’s never needed it, Wilson’s 18-year-old daughter knows how to use it. “I’ve instructed her how to do it, in case I’m lethargic,” he said. His girlfriend and friends know what to do, too.

A recently enacted New York law aims to ensure that naloxone is available if needed by people like Wilson who take prescription opioids.

Under the law, which took effect this summer, doctors must co-prescribe naloxone to certain patients who are at risk of an overdose when writing the patients’ first opioid prescription each year. Risk factors that would trigger the requirement include taking a high daily dose of an opioid (at least 90 morphine milligram equivalents, or MME); taking certain other drugs, like sedative hypnotics; or having a history of substance use disorder.

At least 10 other states have similar laws, according to research by the Network for Public Health Law.

“Sometimes patients, especially if they’ve been taking opioids for a long time, don’t understand the risks,” said Dr. Laila Khalid, co-director of the chronic pain clinic at Montefiore Medical Center. The clinic provides free naloxone to patients through the state’s opioid overdose prevention program.

Someone may forget the timing of their last dose and inadvertently take too much, for example, or have a few extra drinks at a party, Khalid said. Alcohol and some medications, like benzodiazepines, amplify opioids’ effects.

“Drug overdose deaths continue to climb, as they have nearly every year for more than two decades,” said Emily Einstein, chief of the Science Policy Branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In 2021, Einstein noted, overdose deaths in the United States topped an estimated 100,000 for the first time, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to this provisional data, Einstein said, the vast majority of those deaths — over 80,000 — involved opioids. While most opioid overdose deaths were attributable to illicit fentanyl, approximately 17,000 deaths involved prescription opioids, including methadone.

Naloxone, available as either a nasal spray or injection, is considered safe and causes few side effects. It’s not addictive. The CDC recommends that people at risk of overdose carry it with them so that a family member or bystander can administer it if necessary.

Experts in drug policy point to a key statistic that laws like the one in New York aim to address: In nearly 40% of overdose deaths, another person is present, according to the CDC.

If bystanders had had naloxone, “most of those people wouldn’t have died,” said Corey Davis, director of the Harm Reduction Legal Project at the Network for Public Health Law.

In every state, including New York, pharmacists are authorized to dispense naloxone, often under “standing orders” that allow dispensing without a prescription, typically to people who are at risk of overdose or are in a position to help someone at risk.

So then why require physicians to write scripts?

Mandating is more effective than recommending, experts said. By requiring physicians to prescribe the drug, more people who might need naloxone would have it on hand — if they fill the prescription. But there’s no guarantee they will.

A prescription can also help remove the lingering stigma of asking for an overdose drug at the pharmacy counter.

“It removes friction points,” said Davis. “You just drive through the window and pick it up.”

In a 2019 analysis, pharmacists in states that required co-prescribing naloxone with opioids filled nearly eight times as many naloxone prescriptions per 100,000 people as those in states that didn’t require it.

Missouri doesn’t have a co-prescribing law, but Danielle Muscato’s pain management doctor recently suggested she carry Narcan. The 38-year-old civil rights activist, who lives in Columbia, takes the prescription opioid tramadol and several other drugs to keep her chronic severe lower back pain in check. She’s glad to have the nasal spray tucked in her purse, just in case.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing” that people carry it and know how to use it, she said. “I wish this was standard everywhere.”

Since the New York law went into effect, “I have definitely seen an uptick of prescribers adding naloxone to opioids, especially if it’s a large order,” said Ambar Keluskar, pharmacy manager at Rossi Pharmacy in Brooklyn.

Patients don’t always understand why they’re getting it, though, said Toni Tompkins, supervising pharmacist at Phelps Hometown Pharmacy in the upstate New York town of Phelps.

A two-dose package of naloxone spray typically costs about $150. The medication is now available in generic form, which may reduce the out-of-pocket cost. Most insurers cover it, although patients typically owe a copayment. The uninsured can generally get naloxone through state programs.

In New York, private insurers are required to cover naloxone, and Medicaid also covers it, said Monica Pomeroy, a spokesperson for the state health department. The state’s Naloxone Co-Payment Assistance Program (N-CAP) covers the cost of copays up to $40 for those with insurance, Pomeroy said. Uninsured people or those with unmet deductibles can get it free at one of the state’s opioid overdose prevention sites.

In November, the FDA announced it is considering making naloxone available without a prescription.

Although offering it over the counter would make the drug easier to get, some people are concerned that insurance might not cover it. Further, “if a patient is just picking it up somewhere without getting any guidance on how to use it, that could be a downside,” said Anne Burns, vice president of professional affairs at the American Pharmacists Association.

Some professionals believe naloxone should be dispensed with every opioid prescription, regardless of risk factors. In Rochester, New York, and surrounding Monroe County, that’s what happens. In 2021, the county executive, Adam Bello, signed Maisie’s Law, named after a local 9-month-old girl who died after swallowing a methadone pill she found on a neighbor’s kitchen floor.

“It’s horrible what happened,” said Karl Williams, a pharmacy law professor and chair of the board of the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York. “Maybe it’s a next-level standard that should become law.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Health Spending? Only Congress Knows

Top negotiators in Congress have agreed to a framework for government spending into next year, but there are details to iron out before a vote — such as the scheduled Medicare payment cuts that have providers worried. Also, the Biden administration reopens its program allowing Americans to request free covid-19 home tests, as hopes for pandemic preparedness measures from Congress dim. Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rebecca Adams of KHN join KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey to discuss these topics and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Congress has a tentative framework for government spending through this fiscal year. Now, lawmakers must fill in the blanks, including on key health care provisions, and get it passed. The Biden administration will send more free covid-19 home tests to Americans after initial fears the program was running out of money.

And there’s plenty of news coming in from the states, where this week a Texas judge tossed out a lawsuit based on the state’s so-called vigilante abortion law, and the governor of Florida is asking for a grand jury investigation into harm caused by covid vaccines.

This week’s panelists are Mary Agnes Carey of KHN, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rebecca Adams of KHN.

Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:

  • Congressional appropriators have settled on an omnibus framework that would set government spending through next fall and hope to pass it by the end of next week. But lawmakers still have details to iron out. While health measures like extended flexibilities for telehealth are likely to get approved — and others, like more money for pandemic response, are not — the outcome is less clear for some key provisions. Will lawmakers relax or even nix Medicare pay cuts for doctors scheduled for next year?
  • Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens announced a major settlement this week in lawsuits alleging they mishandled opioid prescriptions. Most of the settlement money awarded in ongoing opioid epidemic litigation is earmarked to pay for opioid-related treatment, and families of victims are also asking for compensation for the harm opioids have caused. Meanwhile, federal lawmakers have shown little urgency to respond to the country’s epidemic of opioid-related overdoses.
  • Abortion fights continued to play out in the states this week, including in Iowa, where a judge blocked an effort to ban most abortions in the state. In Texas, a judge dealt a blow to the state’s so-called vigilante law, ruling that an individual who is not directly affected by an abortion may not sue for violations of the state’s ban. Watch for the legal challenges to continue, especially as some state legislatures return to session in January for the first time since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
  • In pandemic news, the Biden administration plans to reopen its program allowing Americans to request free covid home tests through the U.S. Postal Service. And the House of Representatives select committee investigating the pandemic wrapped up its work this week, with Democrats and Republicans coming to different conclusions and issuing recommendations unlikely to come to pass — a reflection of partisan tensions and a loss of public interest in the pandemic.
  • And Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican who is considered a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has called for a grand jury to examine alleged “crimes and wrongdoing” related to the covid vaccines.

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too:

Mary Agnes Carey: Scientific American’s “Kindness Can Have Unexpectedly Positive Consequences,” by Amit Kumar

Rachel Cohrs: The Washington Post’s “From Heart Disease to IUDs: How Doctors Dismiss Women’s Pain,” by Lindsey Bever

Alice Miranda Ollstein: Stat’s “Watch: With Little More Than a Typewriter, an Idaho Man Overturns the Entire State’s Policy on Hepatitis C Treatment in Prison,” by Nicholas Florko

Rebecca Adams: KHN’s “Mass Shootings Reopen the Debate Over Whether Crime Scene Photos Prompt Change or Trauma,” by Lauren Sausser

Also mentioned in this week’s podcast:

To hear all our podcasts, click here.

And subscribe to KHN’s What the Health? on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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In Rural America, Deadly Costs of Opioids Outweigh the Dollars Tagged to Address Them

Some people say it’s reasonable for densely populated areas to receive more settlement funds, since they serve more of those affected. But others worry this overlooks rural communities disproportionately harmed by opioid addiction.

Tim Buck knows by heart how many people died from drug overdoses in his North Carolina county last year: 10. The year before it was 12 — an all-time high.

Those losses reverberate deeply in rural Pamlico County, a tightknit community of 12,000 on the state’s eastern shore. Over the past decade, it’s had the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in North Carolina.

“Most folks know these individuals or know somebody who knows them,” said Buck, the county manager and a lifelong resident, who will proudly tell anyone that four generations of his family have called the area home. “We all feel it and we hate it when our folks hurt.”

Now, the county is receiving money from national settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors to address the crisis. But by the time those billions of dollars are divided among states and localities, using formulas partially based on population, what trickles down to hard-hit places like Pamlico County can be a trifling sum.

Out of one multibillion-dollar national settlement, Pamlico County is set to receive about $773,000 over nearly two decades. By contrast, Wake County, home to the capital city of Raleigh, is set to receive $36 million during the same period, even though its opioid overdose death rate for the past decade ranked 87th in the state.

Buck said his county’s share “is not a lot of funds per year. But I’m glad we have something to try to reduce that overdose number.”

Rural communities across America were harbingers of the opioid crisis. In the 1990s, misleading marketing by opioid companies helped drive up prescription rates, particularly in coal, lumber, and manufacturing towns across Appalachia and Maine. As painkillers flooded communities, some residents became addicted. Over time, they started using heroin and fentanyl, and the deadly epidemic spilled into suburbs and cities across the nation.

State and local governments filed thousands of lawsuits against drug companies and wholesalers accused of fueling the crisis, resulting in a plethora of settlement deals. The largest to date is a $26 billion settlement that began paying out this year.

As the funds arrive, some people say it’s reasonable for densely populated cities and counties to receive more, as they serve a greater number of residents. But others worry such an approach misses an opportunity to use that money to make a difference in rural communities that have been disproportionately affected for decades.

“You could really diminish what is effectively generational, more than 20 years of harm in rural areas,” said Robert Pack, co-director of East Tennessee State University’s Addiction Science Center.

Just because rural areas are less populated doesn’t mean it’s cheaper to provide health services there. Research suggests the per-person cost can be greater when counties can’t capitalize on economies of scale.

In West Virginia, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has rejected several national opioid settlements because of their distribution methods and pursued separate lawsuits instead, saying the state needs a deal that reflects the severity of its crisis, not the size of its population.

Allocations from the $26 billion national settlement were determined by each state's population and the portion of overdose deaths, residents with opioid use disorders, and prescription painkillers it contributed to the nation’s total. Many states used similar formulas to distribute funds among their cities and counties.

Although the goal was to reflect the severity of each area’s crisis, those statistics tend to scale up by population. Further, some experts say wealthier communities with higher rates of prescription drug use may benefit while poorer communities affected by heroin and fentanyl may lose out.

Pennsylvania took a different route, devising its own formula to distribute funds among 67 counties — taking into account opioid-related hospitalizations and first responders’ administration of naloxone, an overdose reversal medication. When that formula left 11 rural counties without “enough money to make an impact,” the state decided each county would receive a minimum of $1 million over the 18-year settlement period, said Glenn Sterner, an assistant professor at Penn State who helped develop the state formula and co-authored a paper on it.

In other parts of the country without guaranteed minimums, some local officials say their share of the settlement funds won’t cover one psychologist’s salary, let alone the creation of treatment facilities.

But medical treatment — among the most expensive interventions — is just one piece of the puzzle, said Nidhi Sachdeva, who leads health and opioid initiatives for the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners. She recommends that rural counties explore lower-cost, evidence-based options like distributing naloxone, funding syringe service programs, or connecting people to housing or employment.

Another option is to pool resources among counties. In eastern North Carolina, Martin, Tyrrell, and Washington counties plan to funnel their settlement dollars into a long-standing regional health department, said David Clegg, manager and attorney for Tyrrell County. With a combined population of 36,000, the three counties have used a similar approach in combating covid-19 and sexually transmitted infections.

When it comes to funding, “we’re always the caboose of the train,” Clegg said of his county. “We couldn’t function if we didn’t partner for lots of different services.”

In Colorado, pooling funds is built into the state’s model for managing opioid settlement money. The lion’s share of funds is going to 19 newly formed regions, about half of which comprise multiple counties.

Regions 18 and 19 together have a population of less than 300,000 spread across an area in southeastern Colorado bigger than Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont combined. Since 2016, residents of those regions have landed in the emergency room for opioid overdoses at rates higher than those elsewhere in the state. And in the past decade, people in Regions 18 and 19 have died of opioid overdoses at rates rivaled only by Denver. But combined they are receiving only about 9% of all funds being distributed to the regions.

“It is what it is,” said Wendy Buxton-Andrade, a Prowers County, Colorado, commissioner and chair of the opioid settlement board for Region 19. “We get what we get, we don’t throw a fit, and you just figure out ways to make it work.”

Region 18 was allocated less than $500,000 for six southern Colorado counties for the first year. Lori Laske, an Alamosa County commissioner and chair of the region’s opioid settlement committee, said its members hope to recruit private entities to fill in gaps the funding won’t cover. For example, as of mid-November, her county was in the process of selling a building behind the sheriff’s office to an organization with plans to turn it into a 30-bed recovery center.

“Nobody has paid any attention to our rural areas and this problem for years,” Laske said. The money “is never enough, but it's more than we had, and it's a start.”

The state has set aside 10% of its opioid settlement dollars for what it’s dubbed “infrastructure,” which can include workforce training, telehealth expansion, and transportation to treatment. Any region can apply for that money. The idea “is to provide additional funds for those areas of the state that are hardest hit,” said Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesperson for the Colorado attorney general.

Pack, the expert from East Tennessee State University, said partnering with private companies can help sustain programs after settlement funds run out. For example, a county could build a treatment facility, then find a local hospital to staff it. Or it could partner with local banks and real estate developers to find unused buildings to renovate as recovery houses.

“We need to be creative and make a good business case for those kinds of partnerships,” Pack said.

For counties that aren’t sure where to start, Samantha Karon, who oversees substance use disorder programs for the National Association of Counties, suggested analyzing data and interviewing community members to identify and prioritize gaps in services.

Surry County in northwestern North Carolina, along the Virginia border, undertook this process last year. County staffers and volunteers conducted 55 in-depth interviews, gathered more than 700 responses to an online survey, and reviewed national, state, and local data. They cross-referenced the results with a list of allowable uses for the $9 million in settlement funds they’ll receive over 18 years to create a priority grid.

“It’s a graphic representation of where we should go first,” said Mark Willis, director of the county’s Office of Substance Abuse Recovery.

To his surprise, residents’ top priority wasn’t simply more treatment facilities, but rather a continuum of services to prevent addiction, treat it, and help people in recovery lead stable and successful lives. As a result, his office is considering creating a community recovery center or funding more peer support specialists. The county also plans to continue the assessment process in coming years and shift efforts accordingly.

Meanwhile, in Pamlico County, Buck said he and other leaders are open to all ideas to decrease the overdose deaths that have racked their community.

Although building a treatment center is unrealistic, they’re looking at low-cost programs that can deliver more bang for the buck. They’re also considering investing other county funds into a project early on and reimbursing themselves with settlement payouts in later years, if the agreement allows that.

“We don’t want anybody to die a tragic death,” Buck said. “Our challenge is figuring out what role we can play in preventing that with the funds we have.”

Methodology

For North Carolina counties, the rates of opioid deaths were calculated by dividing the sum of opioid deaths from 2010 to 2020 by the sum of the annual population estimates from 2010 to 2020. Counts of “illicit opioid deaths” came from the state health department’s Opioid and Substance Use Action Plan Data Dashboard. Deaths involve heroin, fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, or prescription opioids. Data is based on the county of residence, which may differ from where the death occurred. Population estimates came from national Census Bureau data.

Funding estimates for each county come from the North Carolina Opioid Settlements data dashboard and reflect funds from the settlement with Johnson & Johnson and the “Big Three” drug distributors (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson).

For Colorado, regional rates for opioid deaths were calculated by dividing the sum of opioid deaths from 2010 to 2020 by the sum of annual population estimates from 2010 to 2020. Deaths came from Colorado’s Vital Statistics Program, with cause of death listed as “drug overdose involving any opioid (prescription or illicit, including heroin).”

Regional rates for opioid-related emergency department visits were calculated by dividing the sum of such visits from 2016 to 2021 by the sum of annual population estimates from 2016 to 2021. Emergency department visit counts come from the Colorado health department’s drug overdose dashboard and are for drug overdoses with “any opioid (includes prescription sources, fentanyl and heroin).” They are provided by the patient’s county of residence and were originally compiled by the Colorado Hospital Association.

For both the death rate and emergency department visit rate, regional populations were calculated by adding up the Census Bureau’s annual county totals for member counties. The regions are defined in Exhibit C of Colorado’s Memorandum of Understanding. Regional funding estimates come from the Colorado attorney general’s opioid settlement dashboard and reflect funds from settlements with McKinsey & Co., Johnson & Johnson, and the “Big Three” drug distributors (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson).

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Schools, Sheriffs, and Syringes: State Plans Vary for Spending $26B in Opioid Settlement Funds

The cash represents an unprecedented opportunity to derail the opioid epidemic, but with countless groups advocating for their share of the pie, the impact could depend heavily on geography and politics.

With more than 200 Americans still dying of drug overdoses each day, states are beginning the high-stakes task of deciding how to spend billions of dollars in settlement funds from opioid manufacturers and distributors. Their decisions will have real-world implications for families and communities across the country that have borne the brunt of the opioid crisis.

Will that massive tranche of money be used to help the people who suffered the most and for programs shown to be effective in curbing the epidemic? Or will elected officials use the money for politically infused projects that will do little to offer restitution or help those harmed?

Jacqueline Lewis, of Columbus, Ohio, is wondering exactly that. She lost her son this fall after his 20-year struggle with addiction.

After emptying her retirement account and losing her house to pay for his rehab, court fees, and debts to dealers, she’s now raising her 7-year-old granddaughter while also caring for her 95-year-old mother with dementia, on nothing more than Social Security payments.

