Answer Addiction

Tag: federal study

  • Feds Undertake Four-State Study to Address Opioid Crisis

    Feds Undertake Four-State Study to Address Opioid Crisis

    The $350 million research project aims to find a way to reduce opioid deaths by 40% within 3 years.

    The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is gearing up to dole out $350 million to Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio to figure out how to stop opioid deaths by 40% in those states over the next three years.

    By disbursing the money to the University of Kentucky, Boston Medical Center, Columbia University and Ohio State University, the NIH hopes to curb fatalities from drugs like fentanyl and heroin, which took the lives of about 47,600 people in the U.S. in 2017.

    Researchers will get deeply involved with 15 communities that have been hit hard by the opioid crisis to figure out how best to effectively prevent and treat addiction there. They’ll also take a hard look at how factors like unemployment and the justice system contribute to the continued crisis, and experiment with distributing anti-overdose medications to first responders, police, and even schools.

    “The most important work to combat our country’s opioid crisis is happening in local communities,” said Alex Azar, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary. “We believe this effort will show that truly dramatic and material reductions in overdose deaths are possible, and provide lessons and models for other communities to adopt and emulate.”

    The program will proceed no matter what kind of budget cuts the NIH faces, according to Azar. This is welcome news as some experts believe there is no time to waste.

    “We are in such a period of crisis that we need to know in real time what is working and what is not working,” said Dr. Alysse Wurcel of the Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

    The opioid crisis is a major issue that requires a multi-faceted approach to solve. On his show, Last Week Tonight, John Oliver called for holding members of the Sackler family, the minds behind OxyContin, accountable for their alleged aggressive and irresponsible marketing of their powerful opioid painkiller. Oliver had several celebrities dramatize testimony given by Richard Sackler.

    “The launch of OxyContin tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” performed Michael K. Williams, repeating Sackler’s infamous proclamation. “The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense and white.”

    Some solutions to the opioid crisis may seem unorthodox and unintuitive, such as a Canadian public health expert’s suggestion to install opioid vending machines in Vancouver, home to “one of North America’s densest populations of injection drug users.” Only proven chronic drug users could scan themselves to get clean drugs for safer consumption.

    “We’re acknowledging people will go to any extreme to use this drug. To tell them not to use because it’s unsafe is ridiculous,” said program mastermind Dr. Mark Tyndall.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Anheuser Busch Pulls Out Of Federal Drinking Moderation Study

    Anheuser Busch Pulls Out Of Federal Drinking Moderation Study

    The alcohol company was set to contribute $15.4 million over a 10-year period for the study.

    One major backer of a $100 million federal study related to alcohol consumption has pulled out due to surrounding controversy. 

    According to the New York Times, Anheuser-Busch InBev, a Belgian-Brazilian brewing company, was to be one of five alcohol companies financially backing the study, which plans to examine the health benefits of consuming one daily drink. 

    But on Friday, June 8, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced it would be withdrawing funding due to controversy around the study and the sponsorship. The company stated that the controversy would “undermine the study’s credibility,” according to the Times.

    The announcement came via a letter to Dr. Maria C. Freire, who serves as the president and executive director of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

    According to the Times, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health is “a nongovernmental entity that is authorized to raise money from the private sector for NIH (National Institutes of Health) initiatives and manages the institutes’ public-private partnerships.”

    In May, the NIH discontinued enrollment for the study due to reports that officials and scientists from the NIH met with alcohol companies to seek out funding and gave the impression that the study outcome would support moderate drinking habits. 

    Nearly 25% of the funding for the study had been contributed by Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Times reports. Of the $66 million in funding, the company was contributing $15.4 million in payments over a 10-year period, beginning three years ago.  

    Andrés Peñate, global vice president for regulatory and public policy for Anheuser-Busch InBev, stated in the letter that the company had initially decided to fund the study “because we believed it would yield valuable, science-based insights into the health effects of moderate drinking.”

    He continued, “We had no role in the design or execution of this research; stringent firewalls were put in place with the Foundation for National Institutes of Health to safeguard the objectivity and independence of the science.”

    The letter concluded, “Unfortunately, recent questions raised around the study could undermine its lasting credibility, which is why we have decided to end our funding.”

    The study is expected to examine the potential effects of moderate drinking such as reducing risk of heart disease, diabetes and cognitive impairment. It is seeking out participation from 7,800 men and women with a high risk of heart disease.

    During the study, half the group will be asked to not drink alcohol and the other half will be asked to have a single drink every day of the week. Participants would be followed for an average of six years. 

    View the original article at thefix.com