Pandemic-Consumed US Relapses in Drug Addiction
Beverly Veres’ two sons are addicted to heroin but can’t get the help they need, with U.S. health services consumed by the coronavirus pandemic at a time when overdoses are surging.
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overdose
Ninth Circuit Finds Jail Nurses, San Diego Can’t Dodge Liability in Man’s Overdose Death
A trio of nurses and San Diego County can’t dodge liability for a man’s overdose death in jail, the Ninth Circuit found, in confirming a new standard of review for medical indifference to inmates.
Read moreMusic Festival Overdose
A California appeals court revived negligence claims against entertainment company Live Nation brought by the family of a 19-year-old girl who died of a drug overdose at the 2015 Hard Summer Music Festival. Live Nation challenged the family’s contention that the girl would have survived had appropriate medical care been readily available, but the company did not offer any supporting evidence.
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Study Probes 20-Year FDA Practice of Approving Opioids With Little Safety Data
(CN) — The coronavirus pandemic has been front and center these past six months, but America is still in the midst
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To Fight Overdose Deaths, San Francisco Turns to Injunctions for Drug Dealers
Aiming to combat an epidemic of overdose deaths and open-air drug dealing in one of San Francisco’s most notorious neighborhoods, the City Attorney’s Office is seeking civil injunctions against 28 repeat drug dealers who sell their wares in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
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Former LA Angels Staffer Charged in Overdose Death of Pitcher
A former communications director with the Los Angeles Angels baseball club was arrested Friday, accused of dealing opioids to pitcher Tyler Skaggs before he overdosed and died last year at a Dallas-area hotel prior to a game with the Texas Rangers.
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San Francisco OKs Process to Open Safe-Injection Sites
San Francisco is one step closer to opening one of the nation’s first safe injection sites after the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a law that will permit nonprofits to operate facilities where people can inject illegal drugs under medical supervision.
Read moreHealth Care Liability
An appeals court in Texas ruled that a health care liability lawsuit against Walgreens, brought by a family whose son filled a prescription for 60 sedative pills before taking them all and overdosing, should be dismissed. The man fled the emergency room he was taken to after overdosing and died after running into traffic on a nearby freeway.
Read moreHeroin Smuggler
A widow sued the Department of Homeland Security et al., in federal court, claiming her late husband smuggled heroin into the United States inside his body on a flight from the Dominican Republic, and though the defendants discovered it and detained him, they didn’t see to it that he excreted them, and he died.
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Doctor Charged in 25 Deaths Sues Hospital for Defamation
An Ohio doctor accused of ordering drug overdoses in the deaths of 25 hospital patients has sued his former employer for defamation, claiming that he did nothing wrong and did not deviate from hospital policy on end-of-life care.
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Sackler-Owned Opioid Maker Pushes Drug for Overdoses
The gleaming white booth towered over the medical conference in Italy in October, advertising a new brand of antidote for opioid overdoses. “Be prepared. Get naloxone. Save a life,” the slogan on its walls said.
Read moreOpioid Overdoses
A former anesthesiologist was properly convicted of manslaughter for prescribing opioids to two patients who overdosed on the drugs, a New York appeals court ruled. Other patients and their families testified that his pain management clinic was essentially a “pill mill” where he excessively prescribed addictive drugs and ignored patients’ abuse of the meds.
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Meth, not Fentanyl, Is Top Killer in Western US
Fentanyl is driving drug overdose deaths in the U.S. overall, but in the Western half of the country, it’s a different story. Meth is the bigger killer, a new government report shows.
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Data Show Flood of Opioids Across US, Many of Them Generics
The maker of OxyContin has been cast as the chief villain in the nation’s opioid crisis. But newly released government figures suggest Purdue Pharma had plenty of help in flooding the U.S. with billions of pills even as overdose deaths were accelerating.
Read moreOhio Hospital Fires 23 Workers After 29 Opioid Deaths
The Ohio hospital system where excessive painkiller doses were given to dozens of patients who died fired 23 nurses, pharmacists and managers Thursday and said it is changing leadership, a sign that professional fallout from the opioid scandal has expanded far beyond the intensive care doctor accused of ordering the drugs.
Read moreFormer College Football Player Charged in Opioid Death
A former Rice University football player stood before a magistrate in Houston federal court Friday to face charges he sold opioids to a teammate who died in his sleep after taking the pills.
Read moreOpioid Task Force Touts Legal Aid as Way Out of Crisis
Between 1999 and 2017, nearly 400,000 people in the United States died from overdoses involving opioids and by 2017, over 2 million people had been diagnosed with an opioid use disorder. Legal aid may be the key to facilitating recovery for them.
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