When Lewis heard Ohio would receive $808 million in opioid settlement funds, she thought there’d finally be relief for thousands of families like hers.

She was eager to speak with members of the OneOhio Recovery Foundation, which was created to oversee the distribution of most of Ohio’s funds. As they determined priorities for funding, she wanted them to consider perspectives like hers, a mother and grandmother who’d faced addiction up close and saw the need for more treatment centers, addiction education in the workplace, and funding for grandparents raising grandkids as a result of the opioid epidemic.

But she couldn’t find anyone to listen. At an August foundation meeting she attended, board members excused themselves to go into a private session, she said. “They just left the room and left us sitting there.” When she attended another meeting virtually, audience members weren’t allowed to “voice anything or ask questions.”

A local group that advocates for people affected by the opioid epidemic has expressed similar concerns and is now suing the foundation for a lack of transparency, even though few decisions about funding priorities have been made yet.

The strife in Ohio highlights the tensions emerging nationwide as settlement funds start flowing. The funds come from a multitude of lawsuits, most notably a $26 billion settlement resulting from more than 3,000 cities, counties, and states suing manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and distributors McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health for their roles in the opioid crisis. Payments from that case began this summer and will continue for 18 years, setting up what public health experts and advocates are calling an unprecedented opportunity to make progress against an epidemic that has ravaged America for three decades.

But, they caution, each state seems to have its own approach to these funds, including different distributions between local and state governments and various processes for spending the money. With countless individuals and groups advocating for their share of the pie — from those dealing with addiction and their families to government agencies, nonprofits, health care systems, and more — the money’s impact could depend heavily on geography and politics.

“It sounds like a lot of money, but it’s going to a lot of places and going to be spread out over time,” said Sara Whaley, a researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who tracks state use of opioid funds. “It’s not going to magically end this crisis. But if it’s used well and used thoughtfully, there is an opportunity to make a real difference.”

And if not, it could be just another political boondoggle.

Avoiding the ‘Tobacco Nightmare’

The worst-case scenario, many say, is for the opioid settlement to end up like the tobacco master settlement of 1998.

States won $246 billion over 25 years, but less than 3% of the annual payouts are used for smoking prevention or cessation, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Most has gone toward filling budget gaps, building roads, and subsidizing tobacco farmers.

But there are stronger protections in place for the opioid settlement dollars, said Christine Minhee, founder of a website that tracks the funds.

The arrangement specifies that states must spend at least 70% of the money for opioid-related expenses in the coming years and includes a list of qualifying expenses, like expanding access to treatment and buying the overdose reversal medication naloxone. Fifteen percent of the funds can be used for administrative expenses or for governments to reimburse past opioid-related expenses. Only the remaining 15% is a free-for-all.

If states don’t meet those thresholds, they could face legal consequences and even see their future payouts reduced, Minhee said.

“The kind of tobacco nightmare stuff where only 3% of funds were spent on what they were meant for is legally and technically impossible,” she said. Though, she added, “a different nightmare is still possible.”

Experts tracking the funds say transparency around who receives the money and how those decisions are made is key to a successful and useful distribution of resources.

In Rhode Island, for instance, public comment is a regular part of opioid advisory committee hearings. In North Carolina and Colorado, online dashboards show how much money each locality is receiving and will track how it is spent.

But other states are struggling.

In Ohio, the document that creates a private foundation to oversee most of the state’s funds says that “the Foundation shall operate in a transparent manner” and that meetings and documents will be public. Yet the OneOhio Recovery Foundation has since said it is not subject to open-meetings law. It has adopted a policy that meetings can be closed if the board decides the content is “sensitive or confidential material that is not appropriate for the general public.”

The contradiction between the board’s actions and how it was conceived led Dennis Cauchon, president of Harm Reduction Ohio, which distributes naloxone across the state, to sue the foundation. He said he wants the public to have more say in how the funding is spent.

“The board members are in a closed loop, and they’re having a hard time learning what the needs are,” Cauchon said.

The 29-member board includes representatives of local regions, as well as appointees from the governor, state attorney general, and legislative leaders. Many are city- and county-level politicians, and one is the wife of a U.S. senator. They are not paid for this role.

Nathaniel Jordan, executive director of the nonprofit Columbus Kappa Foundation, which distributes naloxone to Black communities in Ohio, has raised concerns about the board’s lack of racial diversity. Since 2017, Black men have had the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the state, he said, but only one board member is Black. “What gives?”

Kathryn Whittington, chair of the OneOhio Recovery Foundation, said the board is being “very transparent in what we are doing.” The public can attend meetings in person or online. Recordings of past meetings are posted online, along with the agenda, board packet, and policies discussed — including a draft of the diversity and inclusion policy the board is considering.

People who want to provide input “can always reach out to me as the chair or any other board member,” said Whittington, who added that two of her children have struggled with addiction too. But the best option is to contact one of Ohio’s 19 regional boards, she said. Those groups can elevate local concerns to the foundation board.

“We are still at the very beginning,” Whittington emphasized. No money from the 18-year settlement has been spent yet. The board’s operational expenses — including a $10,000-per-month contract with a public relations firm — is being paid from $1 million from a previous opioid-related settlement.

But Lewis, the woman raising her granddaughter in Columbus, worries that the day for families to speak may never come.

“They keep saying it’s not ready, and before you know it, they’ll be handing out money and it’ll be too late,” she said.

Following the Money

Rhode Island is one of the states working fastest to distribute settlement dollars. Its Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which controls 80% of the funds and works with an opioid advisory committee, released a plan to use $20 million by July 2023.

Although the plan doesn’t specify funding for people raising grandchildren, it does allocate $900,000 to recovery supports, which will include community agencies that serve family members, the department said. The single largest allocation, $4 million, will go to school- and community-based mental health programs.

The investment that has sparked the most interest is $2 million for a supervised drug consumption site. Its location and opening date will be determined by organizations that respond to the state’s request for proposals, said Carrie Bridges Feliz, chair of the opioid settlement advisory committee. At a time when fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin, is infiltrating most street drugs and overdose rates are high, “we were anxious to make use of these funds.”

In contrast, the process of distributing settlement dollars in Louisiana has barely begun. State Attorney General Jeff Landry announced in July 2021 that Louisiana was expected to receive $325 million from the 18-year settlement but has not released any additional information. His office did not respond to repeated inquiries about the status of the funds.

The governor’s office and state health department said they could not answer specific questions about the funds and had not yet been contacted by the attorney general’s office, which negotiated the state’s settlement agreement. Multiple clinicians who treat substance use disorder and advocates who work with people who use drugs were similarly in the dark.

The state’s written plan says it will create a five-person task force to recommend how to spend the money. Kevin Cobb, president of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association, said the group had appointed its representative to the task force, but he didn’t know if other members had been selected or when they would meet.

One decision Louisiana has made so far is to give 20% of the settlement funds directly to sheriffs — a move that has made some people nervous.

“This plays into an increase in support for an authoritarian response to what are public health issues,” said Nadia Eskildsen, who has worked for syringe service programs and other such groups in New Orleans.

She worries that money will be funneled toward increasing arrests, rather than helping people find housing, work, or health care. Meanwhile, almost 1,400 Louisiana residents died of opioid-related causes last year.

K.P. Gibson, the Acadia Parish sheriff who will represent the sheriffs association on the state task force, said his focus is not on punishment, but on getting people into treatment. “My jail problem will resolve itself if we resolve the problem of opioid addiction,” he said.

Many health and policy experts say using settlement funds to pair mental health professionals with police officers or provide medications for opioid use disorder in prisons could reduce deaths.

States’ choices generally reflect a range of local priorities: While Louisiana has carved out funds for law enforcement, Maine is dedicating 3% of its statewide share for special education programs in schools, and Colorado has allocated 10% to addiction infrastructure, like workforce training, telehealth expansion, and transportation to treatment.

Maine requires that some funds be used for special education because school districts also sued the opioid companies, said state Attorney General Aaron Frey.

Patricia Hopkins said she signed on to the lawsuit because she’s seen the impact of the opioid crisis on students over the past decade as superintendent of school district 11, a rural part of central Maine’s Kennebec County with 1,950 students.

A report compiled by her staff in 2019 showed nearly 4% of students have a parent dealing with addiction.

Sixty miles north, in rural Penobscot County, school district 19 social worker Meghan Baker said she knows two siblings who were home when first responders arrived to revive their parents with naloxone, and another set of siblings who lost their mother to an overdose.

Students who experience this trauma often become angry, act out at school, and find it difficult to trust adults. When Baker refers them to counseling services in the community, they encounter waitlists that run six months to a year.

“If we could hire more guidance counselors and social workers, at least we can help some of those kids during the school day,” she said.

It’s clear that many have high hopes for the billions of dollars in opioid settlement funds arriving over the next two decades. But they have questions too, because effectively using this large pot of money requires planning and forethought.

For people like Jacqueline Lewis in Ohio, whose family has lost so much to an epidemic too long ignored, progress feels slow.

As she tries to make do on Social Security, Lewis focuses on the positives: Her granddaughter is a happy child, and her older brother lives with them to help out. But the financial worries gnaw at her. And what if her own health falters before her granddaughter is an adult?

“I might be OK right now, but tomorrow, I never know,” she said.

KHN correspondent Rae Ellen Bichell contributed to this report.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Médicos se apresuran a usar fallo de la Corte Suprema para liberarse de cargos por opioides

En una decisión de junio, el tribunal dijo que los fiscales no solo deben probar que una receta no estaba médicamente justificada sino también que el que la escribió sabía del riesgo de recetar opioides.

El doctor Nelson Onaro admitió el verano pasado que había escrito recetas ilegales, aunque dijo que solo pensaba en sus pacientes. Desde una pequeña clínica en Oklahoma, repartió cientos de pastillas de opioides y docenas de parches de fentanilo sin un propósito médico legítimo.

“Esos medicamentos fueron recetados para ayudar a mis pacientes, desde mi propio punto de vista”, dijo Onaro en la corte, mientras, a regañadientes, se declaraba culpable de seis cargos de tráfico de drogas. Al confesar, podría haber recibido una sentencia reducida de tres años o menos en prisión.

Pero Onaro cambió de opinión en julio. En los días previos a su sentencia, le pidió a un juez federal que desestimara su acuerdo de culpabilidad, enviando su caso a juicio. Para tener la oportunidad de ser exonerado, enfrentaría cuatro veces más cargos y la posibilidad de una sentencia más severa.

¿Por qué correr el riesgo? Un fallo de la Corte Suprema ha elevado el umbral para condenar en casos como el de Onaro. En una decisión de junio, el tribunal dijo que los fiscales no solo deben probar que una receta no estaba médicamente justificada sino también que el que la escribió sabía del riesgo.

De repente, el estado mental de Onaro tiene más peso en la corte. Los fiscales no se han opuesto a que el médico retire su declaración de culpabilidad de la mayoría de los cargos, admitiendo en una presentación judicial que enfrenta “un cálculo legal diferente” después de la decisión de la Corte Suprema.

El fallo unánime de la Corte complica los esfuerzos continuos del Departamento de Justicia para responsabilizar penalmente a los que recetan de manera irresponsable por alimentar la crisis de opioides.

Antes, los tribunales inferiores no habían considerado la intención del que recetaba. Hasta ahora, los médicos enjuiciados en gran medida no podían defenderse argumentando que estaban actuando de buena fe cuando emitían recetas incorrectas. Ahora pueden, aunque no es necesariamente una garantía para salir de la cárcel, dicen los abogados.

“Esencialmente, a los médicos se los esposaba”, dijo Zach Enlow, abogado de Onaro. “Ahora pueden quitarse las esposas. Pero eso no significa que van a ganar la pelea”.

La decisión de la Corte Suprema en Ruan vs. Estados Unidos, emitida el 27 de junio, fue eclipsada por la controversia nacional tres días antes, cuando el tribunal anuló los derechos federales del aborto.

Pero el fallo, menos conocido ahora, se está filtrando en silencio a través de los tribunales federales, fortaleciendo a los acusados ​​en los casos de abuso de recetas y puede tener un efecto escalofriante en futuros juicios a médicos bajo el Controlled Substance Act.

En los tres meses desde que se emitió, la decisión de Ruan se ha invocado en al menos 15 juicios en curso en 10 estados, según una revisión de KHN de los registros de la corte federal.

Los médicos citaron la decisión en las apelaciones posteriores a la condena, las mociones para absoluciones, nuevos juicios, reversiones de culpabilidad y un intento fallido de excluir el testimonio de un experto en prescripciones, argumentando que su opinión ahora era irrelevante. Otros acusados ​​han solicitado con éxito retrasar sus casos para que la decisión de Ruan pueda verse utilizarse en sus argumentos en los próximos juicios o audiencias de sentencia.

David Rivera, ex fiscal estadounidense de la era Obama, quien lideró juicios sobre abuso de prescripciones en Tennessee, dijo que cree que los médicos tienen una “gran oportunidad” de anular las condenas si se les prohibió discutir una defensa de buena fe o se instruyó a un jurado que ignorara este argumento.

Rivera dijo que los acusados ​​que movilizaban cientos de miles de pastillas aún serían condenados, incluso si finalmente se requiriera un segundo juicio. Pero la Corte Suprema ha extendido un “salvavidas” a un grupo pequeño de acusados ​​que “dispensaron con su corazón, no con su mente”, dijo.

“Lo que la Corte Suprema está tratando de hacer es dividir entre un médico malo y una persona que podría tener una licencia para practicar la medicina pero que no actúa como médico y es un traficante de drogas”, dijo Rivera. “Un médico que actúa bajo una creencia sinceramente sostenida de que está haciendo lo correcto, incluso si puede ser horrible en su trabajo y no se le deben confiar vidas, incluso eso no es criminal”.

La decisión de Ruan fue el resultado de las apelaciones de dos médicos, Xiulu Ruan y Shakeel Kahn, quienes fueron condenados por separado por recetar píldoras en Alabama y Wyoming, respectivamente, y sentenciados a 21 y 25 años de prisión. En ambos casos, los fiscales se basaron en una táctica común para mostrar que las recetas eran un delito: los testigos expertos revisaron las recetas de los acusados ​​y testificaron que estaban fuera de lugar con lo que un médico razonable haría.

Pero al escribir la opinión de la Corte Suprema, el entonces juez Stephen Breyer insistió en que la carga de la prueba no debería ser tan simple de superar, devolviendo ambas condenas a los tribunales inferiores para su reconsideración.

Debido a que a los médicos se les permite, y se espera, que distribuyan drogas, escribió Breyer, los fiscales no solo deben demostrar que escribieron recetas sin propósito médico, sino que también lo hicieron “a sabiendas o intencionalmente”. De lo contrario, los tribunales corren el riesgo de castigar “conductas que se encuentran cerca, pero en el lado permitido de la línea criminal”, escribió Breyer.

Para los abogados defensores, el fallo unánime envió un mensaje inequívoco.

“Este es un tiempo hiperpolarizado en Estados Unidos, y particularmente en la corte”, dijo Enlow. “Sin embargo, este fue un fallo de 9-0 que decía que el mens rea, o el estado mental del médico, es importante”.

Tal vez en ninguna parte la decisión de Ruan fue más apremiante que en el caso del doctor David Jankowski, un médico de Michigan que estaba en juicio.

Jankowski fue condenado por crímenes federales de drogas y fraude y enfrenta 20 años de prisión. En un anuncio del veredicto, el Departamento de Justicia dijo que el médico y su clínica suministraron a las personas “sin necesidad de drogas”, que se “vendían en las calles para alimentar las adicciones de los adictos a los opioides”.

La abogada defensora Anjali Prasad dijo que el fallo de Ruan llegٕó antes de las deliberaciones del jurado en el caso, pero después de que los fiscales pasaran semanas presentando el argumento de que el comportamiento de Jankowski no fue el de alguien que prescribe de manera razonable, un estándar legal que ya no es suficiente para convencer.

Prasad citó la decisión de Ruan en una moción para un nuevo juicio, que fue denegada, y dijo que tiene la intención de utilizar la decisión como base para una próxima apelación. La abogada también dijo que está discutiendo con otros dos clientes sobre apelar sus condenas en base a Ruan.

“Espero que los abogados de defensa penal como yo estén más fortalecidos para llevar sus casos a juicio y que sus clientes estén 100% listos para luchar contra los federales, lo cual no es una tarea fácil”, dijo Prasad.

Algunos acusados ​​lo están intentando. Hasta ahora, algunos han obtenido pequeñas victorias. Y al menos uno sufrió una derrota aplastante.

En Tennessee, la enfermera practicante Jeffrey Young, acusada de intercambiar opioides por sexo y notoriedad para ser parte de un piloto de un reality show, retrasó con éxito su juicio de mayo a noviembre para dar cuenta de la decisión de Ruan, argumentando que “alteraría drásticamente el paisaje de la guerra del gobierno contra los que hacen recetas”.

También en Tennessee, Samson Orusa, un médico y pastor que el año pasado fue condenado por entregar recetas de opioides sin examinar a los pacientes, presentó una moción para un nuevo juicio basado en la decisión de Ruan, luego persuadió a un juez reacio a retrasar su sentencia durante seis meses. para considerarlo.

Y en Ohio, el doctor Martin Escobar citó el fallo de Ruan en un argumento de 11 horas para evitar la prisión.

En enero, Escobar se declaró culpable de 54 cargos de distribución de sustancias controladas, incluidas las recetas que causaron la muerte de dos pacientes. Después de la decisión de Ruan, Escobar intentó retirar su petición, diciendo que habría ido a juicio si hubiera sabido que los fiscales tenían que demostrar intencionalidad.

Una semana después, el día en que Escobar fue sentenciado, un juez federal negó la moción.

Su declaración de culpabilidad permaneció.

Escobar fue condenado a 25 años.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Doctors Rush to Use Supreme Court Ruling to Escape Opioid Charges

After a unanimous ruling from the high court, doctors who are accused of writing irresponsible prescriptions can go to trial with a new defense: It wasn’t on purpose.

Dr. Nelson Onaro conceded last summer that he’d written illegal prescriptions, although he said he was thinking only of his patients. From a tiny, brick clinic in Oklahoma, he doled out hundreds of opioid pills and dozens of fentanyl patches with no legitimate medical purpose.

“Those medications were prescribed to help my patients, from my own point of view,” Onaro said in court, as he reluctantly pleaded guilty to six counts of drug dealing. Because he confessed, the doctor was likely to get a reduced sentence of three years or less in prison.

