Senator’s Probe Into Opioid Makers Omits Largest Manufacturer From Her Home State

A Missouri senator recently opened an investigation into the pharmaceutical industry’s role in the nation’s burgeoning opioid addiction epidemic, but notably omitted one of the biggest opioid manufacturers from the probe. The company happens to be based in her home state.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. listens on Capitol Hill in Washington. McCaskill is seeking information from manufacturers of the top-selling opioid products in the United States to determine whether drugmakers have contributed to an overuse of the pain killers, with a few very notable exceptions. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- With an estimated 46 people dying every single day in the United States due to overdoses of legally-acquired opiates, the nation’s painkiller abuse epidemic is becoming impossible to ignore - even for the U.S. government. In an attempt to investigate the pharmaceutical industry’s role in the explosive growth of drug abuse

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The Nation’s Opioid Epidemic Is Morphing — And Growing

Heroin and, increasingly, fentanyl have overtaken narcotic painkillers as the drugs of choice for addicts — presenting new challenges for law enforcement and health professionals.

Charles Ornstein
By Charles Ornstein
Heroin and fentany seized in a drug raid in the Asylum Hill neighborhood in Hartford, Conn. Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016.

The nation’s opioid epidemic shows no signs of abating—and in fact may be headed in a far more dangerous direction. That’s the conclusion of journalist David Armstrong, who has been chronicling the scourge this year for STAT, a new health and medicine website. Armstrong has written about how heroin and, increasingly, fentanyl have overtaken

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The Perils Of Problematic Prescribing: A Double Dose Of Warnings

Two new reports from the CDC show the dangers of overprescribing narcotics and antibiotics. Is there a way for doctors and consumers to make better decisions?

Charles Ornstein
By Charles Ornstein

Twice this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has pointed to the harm caused by aberrant and inappropriate prescribing by physicians. First, the CDC reported Monday that doctors are a primary source of narcotic painkillers for chronic abusers at the highest risk of overdoses.  Physicians edged out even family, friends and drug

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Americans Pessimistic About Efforts To Curb Prescription Drug Abuse

Illicit drug abuse garners headlines and hype, but prescription drug overdoses cause the majority of deaths, so the FDA has a plan for more restrictions.

Katie Rucke
By Katie Rucke

Each day about 100 people die from drug overdoses in the United States. But it is prescription drug overdoses, not illicit drugs, that cause approximately three-quarters of these deaths.   According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose death rates have more than tripled since 1990 and have never been as high as now. In

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