But Onaro changed his mind in July. In the days before his sentencing, he asked a federal judge to throw out his plea deal, sending his case toward a trial. For a chance at exoneration, he’d face four times the charges and the possibility of a harsher sentence.

Why take the risk? A Supreme Court ruling has raised the bar to convict in a case like Onaro’s. In a June decision, the court said prosecutors must not only prove a prescription was not medically justified ― possibly because it was too large or dangerous, or simply unnecessary ― but also that the prescriber knew as much.

Suddenly, Onaro’s state of mind carries more weight in court. Prosecutors have not opposed the doctor withdrawing his plea to most of his charges, conceding in a court filing that he faces “a different legal calculus” after the Supreme Court decision.

The court’s unanimous ruling complicates the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to hold irresponsible prescribers criminally liable for fueling the opioid crisis. Previously, lower courts had not considered a prescriber’s intention. Until now, doctors on trial largely could not defend themselves by arguing they were acting in good faith when they wrote bad prescriptions. Now they can, attorneys say, although it is not necessarily a get-out-of-jail-free card.

“Essentially, the doctors were handcuffed,” said Zach Enlow, Onaro’s attorney. “Now they can take off their handcuffs. But it doesn’t mean they are going to win the fight.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Ruan v. United States, issued June 27, was overshadowed by the nation-shaking controversy ignited three days earlier, when the court erased federal abortion rights. But the lesser-known ruling is now quietly percolating through federal courthouses, where it has emboldened defendants in overprescribing cases and may have a chilling effect on future prosecutions of doctors under the Controlled Substances Act.

In the three months since it was issued, the Ruan decision has been invoked in at least 15 ongoing prosecutions across 10 states, according to a KHN review of federal court records. Doctors cited the decision in post-conviction appeals, motions for acquittals, new trials, plea reversals, and a failed attempt to exclude the testimony of a prescribing expert, arguing their opinion was now irrelevant. Other defendants have successfully petitioned to delay their cases so the Ruan decision could be folded into their arguments at upcoming trials or sentencing hearings.

David Rivera, a former Obama-era U.S. attorney who once led overprescribing prosecutions in Middle Tennessee, said he believes doctors have a “great chance” of overturning convictions if they were prohibited from arguing a good faith defense or a jury was instructed to ignore one.

Rivera said defendants who ran true pill mills would still be convicted, even if a second trial was ultimately required. But the Supreme Court has extended a “lifeline” to a narrow group of defendants who “dispensed with their heart, not their mind,” he said.

“What the Supreme Court is trying to do is divide between a bad doctor and a person who might have a license to practice medicine but is not acting as a doctor at all and is a drug dealer,” Rivera said. “A doctor who is acting under a sincerely held belief that he is doing the right thing, even if he may be horrible at his job and should not be trusted with human lives ― that’s still not criminal.”

The Ruan decision resulted from the appeals of two doctors, Xiulu Ruan and Shakeel Kahn, who were separately convicted of running pill mills in Alabama and Wyoming, respectively, then sentenced to 21 and 25 years in prison. In both cases, prosecutors relied on a common tactic to show the prescriptions were a crime: Expert witnesses reviewed the defendants’ prescriptions and testified that they were far out of line with what a reasonable doctor would do.

But in writing the opinion of the Supreme Court, then-Justice Stephen Breyer insisted the burden of proof should not be so simple to overcome, remanding both convictions back to the lower courts for reconsideration.

Because doctors are allowed and expected to distribute drugs, Breyer wrote, prosecutors must not only prove they wrote prescriptions with no medical purpose but also that they did so “knowingly or intentionally.” Otherwise, the courts risk punishing “conduct that lies close to, but on the permissible side of, the criminal line,” Breyer wrote.

To defense attorneys, the unanimous ruling sent an unambiguous message.

“This is a hyperpolarized time in America, and particularly on the court,” Enlow said. “And yet this was a 9-0 ruling saying that the mens rea ― or the mental state of the doctor ― it matters.”

Maybe nowhere was the Ruan decision more pressing than in the case of Dr. David Jankowski, a Michigan physician who was on trial when the burden of proof shifted beneath his feet.

Jankowski was convicted of federal drug and fraud crimes and faces 20 years in prison. In an announcement of the verdict, the DOJ said the doctor and his clinic supplied people with “no need for the drugs,” which were “sold on the streets to feed the addictions of opioid addicts.”

Defense attorney Anjali Prasad said the Ruan ruling dropped before jury deliberations in the case but after prosecutors spent weeks presenting the argument that Jankowski’s behavior was not that of a reasonable prescriber — a legal standard that on its own is no longer enough to convict.

Prasad cited the Ruan decision in a motion for a new trial, which was denied, and said she intends to use the decision as a basis for a forthcoming appeal. The attorney also said she is in discussion with two other clients about appealing their convictions with Ruan.

“My hope is that criminal defense attorneys like myself are more emboldened to take their cases to trial and that their clients are 100% ready to fight the feds, which is no easy task,” Prasad said. “We just duke it out in the courtroom. We can prevail that way.”

Some defendants are trying. So far, a few have scored small wins. And at least one suffered a crushing defeat.

In Tennessee, nurse practitioner Jeffrey Young, accused of trading opioids for sex and notoriety for a reality show pilot, successfully delayed his trial from May to November to account for the Ruan decision, arguing it would “drastically alter the landscape of the Government’s war on prescribers.”

Also in Tennessee, Samson Orusa, a doctor and pastor who last year was convicted of handing out opioid prescriptions without examining patients, filed a motion for a new trial based on the Ruan decision, then persuaded a reluctant judge to delay his sentencing for six months to consider it.

And in Ohio, Dr. Martin Escobar cited the Ruan ruling in an eleventh-hour effort to avoid prison.

Escobar in January pleaded guilty to 54 counts of distributing a controlled substance, including prescriptions that caused the deaths of two patients. After the Ruan decision, Escobar tried to withdraw his plea, saying he’d have gone to trial if he’d known prosecutors had to prove his intent.

One week later, on the day Escobar was set to be sentenced, a federal judge denied the motion.

His guilty plea remained.

Escobar got 25 years.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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A Free-for-All From Readers and Tweeters, From Medical Debt to Homelessness

KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.

It is appalling that an article like this even has to be written. Our "healthcare" system is broken.How to get rid of medical debt — or avoid it in the first place https://t.co/EIo7lHps8k

— Karin Wiberg (@kswiberg) July 1, 2022

— Karin Wiberg, Raleigh, North Carolina

Lifesaving Information

I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the work you do that exposes the utter brokenness of America’s health system (“Diagnosis: Debt: How to Get Rid of Medical Debt — Or Avoid It in the First Place,” July 1). You are helping to fix it!

— Ruth Worley, Athens, Ohio

Recovering from being sick or caring for a sick loved one should not ruin any American’s finances. Here are some tactics to navigate the system. https://t.co/ykvDkUecj0

— Bayeté (@BayeteKenan) July 10, 2022

— Bayeté Ross Smith, Harlem, New York

Patients Left Holding the Bag

Your “Diagnosis: Debt” articles are interesting and serve as further examples of how the health care industry is set up for the health care system and not the people who use it.

In the USA, medical debt should not be an issue, but we don’t teach people how to save or understand how to navigate the system. I am a nurse blogger/advocate and see the repercussions of what people go through who have inadequate insurance and lack savings or the ability to understand what is happening to them when they are thrust into the complex health care system. But, in reality, none of us really think about our health or the health care system till we are in the middle of a crisis. If we are honest, none of us are really prepared for a catastrophic event, and this is what we need to work on going further through education and advocacy.

I will continue to educate the public in my small way so people can understand their role in our health care system so they are prepared for a medical event and know that they can use their voice to speak up and advocate for themselves.

— Anne Llewellyn, Plantation, Florida

Portland has become a wasteland! Where are the environmentalists at least? Oh yeah, they're all in their gated communities, worrying about climate change and plastic straws for the rest of us. (hope you can see this LA Times article)https://t.co/WrboM9vtPs

— Bob Beddingfield (@bobbeddingfield) June 23, 2022

— Bob Beddingfield, Houston

Destination: Disaster

We visited Portland, Oregon, a year ago for a vacation and we will never go back: stores that don’t give baskets because people use them to steal. Stores that put poles on carts to keep people from racing out of the store with them full of merchandise. Closed storefronts. Homeless people everywhere (“Sobering Lessons in Untying the Knot of a Homeless Crisis,” June 21).

It was like a Third World country. I’m not a Republican, very far from it, but accepting the idea that anyone who wants can live on the streets, dump their trash, and get subsidized by the city cannot end well. And this problem is not limited to Portland. San Francisco is in a very similar situation with crime, drug abuse, and homelessness.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Throwing money at the problem and then ignoring the continuing unresolved problem hasn’t worked and, I think, never will.

The idea that a city can host an unlimited number of drug and alcohol addicts at public expense won’t work.

The idea that shoplifting, car break-ins, robberies, etc. are allowed, not arrested, not prosecuted, not punished can never work out well.

And people wonder why the Democrats are in such deep, deep trouble in spite of the horrible ideas the Republicans promote.

This will not end well.

— David Alexander, Palo Alto, California

Quite possible the best news story about our local homeless challenges I have read recently. 'Not safe anymore': Portland confronts the limits of its support for homeless services #homless #Portland https://t.co/Ujr5KzhYAi

— Ben Brown Jr. (@BenBrownJunior) June 22, 2022

— Ben Brown Jr., Beaverton, Oregon

On Wheelchair Repairs, Steering Clear of Error

As the CEO of National Seating & Mobility (NSM), I applaud the work of KHN in providing in-depth reporting about important issues in health care, including the complex rehabilitation technology (CRT) industry.

However, the recent article “Despite a First-Ever ‘Right-to-Repair’ Law, There’s No Easy Fix for Wheelchair Users” (June 2) presented several inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and errors in its characterization of NSM and our work.

The article stated that NSM and other CRT providers have limited their investments in service and repair to increase profits. NSM leadership has continuously invested in our service and repair business, including establishing a career path and certification program to professionalize the service technician role, improving onboarding and ongoing training programs, reorganizing our funding team to introduce repair-specific funding specialists to better assist clients in the repair process, investing in market analysis on competitive wages that resulted in a 15%-20% hourly pay increase for technicians, and more. In 2022, NSM has almost 500 service technicians on staff, which is 22% more technicians per count of client-delivered orders versus 2019. Our investment in service and repair is long-standing and will continue.

The article also suggested that Medicare’s use of competitive bidding favors large companies, often at the expense of quality and customer service. NSM was not part of the previous bidding session for durable medical equipment (DME) to establish current rates and was not awarded any Medicare contracts as a result. Most of the products we provide are considered CRT and are exempt from the competitive bid process and pricing. Due to section 16005 of the 21st Century Cures Act and House Bill H.R. 1865, product codes that can be used for CRT or basic DME are paid at the normal rate for CRT instead of competitive pricing.

Finally, the article makes false assumptions about our company: that we keep a limited inventory of parts, and we have little incentive to hire technicians or pay for training because we lose money with repairs.

Each mobility solution — and therefore each repair—is highly customized to a client’s needs. This customization means parts that are replaced less frequently across our client population aren’t likely to be stocked versus those parts that are frequently replaced. The current global supply chain disruption has also affected our inventory; the amount of stock we have on hand is entirely dependent upon availability. Additionally, the labor shortage our country is experiencing has created a challenge across all industries, ours included.

Repair reimbursement is a loss-leader for the CRT industry, exacerbated recently due to inflation in the supply chain and labor markets. While other companies are forced to turn down repairs due to these challenges, NSM continues to provide repairs because it is the right thing to do.

NSM is a customer service business, earning our business in every client interaction. We recognize improvements are needed, and we are committed to investing in advocacy, programs, and collaborative industry efforts to lead our industry in a new direction to improve the lives of those we serve.

— Bill Mixon, CEO of National Seating & Mobility, Franklin, Tennessee

This needs to change! It should not be so complicated to get simple repairs made to #wheelchairs!https://t.co/MpTAyeBEms via @KHNews #DisabilityRights

— W. Ron Adams (@WRonAdams) June 11, 2022

— W. Ron Adams, Erlanger, Kentucky

These folks have also worked so hard to get landmark legislation passed across the country, including a really important first step in Colorado on the right to repair wheelchairs: https://t.co/xaZPRnaYDD

— Hayley Tsukayama (@htsuka) June 3, 2022

— Hayley Tsukayama, San Francisco

Clearing the Air on Vaping vs. Smoking

I just listened to your piece on the FDA banning Juul (“KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The FDA Goes After Nicotine,” June 23). One of your panelists mentioned she’d read (actually, she said she’d read only the headline) about diacetyl (she didn’t want to even try to pronounce this) and popcorn lung.

I believe it is irresponsible for so-called scientific experts to comment on things they haven’t read properly and things they clearly have no knowledge about. Diacetyl is present in cigarette smoke in concentrations hundreds of times higher than in vape products and yet there hasn’t been a single case of popcorn lung attributed to smoking. Anything to do with the toxicity of a chemical present must surely make reference to the concentrations, putting it in context. The fact that a chemical is detectable obviously doesn’t mean that it’s harmful in the concentrations present.

There is a terrible misunderstanding among consumers and indeed health care professionals regarding the relative harms of vaping vs. smoking — given that the vast majority of vapers are ex- or current cigarette smokers, this is the relevant point.

I suggest that the scientific credibility of your program is compromised by such sloppy and inaccurate commentary.

— Mark Dickinson, Twickenham, Middlesex, United Kingdom

Be wary when big companies come in to "save" local institutions, whether it be the hometown newspaper, local education or the hospital.https://t.co/gV4ZJDkR71

— Dave Gragg (@DaveGragg) June 15, 2022

— Dave Gragg, Republic, Missouri

Shoring Up Rural Care

Since 2010, 138 rural hospitals have closed, leaving many communities without access to health care. In rural areas, this can create a domino effect of other hardships — a hospital often serves as the largest employer, and when these facilities shut down, the hardware store or restaurants often face similar fates. Put simply, when a rural hospital shutters, it becomes harder for the town itself to survive (“Patients for Profit: Buy and Bust: When Private Equity Comes for Rural Hospitals,” June 15).

Then there is the most critical aspect: Without hospitals, rural Americans lose timely access to lifesaving medical care. On average, the distance between a rural hospital and the closest facility with 100 or more acute care beds is 28.9 miles. Preserving access to care in our rural communities and ensuring hospitals remain the cornerstone of the economy is essential. This is why addressing the hospital closure crisis must be a top priority in Congress.

To determine what needs to be done, it can be helpful to examine the cause of the crisis. Multiple factors have contributed to the high number of rural hospital closures over the past decade, with two major factors being slim or negative hospital operating margins and workforce shortages. The covid-19 pandemic has further strained the health care industry, leading to increased levels of provider burnout and perpetuating the workforce shortage.

On top of this, rural providers continue to feel the strain of Medicare sequestration, which reduces eligible payments to rural hospitals from Medicare by 2%. Relief from Medicare sequestration during the pandemic expired on April 1, contributing to the financial burdens rural hospitals already face. With many rural hospitals already operating on negative margins, these decreased reimbursements could be disastrous.

Further, due to recent statutory changes, provider-based rural health clinics affiliated with small rural hospitals are not eligible for cost-based reimbursement as they historically were. Unless Congress addresses this shortcoming, it may not be financially feasible for small rural hospitals to provide primary care in these settings, and care gaps in rural communities may widen.

Reps. Sam Graves, a Republican from Missouri, and Jared Huffman, a Democrat from California, worked together to introduce the Save America’s Rural Hospital Act. This legislation will help rural health care providers keep their doors open and ensure rural communities have access to the care they need and deserve.

For example, it will permanently eliminate Medicare sequestration for rural hospitals, allowing these facilities to be reimbursed for the entirety of their eligible cost. It will make permanent increased Medicare payments for ground ambulance services in rural and super rural areas. Further, this bill will reauthorize the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program to provide new grants to help eligible rural providers transition to new models and evolve to meet community needs in their changing health care environments.

To address potential primary care shortages, it will also create a voluntary quality measure reporting program for provider-based rural health clinics. If these facilities choose to participate, they will receive increased reimbursement in exchange.

Health care access is critical to preserving the rural way of life for more than 60 million rural Americans. This legislation must be considered to ensure stability in our communities, which will ultimately benefit the country as a whole.

— Alan Morgan, CEO of NRHA, Kansas City, Missouri

In short, our system is not set up for the unique needs of rural hospitals, making them financially stretched. Private equity swoops in, buys the hospital, takes the COVID-19 relief money, closes the hospital, then runs. #ruralhealth https://t.co/qZBHG7yeeH

— Whitney Zahnd (@WhitneyZahnd) June 15, 2022

— Whitney Zahnd, Iowa City, Iowa

A Pitch for Integrated Behavioral Health

I am a clinical psychologist who works at a large, safety-net academic health center in Colorado. I am writing about your recent article “Patients Seek Mental Health Care From Their Doctor but Find Health Plans Standing in the Way” (June 8). I appreciate the focus of this article on some of the barriers patients face in trying to access mental health care in the U.S. However, I was a little concerned that your article did not mention the rapidly growing field of integrated behavioral health. Although I understand that not all primary care providers’ offices employ an integrated behavioral health clinician, the numbers are growing quickly across the country. For example, in the hospital where I work, there is at least one IBH clinician in every community primary care center, and in most of the specialty clinics (e.g. oncology, OB-GYN) as well.

While I think PCPs are certainly able to dispense basic-level mental health advice (e.g., abdominal breathing exercises for anxiety), I don’t think the answer is to turn over mental health care to medical professionals, any more than I believe it would be a good idea to turn over a patient’s diabetes management to a psychologist, even if that psychologist had some basic training in how to treat diabetes. Instead, I believe it is in patients’ best interests to continue to advocate and nurture a team-based approach that includes both medical and mental health specialists within the same clinic.

— Trina Seefeldt, Denver

This madness must stop. Most of us in primary care do address/treat mental health problems. #insurance #healthcare #SinglePayer would solve this. Patients Seek Mental Health Care From Their Doctor But Find Health Plans Standing in the Way https://t.co/YyAzJ0GylL via @khnews

— Andrea DeSantis DO (@adesantisb) June 10, 2022

— Dr. Andrea DeSantis, Charlotte, North Carolina

In Defense of Free Clinics

I was reading with interest — and then dismay — at your article published June 23 on the Hispanic insurance gap (“Trump’s Legacy Looms Large as Colorado Aims to Close the Hispanic Insurance Gap”). In the opening paragraphs, you reference a man who had symptoms that “free clinics told him were hemorrhoids but were actually colon cancer.”

In that one phrase, you single-handedly and forcefully implied that free clinics deliver poor care and are not to be trusted. With the next sentence about his tragic death, you solidify that implication.

As a charitable clinic with more than 26 years of serving the uninsured in our community, I take great exception to this careless mischaracterization of a sector that has delivered high-quality care to millions of people who have fallen through the cracks.

Most free and charitable clinics care for people with absolutely no insurance. This can significantly limit the amount of outside testing and diagnostics that can be done with patients, even if they are symptomatic. Up until this year, our clinic had absolutely no option for sending someone to a gastroenterologist for a colonoscopy unless they were willing to pay out-of-pocket — upward of $5,000. We have to regularly tell people that we do not have any good options for them because we cannot access certain specialists or tests. Do they need it? Yes. Can we provide it to them? No. Does this incredible inequity and frustration with the health care system that prevents our patients from getting the advanced care they need weigh on us every day? Absolutely.

Free and charitable clinics are not part of the problem. They are part of the solution. And the broad generalization you made impacts how the public perceives this incredibly important piece of the health care sector.

For more information on free and charitable clinics, I invite readers to learn about the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics at https://nafcclinics.org/.

— Suzanne Hoban, executive director of Family Health Partnership Clinic, Crystal Lake, Illinois

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Readers and Tweeters Weigh In on America’s Medical Debt, Obesity Epidemic, and Opioid Battles

KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.

So, you're American, you have a lousy health insurance plan, you get cancer. You survive cancer. But can you survive your massive medical $$$ debt?https://t.co/e6Jzw9W4SR

— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) June 17, 2022

— Laurie Garrett, New York City

Medical Debt as the Ultimate Medical Mystery

I read your investigation about health care and debt on NPR’s site (“Diagnosis: Debt: 100 Million People in America Are Saddled With Health Care Debt,” June 16). However, it seems the story’s focus is wrong. It shouldn’t be about how we pay for these astronomical medical bills but why are they so high to begin with? How do hospitals get away with their fees? For example, my daughter, who is 7, has been to the hospital/emergency room five times in her life. Each bill has been completely different with no rhyme or reason. The latest one was $7,000 for about a three-hour ER visit and for two IVs! It’s the highest bill we have ever seen, and that includes a two-night stay at a hospital. In addition to this bill, collections called us — and it hadn’t even been 60 days since our visit and had been only a few weeks since the hospital visit. So now our credit score could be affected, and we haven’t even had a chance to review or figure out how to pay this bill. Would love all this explained.

— Ilyssa Block, Kansas City, Missouri

A Hard-Learned History Lesson

Although I liked the article by Noam N. Levey and Aneri Pattani on people burdened by medical debt (“Diagnosis: Debt: Upended: How Medical Debt Changed Their Lives,” June 16), it uses the term “grandfathered in.” This term was used as a rule to prevent Black people from voting after the Civil War. Please make an effort to refrain from using this offensive term.

— MB Piccirilli, Portland, Oregon

Upended: How Medical Debt Changed Their Lives https://t.co/IbJwJoOt3N @khnews This has to stop! NFP healthcare systems destroying the lives of the people they are designed to serve?!? Unethical. STOP! #healthcare #UniversalHealthCare #MedicareForAll #bankruptcy

— Andrew Gallan PhD ⛳️🇺🇦 (@agallan) June 20, 2022

— Andrew Gallan, Boca Raton, Florida

Steering Clear of Predatory Billing

Every month I see and hear these “Bill of the Month” stories on NPR’s webpage or broadcast on the NPR affiliate station in my area (“Her First Colonoscopy Cost Her $0. Her Second Cost $2,185. Why?” May 31). Every month I pat myself on the back for having decided that there is no way I am ever going to put myself through so-called screenings, which are just one more avenue for the U.S. health delivery system to screw people over as that health delivery system is well aware that there is no oversight for this type of predatory billing. I can tell you at my age and with only Social Security retirement as sole income, I couldn’t ever hope to hire legal help to dispute a bill like those featured in “Bill of the Month” — a bill like that would either cause me to have an immediate heart attack or file bankruptcy or both. Nope. No screenings. I actually have decided that, if I have any choice in the matter, I will simply forgo any so-called medical care. Obviously, if I keel over and pass out and someone hauls my sorry self into the emergency room, I won’t have the choice (except to walk out once “revived”). Given the state of health care and the predatory behaviors of the bottom-lining money-hungry hospitals, clinics, and even just doctors, my choice is simply to opt out. KHN needs to use its voice to tell the U.S. medical community that people are so tired of the garbage that they simply refuse care.

— Jan Baldwin, Coburg, Oregon

First colonoscopy: $0Second colonoscopy: $2kAnother example of how the fine print can put patients on the hook for bills that should be covered, especially in this case of a preventative screening. Patients deserve better.https://t.co/v55XVdGAeB

— Terry Wilcox (@Terrilox) June 2, 2022

— Terry Wilcox, Vienna, Virginia

In Michelle Andrews’ story about unexpected costs after a polyp removal during a colonoscopy, she states the anesthesiologist “merely administers a sedative.” This is an understatement. Anesthesiologists perform a review of the patient’s chart, see the patient pre-procedure, monitor their vitals during the procedure, and assess them post-procedurally. Furthermore, anesthesiologists are prepared to manage unexpected emergencies, including unexpected aspiration, allergic reactions, cardiac arrest, etc. This is more than “merely administering a sedative.”

We keep folks from dying or having complications and train a long time to do so. The flippant manner in which our actions are framed in the article is unfortunate.

— Dr. Elizabeth Leweling, Chicago

Preventive care, like screening colonoscopies, are free of charge to patients under the Affordable Care Act. @DrLindaMD @AlexMMTri @EvanKirstel @FriedbergEric @nkagetsu @rstraxMDhttps://t.co/qLP9l5SSPl

— Ian Weissman, DO (@DrIanWeissman) June 1, 2022

— Dr. Ian Weissman, Milwaukee

As president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, I listened with interest to a recent segment on “All Things Considered” regarding patient cost sharing for a screening colonoscopy. The segment featured patient Elizabeth Melville, who received a bill for her screening colonoscopy that involved a removal of a polyp.

I was dismayed by the segment, which included several factually incorrect and misleading statements by Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, and which were incredibly damaging to efforts to eliminate impediments and misinformation about screening colonoscopy. ASGE has been at the forefront of policy efforts to eliminate patient out-of-pocket costs for screening colonoscopy, including those screenings that involve the removal of a polyp or other tissue. As the segment correctly noted, the Affordable Care Act provides for coverage without patient cost sharing of preventive services that have an “A” or “B” rating from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which includes colorectal cancer screening. Recognizing that colonoscopy is the only cancer screening modality that also allows for actual removal of precancerous lesions in real time (and thus preventing the cancer), it is particularly important that patients and consumers understand the facts.

Following passage of the ACA, legislative and regulatory corrective actions have been necessary to ensure that patients who undergo a screening colonoscopy that includes a polyp removal are not stuck with a surprise bill. As noted, screening colonoscopy is a unique preventive service in that it not only detects cancer, but it can prevent it through removal of suspicious or potentially precancerous polyps or lesions. In 2020, Congress passed legislation that would phase out by 2030 cost sharing for Medicare beneficiaries when a screening colonoscopy turns diagnostic during the screening encounter. That means, if a Medicare beneficiary has a screening colonoscopy today and a polyp is removed, that patient is likely to have an out-of-pocket payment obligation.

The difference in cost-sharing rules for commercially insured patients and Medicare beneficiaries has created confusion for patients, and the changes in regulation have created complex billing scenarios. Dr. Rosenthal referred to billing for colonoscopy as a “gray area.” This is not a gray area to ASGE, as coding rules are clear. But there are scenarios that could impact whether a patient has an out-of-pocket obligation for a colonoscopy. For example, often insurers will not cover a screening colonoscopy without cost sharing if the screening occurs less than 10 years after the patient’s previous colonoscopy. These shorter screening intervals typically occur when a patient is considered high-risk, or if there was a finding during the previous colonoscopy, such as a polyp, as used in your illustration. Many insurers regard these colonoscopies as “surveillance” or “high-risk” colonoscopies and will not cover them as a preventive screening without cost sharing. This is not the decision of the physician or hospital; this is a decision made by the insurance company.

I was particularly struck by Dr. Rosenthal’s comment that “it is not OK to change the game in the middle of the test,” which leads to a patient getting a bill. I want to be very clear that when a patient is scheduled for a screening colonoscopy, the physician performing the colonoscopy has no idea whether a polyp or tissue will be found and will need to be removed. This is not a “gotcha” game that physicians are playing with patients, as insinuated by Dr. Rosenthal’s remarks; there are coding and billing rules that must be followed when facilities and physicians are submitting claims to insurance companies. ASGE continually works to ensure that we educate and promulgate coding rules and updated guidance for our 15,000 members worldwide.

The cost-sharing policy for colorectal cancer screening, and screening colonoscopy specifically, is complex and confusing. We are disappointed that NPR did not use the segment as an opportunity to work through the complexity to provide consumers with a better guide of questions to ask their insurance company before scheduling a colonoscopy, including whether a screening colonoscopy performed at an interval of less than 10 years will be covered under their health plan without cost sharing.

— Dr. Bret T. Petersen, ASGE president, Rochester, Minnesota

Great Bill of the Month reporting today by @mandrews110 for @KHNews. Nobody likes getting a colonoscopy. Patients shouldn't be penalized for doing the right thing and getting recommended cancer screenings: https://t.co/cNlEj85IZ4

— Ryan Holeywell (@RyanHoleywell) May 31, 2022

— Ryan Holeywell, Washington, D.C.

Taking the Doctor’s Advice

Dr. Taison Bell was wonderful to listen to (“Watch: UVA Doctor Talks About the State of the Pandemic and Health Equity,” May 26). I really appreciated his presentation and the valuable things he had to say. Thanks for including it in your KHN mailing!

— Jan McDermott, San Francisco

I spoke with ⁦@hnorms⁩ from ⁦@KHNews⁩ about the state of the pandemic and health equity. There is still a lot to be done to movement smart policies that help high risk communities of color. https://t.co/LAf2WCIN0X

— Dr. Taison Bell (@TaisonBell) May 26, 2022

— Dr. Taison Bell, Charlottesville, Virginia

Mad Over ‘New MADD’ Coverage

This article is grossly inaccurate and insulting (“The New MADD Movement: Parents Rise Up Against Drug Deaths,” May 23). Most fentanyl users are not all-star athletes or honor students. Their parents are not more educated than the parents of addicts. And the parents of addicts have been mobilized for years, with many feeling that the fentanyl movement has distracted attention away from needed health care. The article says that the drugs are being introduced by Mexican cartels that seek vengeance against low-level dealers, many of whom are just friends getting things for one another. The article distinguishes between drug users and fentanyl “victims,” creating and reinforcing the stigma these groups claim to be trying to eliminate. It does a great disservice to those of us who lost children to addiction and overdose, and is insulting to our children and to us as parents. Thank you.

— Susan Elamri, Detroit

Interesting read detailing the lack of accountability for drug dealers selling fentanyl laced counterfeit pills resulting in death/overdoses. Consequences and rehabilitation should not be mutually exclusive solutions, we can do both. https://t.co/KlvBH3O1kq

— Chief Paco Balderrama (@BalderramaPaco) May 23, 2022

— Paco Balderrama, chief of police, Fresno, California

When ‘Overweight’ Is ‘Normal’

Quoting from the article “‘Almost Like Malpractice’: To Shed Bias, Doctors Get Schooled to Look Beyond Obesity” (May 24): “Research has long shown that doctors are less likely to respect patients who are overweight or obese, even as nearly three-quarters of adults in the U.S. now fall into one of those categories.”

Perhaps the answer is to change the scale of weight. Why do 25% of adults get to be called “normal” and 75% of adults are “overweight”? Let’s base the decision on reality-based observation!

— Leslie Rigg, Lake Worth Beach, Florida

1) Anti-fat bias is real and certainly an issue. For physicians and others who treat people with #obesity, the question becomes where to draw the line. 'Almost Like Malpractice': To Shed Bias, Doctors Get Schooled to Look Beyond Obesity https://t.co/ap127widIs via @khnews

— Stewart Lonky, MD (@LonkyMD) May 24, 2022

— Dr. Stewart Lonky, Los Angeles

Innocent Until Proven Otherwise

I wanted to raise a concern about the story “‘Desperate Situation’: States Are Housing High-Needs Foster Kids in Offices and Hotels” (June 1) — and it’s certainly not unique to your story. It says:

“These children already face tremendous challenges, having been given up by their parents voluntarily or removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment.”

Sometimes, of course, that’s true. But no reporter would write that every person in jail is a criminal. Many are awaiting trial and can’t make bail. Similarly, children can be in foster care for weeks, even months before any court ever determines if they have been “abused” or “neglected.” Until then, they are in foster care because their parents have been *accused* of abuse or neglect.

(Also, by the way, neglect laws are so broad and vague that often what the parent really is guilty of is poverty — but that’s another issue.)

— Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, Alexandria, Virginia

[Editor’s note: Thanks so much for your insight. The article has been updated to reflect that the parents are absent “due to accusations of abuse, neglect, or abandonment.”]

.@sclaudwhithead looks at "hoteling," Georgia's practice that makes high-need foster kids sometimes sleep in hotels or offices. The pandemic made the problem worse, but state lawmakers spent more to try to pay extra for foster parents to take kids. #gapol https://t.co/xRXbKCSVEM

— Jeff Amy (@jeffamy) June 1, 2022

— Jeff Amy, Atlanta

Key to Harm Reduction: Buy-In From People With Addiction

With overdose deaths skyrocketing to never-before-seen levels, the United States needs harm reduction strategies to protect the health and wellness of Americans. In 2020, 41 million Americans needed substance use treatment within the previous year; however, of those who needed such treatment but did not receive it at a specialty facility, a staggering 97.5% did not feel they needed it. Although America has a troubling treatment gap exacerbated by systemic legal and regulatory barriers to evidence-based addiction care, most people who need substance use treatment don’t want this treatment as it is currently being offered.

To support our friends and family members living with addiction, our system must also embrace harm reduction approaches that engage people who use drugs (PWUD) before they are ready for abstinence-based treatment (“As Biden Fights Overdoses, Harm Reduction Groups Face Local Opposition,” June 14).

Harm reduction saves lives. Drug checking services and naloxone distribution prevent overdose deaths, while syringe and related service programs help stop the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. These are all worthy ends in themselves, but harm reduction has the further benefit of building a meaningful alliance between health care professionals and PWUD. With this therapeutic relationship, PWUD have facilitated access to high-quality, evidence-based treatment and services when they become ready for this help. It’s an obvious point, but too many people overlook the fact that a person can’t receive treatment or enter recovery if they’re dead.

As a physician, I swore an oath to do no harm — not to do nothing. Failing to embrace and expand harm reduction efforts, by definition, leaves too many of our friends, family members, and loved ones at an unacceptable risk of dying. The dichotomy between offering more addiction treatment and providing PWUD with the tools they need to live healthier lives is a false choice. The United States must simultaneously invest in treatment expansion and increase the availability of low-threshold harm reduction services; otherwise, I fear the country’s addiction and drug overdose crisis will continue to get worse.

— Dr. Brian Hurley, president-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s Board of Directors, Los Angeles

. @POTUS wants to expand #harmreduction programs as part of strategy to reduce #drug #overdose deaths, but idea faces complicated reality on the ground as programs operate on fringes of legality, w/ scant budgets, & fierce opposition. @renurayasam @khnews https://t.co/qbSBtMkn38 pic.twitter.com/pYV8mB1nEc

— Deni Carise (@DeniCarise) June 21, 2022

— Deni Carise, Philadelphia

How to Beat the Opioid Epidemic

Do you want to control the scourge of fentanyl in America (“The Blackfeet Nation’s Plight Underscores the Fentanyl Crisis on Reservations,” May 25)? There are two options:

1. Distribute the drug solely by the government, ensuring its purity, proper dosage, and safe setting for the user, providing real-time overdose care and optional consulting for anyone who wants to quit, all for free.

2. Make some nonaddictive antidepressants (generally SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) less restrictive. You know, how health care in your country is expensive, visiting a psychiatrist or psychologist, refilling, blah-blah. I know, the nation who can’t agree on banning AR-15s from being sold to 18-year-olds won’t agree on this.

What if you let people have some SSRIs over the counter? These are not recreational, are generally safe (way safer than opioids), and do help with anxiety. Hey, what drives people to opioids? Aren’t anxiety levels at their highest all across the globe?

Also, the drugmaker mafia will support it.

Just as we have embraced over-the-counter drugs for widespread diseases like colds, we might adopt the same concept in mental health care as well. Anxiety is becoming more widespread compared with colds (my gut says).

— Alireza Mohamadi, Tehran, Iran

Fentanyl spreads west, including to the Blackfeet Nation.https://t.co/ZrykuZQ06c

— Keith Humphreys (@KeithNHumphreys) May 25, 2022

— Keith Humphreys, Stanford, California

Dust-Up Over Pollution Coverage

This article appears written from a lopsided viewpoint (“Some People in This Montana Mining Town Worry About the Dust Next Door,” June 8).

Very few cities pass the World Health Organization’s unrealistic threshold of 5 micrograms per cubic meter, and why would you get a mechanical engineer to provide input on environmental issues? Why, because the real environmental specialist said this was not an issue? As for dust on a picnic table, that is a horrible example. We get dust on our picnic table anytime the wind blows, and we don’t live by a mine. Maybe WHO should recommend that the wind stop blowing because it causes dust.

From the WHO’s website: “In 2019, 99% of the world population was living in places where the WHO air quality guidelines levels were not met.” This is not a reasonable standard and was selected by bureaucrats that are out of touch with life and the real world. All of the real information and statistics say there is not a problem, but your article makes a problem where one does not exist and people who are not willing to fact-check you will think there is a problem. All these people with health issues are unfortunate and that’s very sad, but people everywhere have sad health issues. Stick to the scientific facts and real monitoring numbers, and don’t drag “The Sky Is Falling” people into news articles. Facts matter!

— John Utaz, Salt Lake City

Cultivating an interest in ‘dusts’ at the moment and this article includes extractive industries/ mining. https://t.co/JsXCA7rxkD

— Cat Rushmore (@CatRushmore) June 9, 2022

— Cat Rushmore, Glasgow, Scotland

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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¿Puede una inyección mensual frenar la adicción a opioides? Expertos dicen que sí

Una opción inyectable mensual para el tratamiento de la adicción a opioides no logra llegar a todos los que la necesitan por las trabas burocráticas para obtener el medicamento.

Oakland, California.- El doctor Andrew Herring tiene un objetivo claro con los pacientes que buscan medicamentos para tratar la adicción a opioides: persuadirlos de que reciban una inyección de buprenorfina de liberación prolongada.

En su clínica de adicciones en el Hospital Highland, un centro público en el corazón de Oakland, Herring promueve la administración de una inyección de buprenorfina en la barriga para proporcionar un mes de tratamiento, en lugar de recetar versiones orales que deben tomarse a diario.

Asegura que esta opción es un “cambio de juego” y que puede ser su única oportunidad de ayudar a un paciente vulnerable en riesgo de sobredosis.

En California, donde las muertes por sobredosis han estado aumentado, expertos en adicciones dicen que administrar un mes de medicamento tiene un gran potencial, particularmente para las personas sin vivienda o que luchan contra otras formas de inestabilidad.

Sin embargo, el uso de buprenorfina inyectable sigue siendo bastante limitado, especialmente en comparación con otras formas de medicación para la adicción. Los investigadores aún tienen que publicar estudios que comparen diferentes formas de administrar buprenorfina.

La buprenorfina, uno de los tres medicamentos aprobados en los Estados Unidos para tratar el trastorno por uso de opioides, funciona uniéndose a los receptores de opioides en el cerebro y reduciendo las ansias y los síntomas de abstinencia.

Así, si un paciente toma una dosis alta de una droga como la heroína o el fentanilo, es menos probable que sufra una sobredosis. Los pacientes a menudo usan buprenorfina durante años.

Si Herring receta un suministro de buprenorfina en forma de tableta o de una tira que se coloca debajo de la lengua, el paciente debe comprometerse a tomar el medicamento al menos una vez al día, y muchos dejan de hacerlo.

“Es como algo religioso: tienes que levantarte cada mañana y repetir tus votos”, dijo Herring. “En realidad, hay muchas personas que merecen un tratamiento y que no pueden cumplir con ese requisito”.

Las formas orales de buprenorfina han estado disponibles para tratar la adicción desde 2002 y se pueden comprar como genéricos por menos de $100 al mes.

La buprenorfina inyectable, vendida bajo la marca Sublocade, recibió la aprobación de la FDA en 2017. Tiene un precio de lista alto, de $1,829.05 por una inyección mensual. El fabricante Indivior reportó ganancias de $244 millones por la venta de la droga, solo el año pasado, y pronostica alcanzar los $1,000 millones. No hay disponible una versión genérica o competidora del medicamento.

La mayoría de los pacientes no pagarán el precio completo, dice Indivior, su fabricante, porque la mayoría de los planes de salud cubren el medicamento. Los médicos, sin embargo, dicen que el alto costo puede ser una barrera para los pacientes con planes privados, que a veces se resisten a cubrir el medicamento.

Medi-Cal, el programa de seguro médico de California para personas de bajos ingresos, cubre Sublocade sin autorización previa, lo que hace que el tratamiento sea accesible para la mayoría de los pacientes de Herring.

Aún así, expertos en adicciones dicen que el uso de Sublocade sigue siendo limitado debido a los obstáculos normativos necesarios para administrarlo.

Los proveedores deben registrarse en la Administración de Control de Drogas (DEA) y obtener una exención para recetar buprenorfina porque se considera una sustancia controlada. Además, las clínicas deben completar un programa de certificación de seguridad de la FDA para dispensar el medicamento. Y solo puede pedirse a través de una farmacia especializada, aprobada por la FDA.

“En muchos hospitales, eso significará un retraso en la obtención de este medicamento o simplemente optar por no recibirlo”, dijo el doctor Rais Vohra, director regional de California Bridge Network, un programa financiado por el estado que apoya a los hospitales para que ofrezcan tratamiento para adicciones, incluida la clínica de Herring.

Vohra dijo que el Centro Médico Regional Comunitario en Fresno, donde trabaja como médico de emergencia, todavía está revisando los requisitos para ver si la farmacia del hospital puede distribuir el medicamento, lo que lo convertiría en uno de los pocos proveedores del Valle Central.

La buprenorfina oral, por el contrario, es una receta simple que la mayoría de las farmacias locales tienen en stock.

“Todos los obstáculos que los médicos y los pacientes tienen que superar para obtener este medicamento son una locura. No hacemos eso para ninguna otra enfermedad”, dijo la doctora Hannah Snyder, quien dirige la clínica de adicciones en el Hospital General Zuckerberg de San Francisco.

Varios médicos señalaron que el acceso sigue siendo un problema incluso con formas orales de buprenorfina. A pesar de una cascada de estudios que prueban la eficacia del tratamiento asistido por medicamentos, muchos médicos se resisten a recetarlo, especialmente en comunidades de color.

“La pregunta más importante no es si la bupre inyectable de acción prolongada es una mejor solución”, dijo el doctor Michael Ostacher, profesor de la Escuela de Medicina de la Universidad de Stanford, que compara las versiones inyectables y orales de buprenorfina a través de Veteran Affairs. “La pregunta más importante es cómo aumentamos el acceso al tratamiento para todas las personas que lo necesitan”.

Angela Griffiths se encuentra entre los pacientes que dicen que Sublocade ha cambiado sus vidas. Griffiths, de 41 años, de San Francisco, usó heroína durante 18 años. Cuando estaba embarazada de su hija en 2016, los médicos le recetaron metadona, lo que la hizo sentir “miserable”. Hace tres años cambió a tiras de buprenorfina, pero llevar las tiras a todas partes todavía la hacía sentir atada a su adicción.

Cuando los médicos de la clínica general de SF la cambiaron a inyecciones mensuales de Sublocade, describió el cambio como “extraordinario”.

En los estados donde los planes de Medicaid aún pueden requerir autorización previa, las esperas para Sublocade pueden extenderse a meses. Al otro lado de la frontera, en la clínica Northern Nevada Hopes en Reno, Nevada, por ejemplo, la doctora Taylor Tomlinson dijo que les dice a los pacientes que, entre las batallas por la cobertura y los retrasos en las farmacias, es posible que tengan que esperar dos meses para recibir una inyección.

“El tiempo de espera crea una barrera para la atención”, opinó Tomlinson

El programa de Medicaid de California no requiere autorización previa, pero proporcionar Sublocade sigue siendo un desafío. Herring ha podido reducir parte de la burocracia en su clínica de Oakland trabajando con la farmacia de Highland para almacenar y distribuir Sublocade.

Tan pronto como un paciente acepta una inyección, Herring simplemente llama a la farmacia al final del pasillo y se la administra en el acto.

Herring ve la urgencia de aumentar el uso de buprenorfina inyectable a medida que aumenta el uso de fentanilo en California. Durante años, el mortal opioide sintético se concentró principalmente en la costa este; en 2018, el 88% de estas muertes ocurrieron en los 28 estados al este del río Mississippi.

Pero más recientemente, el fentanilo ha comenzado a infiltrarse en los estados occidentales. De 2018 a 2020, las muertes por sobredosis de fentanilo en California se quintuplicaron, según datos estatales.

“Nadie entiende a lo que se enfrenta”, dijo Herring sobre la potencia del fentanilo. “Este es el momento en el que ocurrirán un mayor número de muertes”.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Can a Monthly Injection Be the Key to Curbing Addiction? These Experts Say Yes

In California, where overdose deaths are on the rise, physicians say administering anti-addiction medication as a monthly injection holds tremendous potential. So, why aren’t more patients getting it?

OAKLAND, Calif. — Dr. Andrew Herring has a clear goal walking into every appointment with patients seeking medication to treat an opioid use disorder: persuade them to get an injection of extended-release buprenorphine.

At his addiction clinic at Highland Hospital, a bustling public facility in the heart of Oakland, Herring promotes administering a shot of buprenorphine in the belly to provide a month of addiction treatment rather than prescribing oral versions that must be taken daily. For him, the shots’ longer-acting protection is a “game changer” and may be his only chance to help a vulnerable patient at risk of overdose.

“At any point in time, they’re just a balloon that’s going to go,” Herring said. “You might only have this one interaction. And the question is, how powerful can you make it?”

In California, where overdose deaths have been rising for years, addiction experts say administering a month’s worth of anti-addiction medication holds great potential, particularly for people without housing or who struggle with other forms of instability. Yet despite its promise, the use of injectable buprenorphine remains fairly limited, especially compared with other forms of addiction medication. Researchers have yet to publish studies comparing different ways to administer buprenorphine.

Buprenorphine, one of three medications approved in the U.S. to treat opioid use disorder, works by binding to opioid receptors in the brain and reducing cravings and withdrawal symptoms. And because it occupies those receptor sites, buprenorphine keeps other opioids from binding and ensures that if a patient takes a high dose of a drug like heroin or fentanyl, they are less likely to overdose. Patients often stay on buprenorphine for years.

If Herring prescribes a supply of buprenorphine as a tablet or film that is placed under the tongue, the patient must commit to taking the medication at least once a day, and many fall out of treatment. He said this is especially true for his patients experiencing homelessness and those who also use methamphetamine.

“It’s like a religious thing — you have to wake up every morning and repeat your vows,” said Herring. “In reality, there are a lot of people who deserve treatment who can’t meet that requirement.”

Oral forms of buprenorphine have been available to treat addiction since 2002 and can be purchased as a generic for less than $100 a month. Injectable buprenorphine, sold under the brand name Sublocade, received FDA approval in 2017. It has a hefty list price of $1,829.05 for a monthly injection. The drugmaker Indivior reported $244 million in revenue from Sublocade last year alone, with a company goal to eventually make $1 billion in annual sales. No generic or competing version of the drug is available.

Most patients won’t pay full price, Indivior says, because most health plans cover the drug. Physicians, however, say the high cost can be a barrier for patients with private health plans, which sometimes resist covering the medication. Medi-Cal, California’s health insurance program for low-income people, covers Sublocade without prior authorization, making the treatment accessible to the majority of Herring’s patients.

Still, addiction experts say, Sublocade use remains limited because of the regulatory hurdles required to dispense it.

Providers must register with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and obtain a waiver to prescribe buprenorphine because it’s considered a controlled substance. In addition, clinics must complete an FDA safety certification program to dispense the medication. And Sublocade can be ordered only by a specialty pharmacy, which must also pass the FDA program.

“At many hospitals, that will mean either a delay in getting this medication on our shelves or just opting out,” said Dr. Rais Vohra, regional director for the California Bridge Network, a state-funded program that supports hospitals in offering treatment for substance use disorders, including Herring’s clinic.

Vohra said Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, where he works as an emergency physician, is still looking through the documentation requirements to see if the hospital’s pharmacy can distribute the medication — which would make it one of the few Central Valley providers to do so.

Oral buprenorphine, by contrast, is a simple prescription that most local drugstores keep in stock.

“All the hoops that clinicians and patients have to jump through to get this medication is crazy. We don’t do that for any other disease,” said Dr. Hannah Snyder, who runs the addiction clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital across the bay.

Several clinicians noted that access remains a problem even with oral forms of buprenorphine. Despite a cascade of studies proving the effectiveness of medication-assisted treatment, many patients across the country struggle to find a provider willing to prescribe buprenorphine in any form — especially in communities of color.

“The most important question isn’t whether long-acting injectable bupe is a better solution than sublingual buprenorphine for opioid use disorder,” said Dr. Michael Ostacher, a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, who is comparing injectable and oral versions of buprenorphine through Veterans Affairs. “The bigger question is how we increase access to treatment for all people who need [the medication].”

Angela Griffiths is among the patients who say Sublocade has changed their lives. Griffiths, 41, of San Francisco, used heroin for 18 years. When she was pregnant with her daughter in 2016, doctors put her on methadone, which made her feel “miserable.” Three years ago, she said, she switched to buprenorphine films, but carrying the strips with her everywhere still made her feel tied to her addiction.

“The ritual of taking something every day plays something in your mind,” Griffiths said.

When doctors at the SF General clinic switched her to monthly Sublocade injections, she described the change as “extraordinary.”

“I’m not reaching for my drawer anymore for a fix,” she said. “I have the freedom to wake up and start my day however I want, whether it’s to go to the patio and drink a cup of coffee or to snuggle with my daughter in bed a little longer. It’s there; I don’t have to take anything.”

In states where Medicaid plans may still require prior authorization, waits for Sublocade can stretch into months. Across the border at the Northern Nevada Hopes clinic in Reno, Nevada, for example, Dr. Taylor Tomlinson said she tells patients that between battles for coverage and pharmacy delays, they might have to wait two months for an injection.

“I’m always going to offer it to a patient who I think would be a good candidate, but in the time they have to wait, they get interested in other things,” said Tomlinson. “It creates a barrier to care.”

California’s Medicaid program does not require prior authorization but providing Sublocade is still a challenge. At the Placerville clinic supported by the California Bridge Network, Dr. Juliet La Mers, the director, said a quarter of her buprenorphine patients get injections. Still, they often wait two weeks before Sublocade arrives from the specialty pharmacy.

Herring has been able to cut through some of that red tape at his Oakland clinic by working with the Highland pharmacy to stock and distribute Sublocade. As soon as a patient agrees to an injection, Herring simply calls the pharmacy down the hall and administers it on the spot.

Herring sees urgency — and opportunity — to increase the use of injectable buprenorphine as fentanyl use rises across California. For years, the deadly synthetic opioid was concentrated mostly on the East Coast; in 2018, 88% of deaths from synthetic opioids occurred in the 28 states east of the Mississippi River. But more recently, fentanyl has begun to infiltrate Western states. From 2018 to 2020, deaths from fentanyl overdoses in California quintupled, according to state data.

“No one understands what they’re dealing with,” Herring said of fentanyl’s potency. “This is the time where our greatest deaths are going to occur.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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At a Tennessee Crossroads, Two Pharmacies, a Monkey, and Millions of Pills

Prosecutors say opioid-seeking patients drove hours to get their prescriptions filled in Celina, Tennessee, where pharmacies ignored signs of substance misuse and paid cash — or “monkey bucks” — to keep customers coming back.

CELINA, Tenn. — It was about 1 a.m. on April 19, 2016, when a burglary alarm sounded at Dale Hollow Pharmacy in Celina, a tiny town in the rolling, wooded hills near the Kentucky border.

Two cops responded. As their flashlights bobbed in the darkness, shining through the pharmacy windows, they spotted a sign of a break-in: pill bottles scattered on the floor.

The cops called the co-owner, Thomas Weir, who arrived within minutes and let them in. But as quickly as their flashlights beamed behind the counter, Weir demanded the cops leave. He said he’d rather someone “steal everything” than let them finish their search, according to a police report and body camera footage from the scene.

“Get out of there right now!” Weir shouted, as if shooing off a mischievous dog. “Get out of there!”

The cops argued with Weir as he escorted them out. They left the pharmacy more suspicious than when they’d arrived, triggering a probe in a small town engulfed in one of the most outsize concentrations of opioids in a pill-ravaged nation.

Nearly six years later, federal prosecutors have unveiled a rare criminal case alleging that Celina pharmacy owners intentionally courted opioid seekers by filling dangerous prescriptions that would have been rejected elsewhere. The pharmacies are accused of giving cash handouts to keep customers coming back, and one allegedly distributed its own currency, “monkey bucks,” inspired by a pet monkey that was once a common sight behind the counter. Two pharmacists admitted in plea agreements they attracted large numbers of patients from “long distances” by ignoring red flags indicating pills were being misused or resold. In their wake, prosecutors say, these Celina pharmacies left a rash of addiction, overdoses, deaths, and millions in wasted tax dollars.

“I hate that this is what put us on the map,” said Tifinee Roach, 38, a lifelong Celina resident who works in a salon not far from the pharmacies and recounted years of unfamiliar cars and unfamiliar people filling the parking lots. “I hate that this is what we’re going to be known for.”

Celina, an old logging town of 1,900 people about two hours northeast of Nashville, was primed for this drug trade: In the shadow of a dying hospital, four pharmacies sat within 1,000 feet of each other, at the crux of two highways, dispensing millions of opioid pills. Before long, that intersection had single-handedly turned Tennessee’s Clay County into one of the nation’s pound-for-pound leaders of opioid distribution. In 2017, Celina pharmacies filled nearly two opioid prescriptions for every Clay County resident — more than three times the national rate — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Visitors once came to Celina to tour its historical courthouse or drop their lines for smallmouth bass in the famed fishing lake nearby. Now they came for pills.

Soon after Weir’s police encounter in 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration set its sights on his two Celina pharmacies, three doors apart — Dale Hollow Pharmacy and Xpress Pharmacy. Separately, investigators examined the clinic of Dr. Gilbert Ghearing, which sat directly between Dale Hollow and Xpress and leased office space to a third pharmacy in the same building, Anderson Hometown Pharmacy. Its owners and operators have not been charged with any crime.

In December, a federal judge unsealed indictments against Weir and the other owners of Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies, Charles “Bobby” Oakley and Pamela Spivey, alleging they profited from attracting and filling dangerous and unjustifiable opioid prescriptions. Charges were also filed against William Donaldson, the former pharmacist and owner of Dale Hollow, previously convicted of drug dealing, who allegedly recruited most of the customers for the scheme.

The pharmacists at Dale Hollow and Xpress, John Polston and Michael Griffith, pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy and health care fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with law enforcement against the other suspects.

Ghearing was indicted on drug distribution charges for allegedly writing unjustifiable opioid prescriptions in a separate case in 2019. He pleaded not guilty, and his case is expected to go to trial in September.

‘An American Tragedy’

The Celina indictment comes as pharmacies enter an era of new accountability for the opioid crisis. In November, a federal jury in Cleveland ruled pharmacies at CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart could be held financially responsible for fueling the opioid crisis by recklessly distributing massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties. The ruling — a first of its kind — is expected to reverberate through thousands of similar lawsuits filed nationwide.

Criminal prosecutions for such actions remain exceedingly rare. The Department of Justice in recent years increased prosecutions of doctors and pain clinic staffers who overprescribed opioids but files far fewer charges against pharmacists, and barely any against pharmacy owners, who are generally harder to hold directly responsible for prescriptions filled at their establishments.

In a review of about 1,000 news releases about legal enforcement actions taken by the Department of Health and Human Services since 2019, KHN identified fewer than 10 similar cases involving pharmacists or pharmacy owners being criminally charged for filling opioid prescriptions. Among those few similar cases, none involved allegations of so many opioids flowing readily through such a small place.

The Celina case is also the first time the Department of Justice sought a restraining order and preliminary injunction against pharmacies under the Controlled Substances Act, said David Boling, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee. DOJ used the civil filing to shut down Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies quickly in 2019, allowing prosecutors more time to build a criminal case against the pharmacy owners.

Former U.S. Attorney Don Cochran, who oversaw much of the investigation, said the crisis in Celina was so severe it warranted a swift and unique response.

Cochran said it once made sense for small pharmacies to be clustered in Celina, where a rural hospital served the surrounding area. But as the hospital shriveled toward closure, as have a dozen others in Tennessee, the competing pharmacies turned to opioids to sustain themselves and got hooked on the profits, he said.

“It’s an American tragedy, and I think the town was a victim in this,” Cochran said. “The salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar folks that lived there were victimized by these people in these pharmacies. I think they knew full well this was not a medical necessity. It was just a money-making cash machine for them.”

And much of that money came from taxpayers. In its court filings, DOJ argues the pharmacies sought out customers with Medicaid or Medicare coverage — or signed them up if they didn’t have it. To keep these customers coming back, the pharmacies covered their copays or paid cash kickbacks whenever they filled a prescription, prosecutors allege. The pharmacies collected more than $2.4 million from Medicare for opioids and other controlled substances from 2012 to 2018, according to the court filings.

Prosecutors say the pharmacies also paid kickbacks to retain profitable customers with non-opioid prescriptions. In one case, Dale Hollow gave $100 “payouts” to a patient whenever they filled his prescription for mysoline, an anti-seizure drug, then used those prescriptions to collect more than $237,000 from Medicare, according to Polston’s plea agreement.

Attorneys for Weir, Oakley, Donaldson, Spivey, Polston, and Griffith either declined to comment for this article or did not respond to requests for comment.

Ronald Chapman, an attorney for Ghearing, defended the doctor’s prescriptions, saying he’d done “the best he [could] with what was available” in a rural setting with no resources or expertise in pain management.

Chapman added that, while he does not represent the other Celina suspects, he had a theory as to why they drew the attention of federal law enforcement. As large corporate pharmacies made agreements with the federal government to be more stringent about opioid prescriptions, they filled fewer of them. Customers then turned to smaller pharmacies in rural areas to get their drugs, he said.

“I’m not sure if that’s what happened in this case, but I’ve seen it happen in many small towns in America. The only CVS down the street, or the only Rite Aid down the street, is cutting off every provider who prescribes opioids, leaving it to smaller pharmacies to do the work,” Chapman said.

Donaldson, reached briefly at his home in Celina on March 9, insisted the allegations levied against Dale Hollow and Xpress could apply to many pharmacies in the region.

“It wasn’t just them,” Donaldson said.

The Monkey and the Monkey Bucks

Long before it was called Dale Hollow Pharmacy, the blue-and-white building that moved millions of pills through Celina was Donaldson Pharmacy, and Donaldson was behind the counter doling out pills.

Donaldson owned and operated the pharmacy for decades as the eccentric son of one of the most prominent families in Celina, where a street, a park, and many businesses bear his surname. Even now, despite Donaldson’s prior conviction for opioid crimes and his new indictment, an advertisement for “Donaldson Pharmacy” hangs at the entrance of a nearby high school.

“Bill has always had a heart of gold, and he would help anyone he could. I just think he let that, well …” said Pam Goad, a neighbor, trailing off. “He’s always had a heart of gold.”

According to interviews with about 20 Celina residents, including Clay County Sheriff Brandon Boone, Donaldson is also known to keep a menagerie of exotic animals, at one point including at least two giraffes, and a monkey companion, “Carlos,” whom he dressed in clothing.

The monkey — a mainstay at Donaldson Pharmacy for years — both attracted and deterred customers. Linda Nelson, who owns a nearby business, said Carlos once escaped the pharmacy and, during a scrap with a neighbor’s dogs, tore down her mailbox by snapping its wooden post in half.

But the monkey wasn’t the only reason Donaldson Pharmacy stood out.

According to a DEA opioid database published by The Washington Post, Donaldson Pharmacy distributed nearly 3 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills from 2006 to 2014, making it the nation’s 20th-highest per capita distributor during that period. It retained its ranking even though the pharmacy closed in 2011, when Donaldson was indicted for dispensing hydrocodone without a valid prescription.

Donaldson confessed to drug distribution and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. The pharmacy’s name was changed to Dale Hollow and ended up with Donaldson’s brother-in-law, Oakley. In 2014, Oakley sold 51% of the business to Weir, who also bought a majority stake of Xpress Pharmacy, three doors away, according to the DOJ’s civil complaint.

Under Weir’s leadership, these two pharmacies became an opioid hub with few equals, prosecutors say. From 2015 to 2018, Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies were the fourth-and 11th-highest per capita opioid purchasers in the nation, according to the DOJ, citing internal DEA data.

Many of these prescriptions were for Subutex, an opioid that can be used to treat addiction but is itself prone to abuse. Unless the patient is pregnant or nursing or has a documented allergy, Tennessee law requires doctors instead to prescribe Suboxone, an alternative that is much harder to abuse.

But at the Celina pharmacies, prescriptions for Subutex outnumbered those for Suboxone by at least 4-to-1, prosecutors say. In their plea agreements, pharmacists from Dale Hollow and Xpress described stores that thrived on the trade in Subutex, and said Weir set “mandates” for how many Subutex prescriptions to fill and instructed them to “never run out.”

Griffith, the head pharmacist at Xpress, said the pharmacy in 2015 created flyers specifically advertising Subutex, then delivered them on trays of cookies to practices throughout Tennessee, including some hours away. In the following two years, the amount of Subutex dispensed by Xpress increased by about eightyfold, according to his plea agreement.

Dale Hollow didn’t need flyers or cookies. It had Donaldson.

After getting out of prison in 2014, Donaldson was hired by the pharmacy he once owned, where he “recruited and controlled” about 50% to 90% of customers, according to the indictment filed against him. The pharmacy also enticed customers by distributing a Monopoly-like currency called “monkey bucks” — an apparent callback to Carlos — that could be spent at the pharmacy like cash, the indictment states.

Prosecutors also allege that, from a desk inside Dale Hollow, Donaldson would sign customers up for Medicare or Medicaid, then use a vehicle provided by the pharmacy to drive them to a doctor’s office to get opioid prescriptions, then back to Dale Hollow where he’d offer to cover their copays himself if they kept their business at the pharmacy. Sometimes, he would text the Dale Hollow pharmacist with instructions to fill specific prescriptions, or just to fill more of them, according to federal court records.

“Y’all have got to get your numbers up. Fill fill,” Donaldson texted Polston in 2018, according to his plea agreement.

By then, however, all those prescriptions had drawn unwanted attention.

In August 2018, Dale Hollow and Xpress pharmacies were raided by DEA agents, who brought with them Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera and a television crew. Six months later, DOJ filed its civil complaint, persuading a federal judge to immediately close both pharmacies.

Today, Dale Hollow Pharmacy sits shuttered, as it has been for the past three years, and a paper sign taped to the door says animals are not allowed inside by order of the DEA. The building that was once Xpress Pharmacy reopened this year as an unrelated pharmacy with a fresh coat of paint. Ghearing’s clinic and Anderson Hometown Pharmacy are closed.

Most of Celina’s opioid prescriptions are gone, too. According to the latest available CDC data, Clay County reported about 32 opioid prescriptions per 100 residents in 2020 — one-sixth the rate of 2017’s.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Why Health Care Is So Expensive, Chapter $22K

Congress is making slow progress toward completing its ambitious social spending bill, although its Thanksgiving deadline looks optimistic. Meanwhile, a new survey finds the average cost of an employer-provided family plan has risen to more than $22,000. That’s about the cost of a new Toyota Corolla. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Rebecca Adams of CQ Roll Call join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Rebecca Love, a nurse academic and entrepreneur, about the impending crisis in nursing.

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Congress appears to be making progress on its huge social spending bill, but even if it passes the House as planned the week of Nov. 15, it’s unlikely it can get through the Senate before the Thanksgiving deadline that Democrats set for themselves.

Meanwhile, the cost of employer-provided health insurance continues to rise, even with so many people forgoing care during the pandemic. The annual KFF survey of employers reported that the average cost of a job-based family plan has risen to more than $22,000. To provide what their workers most need, however, this year many employers added additional coverage of mental health care and telehealth.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Rebecca Adams of CQ Roll Call.

Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:

  • Moderate Democrats who were worried about the price tag of the social spending bill said during negotiations last week that they wanted to see the full analysis of spending and costs from the Congressional Budget Office. But members of the House probably won’t get that score before voting on the bill. CBO instead is releasing its assessments piecemeal as analysts go through specific sections of the huge bill.
  • If the House passes the bill next week, which leadership is pledging, the legislation could still undergo major revisions in the Senate. Some provisions will be subject to the Byrd Rule, which says items in this type of bill must be related to the budget. Republicans are expected to challenge parts of the bill, and the parliamentarian will have to rule on whether their objections are valid.
  • Among the provisions that some moderate Democratic senators might object to are the paid family leave and the mechanism for lowering Medicare drug prices.
  • Congress is looking at a very busy end of the year, which could complicate passage of the social spending bill. Leaders already postponed a bill to raise the debt ceiling and the annual federal spending bills until early December.
  • A federal judge has blocked Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s order prohibiting mask mandates in schools. But a final resolution is likely some time away as the case is appealed. Disability rights groups, which had sued to stop the governor’s order, argued that the ban was keeping children with health problems who are at high risk from covid from coming to school.
  • Despite opposition from conservative leaders to vaccine mandates, the vast majority of workers have had their shots, either because they wanted them or their employer mandated it. Lawsuits brought against those workplace requirements may not signal a broad opposition among the population.
  • In its survey of employers’ health plans, KFF found that premiums are still increasing faster than wages as health costs continue to rise. Leaders of both political parties say they would like to reduce the cost of care, but no magic pill appears likely. Instead, lawmakers generally are more inclined to have the government pick up a bigger portion of the country’s health care costs when not finding a way to cut that spending.
  • One key challenge in addressing rising health care spending in Congress is the power of the health care industry. With the close political party margins on Capitol Hill, it is fairly easy for the industries to use their contributions to pick off a couple of members and keep major reform from passing.
  • The KFF survey also documented the wide expansion of telehealth coverage during the pandemic. Although employers and the government have been concerned that telehealth adds to spending because it duplicates services or allows doctors to charge for services they once performed over the phone without billing, it will be hard to put this genie back in the bottle. Consumers like the convenience. And some services, such as mental health therapy or medical consultations for rural residents, are much easier.

Also this week, Rovner interviews Rebecca Love, a nurse, academic and entrepreneur who has thought a lot about the future of the nursing profession and where it fits into the U.S. health care system

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too:

Julie Rovner: Washington Monthly’s “The Doctor Will Not See You Now,” by Merrill Goozner.

Alice Miranda Ollstein: NPR’s “Despite Calls to Improve, Air Travel Is Still a Nightmare for Many With Disabilities,” by Joseph Shapiro and Allison Mollenkamp.

Rebecca Adams: KHN’s “Patients Went Into the Hospital for Care. After Testing Positive There for Covid, Some Never Came Out,” by Christina Jewett.

Anna Edney: Bloomberg News’ “All Those 23andMe Spit Tests Were Part of a Bigger Plan,” by Kristen V Brown.

To hear all our podcasts, click here.

And subscribe to KHN’s What the Health? on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Watch: Going Beyond the Script of ‘Dopesick’ and America’s Real-Life Opioid Crisis

KHN teamed up with Hulu for a discussion of America’s opioid crisis, following the Oct. 13 premiere of the online streaming service’s new series “Dopesick.”

KHN and policy colleagues at our parent organization KFF teamed up with Hulu for a discussion of America’s opioid crisis, following the Oct. 13 premiere of the online streaming service’s new series “Dopesick.”

The discussion explored how the series’ writers worked with journalist Beth Macy, author of the book “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America,” and showrunner Danny Strong to create and fact-check scripts and develop characters. It quickly moved on to a deeper discussion of how the fictionalized version of the opioid epidemic portrayed in the Hulu series dovetailed with the broader reality KFF’s journalists and analysts have been documenting in their work for the past few years.

Providing perspective on the role of public health and treatment were KHN correspondent Aneri Pattani, who has reported extensively on opioid policy, substance use and mental health, and KFF senior policy analyst Nirmita Panchal, whose analytical work focuses on mental health and substance use.

The forum was moderated by Chaseedaw Giles, audience engagement editor and digital strategist at KHN who has written about hip-hop music’s relationship with opioid abuse. It was filmed in KFF’s Washington, D.C., conference center to an audience of no one (courtesy of covid-19).

You can read a transcript of the forum by clicking here.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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As Holdout Missouri Joins Nation in Monitoring Opioid Prescriptions, Experts Worry

Missouri is the last state to create a monitoring program to help spot the misuse of prescription drugs. But some public health experts warn that the nation’s programs are forcing people addicted to opioids to seek deadlier street options.

Kathi Arbini said she felt elated when Missouri finally caught up to the other 49 states and approved a statewide prescription drug monitoring program this June in an attempt to curb opioid addiction.

The hairstylist turned activist estimated she made 75 two-hour trips in the past decade from her home in Fenton, a St. Louis suburb, to the state capital, Jefferson City, to convince Republican lawmakers that monitoring how doctors and pharmacists prescribe and dispense controlled substances could help save people like her son, Kevin Mullane.

He was a poet and skateboarder who she said turned to drugs after she and his dad divorced. He started “doctor-shopping” at about age 17 and was able to obtain multiple prescriptions for the pain medication OxyContin. He died in 2009 at 21 from a heroin overdose.

If the state had had a monitoring program, doctors might have detected Mullane’s addiction and, Arbini thinks, her son might still be alive. She said it’s been embarrassing that it’s taken Missouri so long to agree to add one.

“As a parent, you would stand in front of a train; you would protect your child forever — and if this helps, it helps,” said Arbini, 61. “It can’t kill more people, I don’t think.”

But even though Missouri was the lone outlier, it had not been among the states with the highest opioid overdose death rates. Missouri had an average annual rank of 16th among states from 2010 through 2019, as the country descended into an opioid epidemic, according to a KHN analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data compiled by KFF.

Some in public health now argue that when providers use such monitoring programs to cut off prescription opiate misuse, people who have an addiction instead turn to heroin and fentanyl. That means Missouri’s new toll could cause more people to overdose and leave the state with buyer’s remorse.

“If we can take any benefit from being last in the country to do this, my hope would be that we have had ample opportunity to learn from others’ mistakes and not repeat them,” said Rachel Winograd, a psychologist who leads NoMODeaths, a state program aimed at reducing harm from opioid misuse.

Before Missouri’s monitoring program was approved, lawmakers and health and law enforcement officials warned that the absence made it easier for Missouri patients to doctor-shop to obtain a particular drug, or for providers to overprescribe opiates in what are known as pill mills.

State Sen. Holly Rehder, a Republican with family members who have struggled with opioid addiction, spent almost a decade pushing legislation to establish a monitoring program but ran into opposition from state Sen. Rob Schaaf, a family physician and fellow Republican who expressed concerns about patient privacy and fears about hacking.

In 2017, Schaaf agreed to stop filibustering the legislation and support it if it required that doctors check the database for other prescriptions before writing new ones for a patient. That, though, sparked fresh opposition from the Missouri State Medical Association, concerned the requirement could expose physicians to malpractice lawsuits if patients overdosed.

The new law does not include such a requirement for prescribers. Pharmacists who dispense controlled substances will be required to enter prescriptions into the database.

Dr. Silvia Martins, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who has studied monitoring programs, said it’s important to mandate that prescribers review a patient’s information in the database. “We know that the ones that are most effective are the ones where they check it regularly, on a weekly basis, not just on a monthly basis,” she said.

But Stephen Wood, a nurse practitioner and visiting substance abuse bioethics researcher at Harvard Law School, said the tool is often punitive because it cuts off access to opioids without offering viable treatment options.

He and his colleagues in the intensive care unit at Carney Hospital in Boston don’t use the Massachusetts monitoring program nearly as often as they once did. Instead, he said, they rely on toxicology screens, signs such as injection marks or the patients themselves, who often admit they are addicted.

“Rather than pulling out a piece of paper and being accusatory, I find it’s much better to present myself as a caring provider and sit down and have an honest discussion,” Wood said.

When Kentucky in 2012 became the first state to require prescribers and dispensers to use the system, the number of opioid prescriptions and overdoses from prescription opioids initially decreased slightly, according to a state study.

But the number of opioid overdose deaths — with the exception of a slight dip in 2018 and 2019 — has since consistently ticked upward, according to a KFF analysis of CDC data. In 2020, Kentucky was estimated to have had the nation’s second-largest increase in drug overdose deaths.

When efforts to establish Missouri’s statewide monitoring program stalled, St. Louis County established one in 2017 that 75 local jurisdictions agreed to participate in, covering 85% of the state, according to the county health department. The county now plans to move its program into the state one, which is scheduled to launch in 2023.

Dr. Faisal Khan, director of the county department, said he has no doubt that the St. Louis program has “saved lives across the state.” Opioid prescriptions decreased dramatically once the county established the monitoring program. In 2016, Missouri averaged 80.4 opioid prescriptions per 100 people; in 2019, it was down to 58.3 prescriptions, according to the CDC.

The overall drug overdose death rate in Missouri has steadily increased since 2016, though, with the CDC reporting an initial count of 1,921 people dying from overdoses of all kinds of drugs in 2020.

Khan acknowledged that a monitoring program can lead to an increase in overdose deaths in the years immediately following its establishment because people addicted to prescription opioids suddenly can’t obtain them and instead buy street drugs that are more potent and contain impurities.

But he said a monitoring program can also help a physician intervene before someone becomes addicted. Doctors who flag a patient using the monitoring program must then also be able to easily refer them to treatment, Khan and others said.

“We absolutely are not prepared for that in Missouri,” said Winograd, of NoMODeaths. “Substance use treatment providers will frequently tell you that they are at max capacity.”

Uninsured people in rural areas may have to wait five weeks for inpatient or outpatient treatment at state-funded centers, according to PreventEd, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that aims to reduce harm from alcohol and drug use.

For example, the waiting list for residential treatment at the Preferred Family Healthcare clinic in Trenton is typically two weeks during the summer and one month in winter, according to Melanie Tipton, who directs clinical services at the center, which mostly serves uninsured clients in rural northern Missouri.

Tipton, who has worked at the clinic for 17 years, said that before the covid-19 pandemic, people struggling with opioid addiction mainly used prescription pills; now it’s mostly heroin and fentanyl, because they are cheaper. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Still, Tipton said her clients continue to find providers who overprescribe opiates, so she thinks a statewide monitoring program could help.

Inez Davis, diversion program manager for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s St. Louis division, also said in an email that the program will benefit Missouri and neighboring states because “doctor shoppers and those who commit prescription fraud now have one less avenue.”

Winograd said it’s possible that if the state had more opioid prescription pill mills, it would have a lower overdose death rate. “I don’t think that’s the answer,” she said. “We need to move in the direction of decriminalization and a regulated drug supply.” Specifically, she’d rather Missouri decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs, even heroin, and institute regulations to ensure the drugs are safe.

State Rep. Justin Hill, a Republican from St. Charles and former narcotics detective, opposed the monitoring program legislation because of his concerns over patient privacy and evidence that the lack of a program has not made Missouri’s opioid problem any worse than many other states’. He also worries the monitoring program will lead to an increase in overdose deaths.

“I would love the people that passed this bill to stand by the numbers,” Hill said. “And if we see more deaths from overdose, scrap the monitoring program and go back to the drawing board.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Opioids like ‘Lean’ Permeate Hip-Hop Culture, but Dangers Are Downplayed

In big cities and small towns, opioid use among some young hip-hop fans is about emulating their favorite rap star’s image — while paying little attention to the serious consequences.

Nykerrius Williams knows about the close relationship between hip-hop and opioid use. Williams, 27, an independent rapper from Gibsland, Louisiana, who goes by the name Young Nyke, took oxycodone pills for the first time when he was 16 and has continued patterns of misuse of those pills, as well as Lortabs, Xanax and codeine cough syrups, until recently. To him, it’s part of the business.

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“If you ain’t rapping about being on no drugs, or you out here in the streets selling some drugs,” he said of his chosen profession, “you ain’t got some of that going on — like, don’t nobody wanna hear what you talking about.”

This snapshot of Williams’ hip-hop life doesn’t seem all that different from that of musicians of other genres for whom the mix of drugs and addiction is a recurring storyline, claiming the lives of artists like Janis Joplin, found dead of a heroin overdose in 1970, and rapper DMX, who died last month.

But drug use in the hip-hop community has an ever increasing presence that is intertwined with the music – and one with dire consequences. The catchy lyrics suggest that opioid misuse is part and parcel with fame and wealth, just a normal, and innocuous, component of that life.  

Coverage on the abuse of hard drugs in the community usually focuses on tragedy surrounding certain popular rappers rather than the lyrics and the culture they create. And while public health experts take great pains, for example, to criticize and curtail the promotion of vaping to young people, little attention is paid to the dangerous effects that hip-hop is having on vulnerable listeners by normalizing popping Percocets or drinking cough syrup.

From big cities like Los Angeles to rural towns like Gibsland — population 878 — opioid misuse among some young, hopeful listeners is about emulating their favorite rap star’s enviable image. For others, it is not all about the high life. It’s self-medication.

“Let’s talk about pain,” said Mikiel Muhammad, 38, aka King Kong Gotcha, a member of the rap trio The Opioid Era in Virginia. “The pain is so deep. They ain’t got money to go see a psychiatrist, but they got money to go get a Perc-10. They got $10, $15 for that,” Gotcha said, referencing the street value of a 10-milligram Percocet tablet.

According to a February KFF report, anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide have increased for young adults in the past year.

Artists like Young Nyke sometimes confront neighborhood and family violence, as well as a general lack of opportunities and resources in their communities — circumstances amplified by the covid pandemic. The poetic words detailing the rappers’ experience offer some support. But these phrases can also be fraught.

It’s not just the drug use that is worrisome, said Naa-Solo Tettey, an associate professor of public health at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. Often these songs promote using opioids while engaging in high-risk activities like unprotected sex or speeding and, while she is a hip-hop fan, “from a public health perspective, it’s just dangerous,” she said.

That toxicity reaches into populations already plagued by perpetual cycles of poverty, poor health and lowered life expectancy. There is a need for “culturally relevant interventions” to educate and raise awareness within the hip-hop music audience, which Tettey’s research categorizes as primarily composed of youth from “vulnerable and socially disadvantaged” groups.

It is time to turn a critical eye to how opioid misuse permeates hip-hop’s lyrics, creating an entryway for Black young adults into the American opioid epidemic, said Tettey.

In 2017 that epidemic was declared a national public health emergency, with over 47,000 opioid-related overdose deaths reported. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say fatal drug overdoses nationwide have surged roughly 20% during the covid pandemic, killing more than 83,000 people in 2020. Within this grim statistic the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has found inequities.

According to a 2020 report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Behavioral Health Equity and SAMHSA, attention to this crisis has focused more on white suburban and rural communities, even though Black communities are experiencing similar dramatic increases in opioid misuse and death. The report also found that synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, are affecting opioid death rates among Black people more severely than other populations.

A 2020 SAGE journal research paper found a large increase in prescription opioid overdose deaths among Black people. The paper also found the rate of death almost tripling between 1999 and 2017. In February 2018 the U.S. surgeon general tweeted a warning that trends in opioid misuse “may be a precursor to even more opioid overdose fatalities in the black community in coming years.”

“The music industry, all it does is perpetuate whatever’s going on outside,” said Jarrell Gilliard, 40, explaining the pharmaceutical drug presence he’s encountered and how it’s reflected in popular lyrics. “How they pump these pills and all these prescribed medicines through the streets. Once the streets got ’em …” said Gilliard, whose hip-hop alias is Grunge Gallardo.

Grunge is also a member of The Opioid Era, named for their gritty, raw imagery and lyrics. Songs such as “Suboxones,” “Sackler Oath” and “Overdose,” which opens with a haunting 911 recording of a woman frantically pleading for help with one, contrast sharply with the pill-laced tunes of hip-hop’s mainstream.

“I think that’s the most dangerous thing about it,” said Richard Buskey, 42, who completes The Opioid Era trio as Ambassador Rick. “It’s a disconnect between the youth and them realizing that they’re in the same category as what they would consider a junkie or a fiend.”

Tettey said that’s partly because mainstream artists represent a lifestyle many young adults want for themselves, which can translate into modeling behaviors like opioid misuse.

Feeling the ‘Lean’

Patrick Williams, 26, an independent rapper from Orange, Texas, with the stage name PatvFoo, is no stranger to addiction.

He was 21 when he first sipped “lean” — a drink made from mixing prescription cough syrup containing the antihistamine promethazine and the opioid codeine with soda, Jolly Rancher candies and ice, served in doubled-up Styrofoam cups. “It’s a variety of colors that you have,” PatvFoo said, referencing the various formulations of codeine cough syrups. Purple syrup ranks as most potent. PatvFoo learned about lean through the Texas rap scene and artists like DJ Screw and then became a user.

“At first, there’s a mellowing high,” said Stevie Jones, 23, also known as Prophet J, an independent rapper in Louisville, Kentucky. He has similar recollections from his first time misusing codeine syrups. He and his friends drizzled some on a blunt — the slang term for a hollowed-out cigar filled with pot. “It just makes it burn slower — like, get you a little bit higher, I guess,” Prophet J said.

Things can take a bad turn quickly. Although lean is one of the weaker opioids, experts say it is highly addictive, and often in a short time. “The day you go without it you get bad, bad stomach cramps. You feel like you got to just throw up all the time. You sweating. It’s like you got a bad flu,” PatvFoo said.

That flu-like feeling is opioid withdrawal, said Dr. Edwin C. Chapman, a Howard University College of Medicine alum who has practiced internal and addiction medicine in Washington, D.C., for more than 40 years. The symptoms range from runny nose and eyes to diarrhea and usually can be stopped with a gulp of cough syrup or lean, he said.

And there’s a harsh reality in that. Whether it’s Percocet pills or lean, “it’s all in the same class as heroin and fentanyl,” Chapman said.

But learning that opioid use is promoted in popular music came as a revelation to Chapman. “That’s not the music that I listened to,” said the 75-year-old doctor. The medical community, he said, has been focused on curbing the overprescribing of pain medication. “But it’s never talked about … that it’s being advertised overtly to young folks through music or through the media.”

Indeed, abuse of lean, also known as “purple drank” and “sizzurp,” has managed to evade the regulatory spotlight while remaining popular and recognizable — so much so that vaping companies distributed nicotine-containing e-liquids resembling the drink and even mimicked the slang term “double cup” in their labeling. These products triggered a 2019 Food and Drug Administration crackdown on the vaping juices. The drugs themselves, however, still pump through the streets, just like the hip-hop lyrics.

And it has altered the market, moving it beyond the street options of heroin and opioids, said hip-hop artist Buskey. “We living in the times where they’re getting it out of the medicine cabinet.”

Phillip Coleman, 34, a rapper in Rochester, New York, who goes by the name GodclouD, started using at age 15 after being prescribed 5-milligram tablets of Percocet following wisdom tooth extraction. That set him on a path to misusing prescription painkillers, which led to cocaine and then a heroin addiction that eventually landed him in prison.

Fortunately, Coleman was able to overcome his addictions in rehab and refocus on family and music. He cautions that people buying Percocet or other prescription pills on the street have no way of knowing if they are legitimate or “just pressed fentanyl.” He said the reward for opioid addiction isn’t the lifestyles of the rich and famous you see portrayed by some hip-hop artists. “You don’t get to trade in your empty bags like the box tops and get, like, a bike or whatever. Like, you don’t get no hat; you don’t get no fentanyl swag,” he chuckled. “Like, you just die.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: 100 Days of Health Policy

It’s 100 days into Joe Biden’s presidency and a surprisingly large number of health policies have been announced. But health is notably absent from the administration’s $1.8 trillion spending plan for American families, making it unclear how much more will get done this year. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosens its mask-wearing recommendations for those who have been vaccinated, but the new rules are confusing. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, Rovner interviews KHN’s Julie Appleby, who reported the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode.

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It’s been a busy 100 days for the Biden administration on health policy. The promise Joe Biden made as president-elect to get 100 million covid vaccinations in arms was doubled, healthcare.gov reopened to those without insurance, and steps were taken to undo a raft of health policies implemented by President Donald Trump. The covid relief bill passed by Congress in March also boosted subsidies for those who buy their own coverage and provided incentives for the 12 states that have yet to expand their Medicaid programs under the ACA.

But those actions may prove the high point for health policy this year. Administration officials initially promised that health would be a major part of the president’s $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, but major changes, particularly those addressing prescription drug costs, were nowhere to be seen when the plan was unveiled Wednesday.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet

Here are some takeaways from this week’s podcast:

  • Among the Trump administration health policies the Biden administration has moved to reverse are those on women’s reproductive health and Medicaid work requirements. Some experts suggest that Democratic officials pushed forward on this with good speed because the past administration’s health policies were easier to disentangle than its rules on environment, where Biden also wants to make changes.
  • Democratic lawmakers had seemed eager to use Biden’s family plan to expand Medicare or drive down prescription drug prices. It likely signals that while health care is a key issue for Democrats on Capitol Hill, it is not as big a priority in the White House. Biden, who did mention those policies favored by progressive lawmakers in his speech to Congress on Wednesday, seems to be putting his emphasis on strengthening the Affordable Care Act.
  • Right now, the pharmaceutical industry is scoring high with voters and politicians because of the successes of the covid vaccines. So, getting Senate approval of a bill to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices is likely to be difficult. Those odds get even tougher without pressure from the White House.
  • Biden may also have shied away from the drug pricing initiative in his formal plan for helping families because he was concerned that it could divide the Democratic caucus and imperil the overall initiative.
  • The administration is gearing up to provide India with help to fight the pandemic. Public health officials point out that although the vaccination effort in the U.S. is going well, it is imperative to tamp down the virus in other countries so variants that could evade the vaccines don’t develop. However, there is already a debate about how much U.S. vaccine to ship abroad before authorities determine how to vaccinate children here.
  • Federal health officials have lifted the pause on using the Johnson & Johnson covid vaccine, but that decision has been controversial and some scientists question whether there was enough study or it was the right move.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened its mask-wearing recommendations for people who have been vaccinated, but the new rules are confusing and even sparked some jokes among late-night TV comedians.
  • As the vaccination efforts in the U.S. gain steam, interest is growing among people with long-term cases of covid-19. A hearing on Capitol Hill this week looked at some of the issues, such as what sorts of disabilities these patients face and what workplace accommodations are necessary.
  • The National Institutes of Health is beginning major studies of “long covid” and its myriad symptoms. Although health officials do not yet have a clear definition of long covid, they are generally not dismissing patients’ complaints about the disorder. That differs from some mysterious ailments in the past.
  • The Biden administration has loosened the rules governing who can prescribe the drug buprenorphine, a controversial but effective treatment for opioid addiction. The policy eliminates a training requirement and seeks to allow medical professionals other than doctors to prescribe the drug. But hurdles to its use remain, leading some to question how much more widely the drug will be used as a result of the new policy.

Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Julie Appleby, who reported the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature — about the intersection between car insurance and health insurance. If you have an outrageous medical bill you’d like to share with us, you can do it here.

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read too:

Julie Rovner: This American Life’s “The Herd,” by Ira Glass, Anna Maria Barry-Jester and David Kestenbaum. Also, KHN’s “We’re Coming for You’: For Public Health Officials, a Year of Threats and Menace,” by Anna Maria Barry-Jester.

Joanne Kenen: The New Yorker’s “How Vaccine Hesitancy Is Driving Breakthrough Infections in Nursing Homes,” by Masha Gessen.

Mary Ellen McIntire: CQ Roll Call’s “FEMA’s Tasks Pit COVID-19 Vaccinations Against Hurricane Prep,” by Emily Kopp.

Sarah Karlin-Smith: The Pink Sheet’s “Conflicts Galore: Upcoming Accelerated Approval Cancer Panel Includes Many Industry Relationships,” by Sarah Karlin-Smith.

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KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Doctors More Likely to Prescribe Opioids to Covid ‘Long Haulers,’ Raising Addiction Fears

Chronic pain from covid can linger for months after patients appear to recover from the disease.

Covid survivors are at risk from a possible second pandemic, this time of opioid addiction, given the high rate of painkillers being prescribed to these patients, health experts say.

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A new study in Nature found alarmingly high rates of opioid use among covid survivors with lingering symptoms at Veterans Health Administration facilities. About 10% of covid survivors develop “long covid,” struggling with often disabling health problems even six months or longer after a diagnosis.

For every 1,000 long-covid patients, known as “long haulers,” who were treated at a Veterans Affairs facility, doctors wrote nine more prescriptions for opioids than they otherwise would have, along with 22 additional prescriptions for benzodiazepines, which include Xanax and other addictive pills used to treat anxiety.

Although previous studies have found many covid survivors experience persistent health problems, the new article is the first to show they’re using more addictive medications, said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the paper’s lead author.

He’s concerned that even an apparently small increase in the inappropriate use of addictive pain pills will lead to a resurgence of the prescription opioid crisis, given the large number of covid survivors. More than 3 million of the 31 million Americans infected with covid develop long-term symptoms, which can include fatigue, shortness of breath, depression, anxiety and memory problems known as “brain fog.”

The new study also found many patients have significant muscle and bone pain.

The frequent use of opioids was surprising, given concerns about their potential for addiction, said Al-Aly, chief of research and education service at the VA St. Louis Health Care System.

“Physicians now are supposed to shy away from prescribing opioids,” said Al-Aly, who studied more than 73,000 patients in the VA system. When Al-Aly saw the number of opioids prescriptions, he said, he thought to himself, “Is this really happening all over again?”

Doctors need to act now, before “it’s too late to do something,” Al-Aly said. “We must act now and ensure that people are getting the care they need. We do not want this to balloon into a suicide crisis or another opioid epidemic.”

As more doctors became aware of their addictive potential, new opioid prescriptions fell, by more than half since 2012. But U.S. doctors still prescribe far more of the drugs — which include OxyContin, Vicodin and codeine — than physicians in other countries, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, medical director of opioid policy research at Brandeis University.

Some patients who became addicted to prescription painkillers switched to heroin, either because it was cheaper or because they could no longer obtain opioids from their doctors. Overdose deaths surged in recent years as drug dealers began spiking heroin with a powerful synthetic opioid called fentanyl.

More than 88,000 Americans died from overdoses during the 12 months ending in August 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health experts now advise doctors to avoid prescribing opioids for long periods.

The new study “suggests to me that many clinicians still don’t get it,” Kolodny said. “Many clinicians are under the false impression that opioids are appropriate for chronic pain patients.”

Hospitalized covid patients often receive a lot of medication to control pain and anxiety, especially in intensive care units, said Dr. Greg Martin, president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Patients placed on ventilators, for example, are often sedated to make them more comfortable.

Martin said he’s concerned by the study’s findings, which suggest patients are unnecessarily continuing medications after leaving the hospital.

“I worry that covid-19 patients, especially those who are severely and critically ill, receive a lot of medications during the hospitalization, and because they have persistent symptoms, the medications are continued after hospital discharge,” Martin said.

While some covid patients are experiencing muscle and bone pain for the first time, others say the illness has intensified their preexisting pain.

Rachael Sunshine Burnett has suffered from chronic pain in her back and feet for 20 years, ever since an accident at a warehouse where she once worked. But Burnett, who first was diagnosed with covid in April 2020, said the pain soon became 10 times worse and spread to the area between her shoulders and spine. Although she was already taking long-acting OxyContin twice a day, her doctor prescribed an additional opioid called oxycodone, which relieves pain immediately. She was reinfected with covid in December.

“It’s been a horrible, horrible year,” said Burnett, 43, of Coxsackie, New York.

Doctors should recognize that pain can be a part of long covid, Martin said. “We need to find the proper non-narcotic treatment for it, just like we do with other forms of chronic pain,” he said.

The CDC recommends a number of alternatives to opioids — from physical therapy to biofeedback, over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, antidepressants and anti-seizure drugs that also relieve nerve pain.

The country also needs an overall strategy to cope with the wave of post-covid complications, Al-Aly said

“It’s better to be prepared than to be caught off guard years from now, when doctors realize … ‘Oh, we have a resurgence in opioids,’” Al-Aly said.

Al-Aly noted that his study may not capture the full complexity of post-covid patient needs. Although women make up the majority of long-covid patients in most studies, most patients in the VA system are men.

The study of VA patients makes it “abundantly clear that we are not prepared to meet the needs of 3 million Americans with long covid,” said Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “We desperately need an intervention that will effectively treat these individuals.”

Al-Aly said covid survivors may need care for years.

“That’s going to be a huge, significant burden on the health care system,” Al-Aly said. “Long covid will reverberate in the health system for years or even decades to come.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Open Enrollment, One More Time

Keeping a campaign promise, President Joe Biden has reopened enrollment for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act on healthcare.gov — and states that run their own health insurance marketplaces followed suit. At the same time, the Biden administration is moving to revoke the Trump administration’s permission for states to impose work requirements for some adults on the Medicaid health insurance program. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, Rovner interviews medical student Inam Sakinah, president of the new group Future Doctors in Politics.

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud.

An estimated 9 million Americans eligible for free or reduced premium health insurance under the Affordable Care Act have a second chance to sign up for 2021 coverage, since the Biden administration reopened enrollment on healthcare.gov and states that run their own marketplaces followed suit.

Meanwhile, Biden officials took the first steps to revoke the permission that states got from the Trump administration to require many adults on Medicaid to work or perform community service in exchange for their health coverage. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case on the work requirements at the end of March.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider and Rachel Cohrs of Stat.

Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:

  • The Biden administration said it will promote the special enrollment period, a stark change from the Trump administration, which dramatically limited funding for outreach. But navigator groups, whose workers help individuals find and sign up for coverage, say they haven’t yet heard whether the federal government will be offering to pay them to help people during this three-month sign-up period.
  • The House appears poised to pass a bill next week that would fund the covid relief measures President Joe Biden is seeking, as well as major changes to the ACA. Senate staffers are working with the House to align legislation from both chambers as much as possible. With little or no Republican support and only razor-thin majorities in both the House and Senate, Democrats will need to find common ground among their caucus to push the bill through.
  • Congress has a firm deadline on the covid relief bill since many current programs, such as the expanded unemployment funding, expire March 14.
  • CVS announced this week that its insurance subsidiary, Aetna, will be participating in the ACA marketplaces in the fall, another sign that those exchanges are growing in acceptance.
  • The Biden administration’s effort to walk back Medicaid work requirements appears to be an effort to head off the arguments at the Supreme Court. Democrats fear that even if they stop the program through administrative action now, a high-court ruling saying the effort was legal could open the door for future Republican administrations to restore work requirements.
  • The federal government is pushing hard to get more covid vaccine shots in arms around the country and last week reported that 1.7 million doses had been distributed. But it is a race against the emerging threat of covid virus variants, which are even more contagious than the original coronavirus.
  • Among hurdles in the vaccination effort is hesitancy among certain groups to get the shot. There have been reports that 30% of military personnel refused to accept the vaccine and some high-profile athletes in the NBA don’t want to be in public service announcements promoting it. Groups opposed to vaccines in general are posting misinformation online that may also be a source of concern.
  • The latest controversy over New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s policies on counting deaths among nursing home residents with covid-19 has consumed Albany and led to inquiries by legal authorities. It also raises questions about whether politics — Cuomo, a Democrat, and President Donald Trump regularly sparred about covid policies — influenced public health decisions.

Also this week, Rovner interviews medical student Inam Sakinah, president of the new group Future Doctors in Politics.

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too:

Julie Rovner: Stat’s “Hospitals’ Covid-19 Heroics Have Them Poised for Power in the New Washington,” by Rachel Cohrs

Rachel Cohrs: KHN’s “As Drug Prices Keep Rising, State Lawmakers Propose Tough New Bills to Curb Them,” by Harris Meyer; and Stat’s “States Still Can’t Import Drugs From Canada. Now, Many Are Seeking to Import Canadian Prices,” by Lev Facher

Alice Miranda Ollstein: Politico’s “How Covid-19 Could Make Americans Healthier,” by Joanne Kenen

Kimberly Leonard: The New Republic’s “The Darker Story Just Outside the Lens of Framing Britney Spears,” by Sara Luterman

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Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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San Francisco Wrestles With Drug Approach as Death and Chaos Engulf Tenderloin

Covid-19, distrust of police and cheap narcotics have turned parts of the wealthy city into cesspools of filth and drug overdose. City officials and residents profoundly disagree on what needs to be done.

This story also ran on Los Angeles Times. It can be republished for free.

SAN FRANCISCO — In early 2019, Tom Wolf posted a thank-you on Twitter to the cop who had arrested him the previous spring, when he was homeless and strung out in a doorway with 103 tiny bindles of heroin and cocaine in a plastic baggie at his feet.

“You saved my life,” wrote Wolf, who had finally gotten clean after that bust and 90 days in jail, ending six months of sleeping on scraps of cardboard on the sidewalk.

Today, he joins a growing chorus of people, including the mayor, calling for the city to crack down on an increasingly deadly drug trade. But there is little agreement on how that should be done. Those who demand more arrests and stiffer penalties for dealers face powerful opposition in a city with little appetite for locking people up for drugs, especially as the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements push to drastically limit the power of law enforcement to deal with social problems.

Drug overdoses killed 621 people in the first 11 months of 2020, up from 441 in all of 2019 and 259 in 2018. San Francisco is on track to lose an average of nearly two people a day to drugs in 2020, compared with the 178 who had died by Dec. 20 of the coronavirus.

As in other parts of the country, most of the overdoses have been linked to fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that laid waste to the eastern United States starting in 2013 but didn’t arrive in the Bay Area until about five years later. Just as the city’s drug scene was awash with the lethal new product — which is 50 times stronger than heroin and sells on the street for around $20 for a baggie weighing less than half a gram — the coronavirus pandemic hit, absorbing the attention and resources of health officials and isolating drug users, making them more likely to overdose.

The pandemic is contributing to rising overdose deaths nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported last month that a record 81,000 Americans died of an overdose in the 12 months ending in May.

“This is moving very quickly in a horrific direction, and the solutions aren’t matching it,” said Supervisor Matt Haney, who represents the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, where nearly 40% of the deaths have occurred. Haney, who has hammered City Hall for what he sees as its indifference to a life-or-death crisis, is calling for a more coordinated response.

“It should be a harm reduction response, it should be a treatment response — and yes, there needs to be a law enforcement aspect of it too,” he said.

Tensions within the city’s leadership came to a head in September, when Mayor London Breed supported an effort by City Attorney Dennis Herrera to clean up the Tenderloin by legally blocking 28 known drug dealers from entering the neighborhood.

But District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a progressive elected in 2019 on a platform of police accountability and racial justice, sided with activists opposing the move. He called it a “recycled, punishment-focused” approach that would accomplish nothing.

People have died on the Tenderloin’s needle-strewn sidewalks and alone in hotel rooms where they were housed by the city to protect them from covid-19. Older Black men living alone in residential hotels are dying at particularly high rates; Blacks make up around 5% of the city’s population but account for a quarter of the 2020 overdoses. Last February, a man was found hunched over, ice-cold, in the front pew at St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church.

The only reason drug deaths aren’t in the thousands, say health officials, is the outreach that has become the mainstay of the city’s drug policy. From January to October, 2,975 deaths were prevented by naloxone, an overdose reversal drug that’s usually sprayed up the nose, according to the DOPE Project, a city-funded program that trains outreach workers, drug users, the users’ family members and others.

“If we didn’t have Narcan,” said program manager Kristen Marshall, referring to the common naloxone brand name, “there would be no room at our morgue.”

The city is also hoping that this year state lawmakers will approve safe consumption sites, where people can do drugs in a supervised setting. Other initiatives, like a 24-hour meth sobering center and an overhaul of the city’s behavioral health system, have been put on hold because of pandemic-strained resources.

Efforts like the DOPE Project, the country’s largest distributor of naloxone, reflect a seismic shift over the past few years in the way cities confront drug abuse. As more people have come to see addiction as a disease rather than a crime, there is little appetite for locking up low-level dealers, let alone drug users — policies left over from the “war on drugs” that began in 1971 under President Richard Nixon and disproportionately punished Black Americans.

In practice, San Francisco police don’t arrest people for taking drugs, certainly not in the Tenderloin. On a sunny afternoon in early December, a red-haired young woman in a beret crouched on a Hyde Street sidewalk with her eyes closed, clutching a piece of foil and a straw. A few blocks away, a man sat on the curb injecting a needle into a thigh covered with scabs and scars, while two uniformed police officers sat in a squad car across the street.

Last spring, after the pandemic prompted a citywide shutdown, police stopped arresting dealers to avoid contacts that might spread the coronavirus. Within weeks, the sidewalks of the Tenderloin were lined with transients in tents. The streets became such a narcotics free-for-all that many of the working-class and immigrant families living there felt afraid to leave their homes, according to a federal lawsuit filed by business owners and residents. It accuses City Hall of treating less wealthy ZIP codes as “containment zones” for the city’s ills.

The suit was settled a few weeks later after officials moved most of the tents to designated “safe sleeping sites.” But for many, the deterioration of the Tenderloin, juxtaposed with the gleaming headquarters of companies like Twitter and Uber just blocks away, symbolizes San Francisco’s starkest contradictions.

Mayor Breed, who lost her younger sister to a drug overdose in 2006, has called for a crackdown on drug dealing.

The Federal Initiative for the Tenderloin was one such effort, announced in 2019. It aims to “reclaim a neighborhood that is being smothered by lawlessness,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said at a recent virtual news conference held to announce a major operation in which the feds arrested seven people and seized 10 pounds of fentanyl.

Law enforcement agencies have blamed the continued availability of cheap, potent drugs on lax prosecutions. Boudin, however, said his office files charges in 80% of felony drug cases, but most involve low-level dealers whom cartels can easily replace in a matter of hours.

He pointed to a 2019 federal sting that culminated in the arrest of 32 dealers — mostly Hondurans who were later deported — after a two-year undercover operation involving 15 agencies.

“You go walk through the Tenderloin today and tell me if it made a difference,” said Boudin.

His position reflects a growing “progressive prosecutor” movement that questions whether decades-old policies that focus on putting people behind bars are effective or just. In May, the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police energized a nationwide police reform campaign. Cities around the country, including San Francisco, have promised to redirect millions of dollars from law enforcement to social programs.

“If our city leadership says in one breath that they want to defund the police and are for racial and economic justice and in the next talk about arresting drug dealers, they’re hypocrites and they’re wrong,” said Marshall, the leader of the DOPE Project.

But Wolf, 50, believes a concerted crackdown on dealers would send a message to the drug networks that San Francisco is no longer an open-air illegal drug market.

Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans who’ve succumbed to opiate misuse, he began with a prescription for the painkiller oxycodone, in his case following foot surgery in 2015. When the pills ran out, he made his way from his tidy home in Daly City, just south of San Francisco, to the Tenderloin, where dealers in hoodies and backpacks loiter three or four deep on some blocks.

When he could no longer afford pills, Wolf switched to heroin, which he learned how to inject on YouTube. He soon lost his job as a caseworker for the city and his wife threw him out, so he became homeless, holding large quantities of drugs for Central American dealers, who sometimes showed him photos of the lavish houses they were having built for their families back home.

Looking back, he wishes it hadn’t taken six arrests and three months behind bars before someone finally pushed him toward treatment.

“In San Francisco, it seems like we’ve moved away from trying to urge people into treatment and instead are just trying to keep people alive,” he said. “And that’s not really working out that great.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Patients Struggle to Find Prescription Opioids After NY Tax Drives Out Suppliers

The tax was touted as a way to generate funding for treatment programs across the state. But to avoid paying, scores of manufacturers and wholesalers stopped selling opioids in New York.

NEW YORK — Mike Angevine lives in constant pain. For a decade the 37-year-old has relied on opioids to manage his chronic pancreatitis, a disease with no known cure.

But in January, Angevine’s pharmacy on Long Island ran out of oxymorphone and he couldn’t find it at other drugstores. He fell into withdrawal and had to be hospitalized.

“You just keep thinking: Am I going to get sick? Am I going to get sick?” Angevine said in a phone interview. “Am I going to be able to live off the pills I have? Am I going to be able to get them on time?”

His pharmacy did not tell him the reason for the shortage. But Angevine isn’t the only pain patient in New York to lose access to vital medicine since July 2019, when the state implemented an excise tax on many opioids.

The tax was touted as a way to punish major drugmakers for their role in the opioid epidemic and generate funding for treatment programs. But to avoid paying, scores of manufacturers and wholesalers stopped selling opioids in New York. Instead of the anticipated $100 million, the tax brought in less than $30 million in revenue, two lawmakers said in interviews. None of it was earmarked for substance abuse programs, they said.

The state’s Department of Health, which has twice this year delayed an expected report on the impact of the tax, did not respond to questions for this story.

The tax follows strong efforts by federal and New York officials to tamp down the use of prescription opioids, which had already cut back some supply. Now, with some medications scarce or no longer available, pain patients have been left reeling. And the law appears to have missed its target: Instead of taking a toll on manufacturers, the greater burden appears to have fallen on pharmacies that can no longer afford or access the painkillers.

Among the companies that no longer sell opioids in New York is Epic Pharma. Independent Pharmacy Cooperative, a wholesaler, confirmed it no longer sells medications subject to the tax, but still sells those that are exempt, which are treatments for opioid addiction methadone and buprenorphine and also morphine. AvKARE and Lupin Pharmaceuticals said they do not ship opioids to New York anymore. Amneal Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures Angevine’s oxymorphone, declined to comment, as did Mallinckrodt.

Since the tax went into effect, Cardinal Health, which provides health services and products, published an extensive 10-page list of opioids it does not expect to carry. Cardinal Health declined to comment.

The New York tax is slowly gaining attention in other states. Delaware passed a similar tax last year. Minnesota is assessing a special licensing fee between $55,000 and $250,000 on opioid manufacturers. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy proposed such a tax this year but was turned down by the legislature.

The company that makes the first point of sale within New York pays the tax. That isn’t always the drugmaker. It can mean wholesalers selling to pharmacies here are assessed, explained Steve Moore, president of the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York.

Independent Pharmacy Cooperative said about half its revenue from opioid sales in New York would have gone to taxes.

Mark Kinney, the company’s senior vice president of government relations, said the law is putting companies in a very difficult position.

When wholesalers like IPC left the opioid market, competitive prices went with them.

Without these smaller wholesalers, it’s hard for pharmacies to go back to other wholesalers “and say, ‘Hey, your prices aren’t in line with the rest of the market,’” Moore said.

Indeed, nine independent pharmacies told KHN that when they can get opioids they are more expensive now. They have little choice but to eat the cost, drop certain prescriptions or pass the expense along.

“We can trickle that cost down to the patient,” said a pharmacist at New London Pharmacy in Manhattan, “but from a moral and ethics point of view, as a health care provider, it just doesn’t seem right to do that. It’s not the right thing to ask your patient to pay more.”

In addition, Medicare drug plans and Medicaid often limit reimbursements, meaning pharmacies can’t charge them more than the programs allow.

Stone’s Pharmacy in Lake Luzerne was losing money “hand over fist,” owner Leigh McConchie said. His distributor was adding the tax directly to his pharmacy’s cost for the drugs. That helped drive down his profit margins from opioid sales between 60% and 70%. Stone’s stopped carrying drugs like fentanyl patches and oxycodone, and though that distributor now pays the tax itself, the pharmacy is still feeling the effects.

“When you lose their fentanyl, you generally lose all their other prescriptions,” he said, noting that few customers go to multiple pharmacies when they can get everything at one.

If pharmacies have few opioid customers, those price hikes have less impact on their business. But being able to manage the costs is not the only problem, explained Zarina Jalal, a manager at Lincoln Pharmacy in Albany. Jalal can no longer get generic oxycodone from her supplier Kinray, though she can still access brand-name OxyContin. New York’s Medicaid Mandatory Generic Drug Program requires insurers to provide advance authorization for the use of brand-name prescriptions, delaying the approval process. Sometimes patients wait several days to get their prescription, Jalal explained.

“When I see them suffer, it hurts more than it hurts my wallet,” she said.

One of Jalal’s customers, Janis Murphy, needs oxycodone to walk without pain. Now she is forced to buy a brand-name drug and pays up to three times what she did for generic oxycodone before the tax went into effect. She said her bill since the start of this year for oxycodone alone is $850. Lincoln Pharmacy works with Murphy on a payment plan, without which she would not be able to afford the medication at all. But the bill keeps growing.

“I’m almost in tears because I cannot get this bill down,” she said in a phone interview.

Several pharmacists raised concerns that patients who lose access to prescription opioids may turn to street drugs. High prescription prices can drive patients to highly addictive and inexpensive heroin. McConchie of Stone’s Pharmacy said he now dispenses twice as many heroin treatment drugs as he did a year ago. Former opioid customers now come in for prescriptions for substance use disorder.

Trade groups and some physicians and state legislators opposed the tax before it went into effect, voicing concerns about a slew of potential consequences, including supply problems for pharmacists and higher consumer prices.

New London Pharmacy said one of its regular distributors stopped shipping Percocet, a combination of oxycodone and acetaminophen. Instead, the pharmacy orders from a more expensive company. The pharmacist estimated that a bottle of Percocet for which it used to pay $43 now costs up to $92.

“Even if we absorb the tax, we’re not getting a break from reimbursements either,” a pharmacist who spoke on the condition of anonymity explained, adding that insurance reimbursements have not increased in proportion to rising drug costs. “We’re losing.”

Latchmin Raghunauth Mondol, owner of Viva Pharmacy & Wellness in Queens, has also seen that problem. The pharmacy used to be able to purchase 100 15-milligram tablets of oxycodone for $15, but that’s now $70, she said, and the pharmacy is reimbursed only about $21 by insurers.

Other opioids are just not available.

Mondol said she has been unable to obtain certain doses of two of the most commonly prescribed opioids, oxycodone and oxymorphone — the drug Angevine was on.

After Angevine lost access to oxymorphone, his doctor put him on morphine, but it does not give him the same relief. He’s been in so much pain that he stopped going to physical therapy appointments.

“It’s a marathon from hell,” he said.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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