Addiction

December 5, 2018

U.S. life expectancy dives as drug overdoses and suicides soar

by Patrick A. Malone

CDC: drug overdoses

As 2018 rumbles to its close, Americans are getting yet more excruciating information about the toll inflicted on us by Big Pharma, doctors, hospitals, and insurers: The nation is posting record numbers of overdose deaths, suicides, and a life expectancy rate that’s falling in a way not seen since the great wars.

It takes almost zero effort to connect the awful trio of bad health indicators. But it grows increasingly clear that to reverse them the United States will need leadership, resources, and a commitment that, for now, is painfully absent.

November 19, 2018

Staying healthy, safe and thankful during the holidays

by Patrick A. Malone

As we all race to groaning tables for one of the traditional and happier holidays of the year, here’s hoping the turkeys stay brown, tasty, and on the table. Sadly, food poisoning is a real issue, and not just for worry-warts.

Cooks preparing this major feast may want to keep watch on growing reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about salmonella outbreaks tied to turkey.

As the Washington Post reported:

November 16, 2018

FDA to play yet more catch-up to crack down on e-cigarettes and flavorings

by Patrick A. Malone

Uncle Sam will rip a page from Big Tobacco’s marketing playbook, targeting the taste and buying-ease of nicotine-containing products with tough new restrictions aimed at better protecting kids. Will these latest steps, however, snuff out the increasingly risky youth vaping craze and long problematic menthol cigarettes and cigars? Or are officials too late and being more helpful than not to tobacco interests?

The Washington Post first reported the outlines of plans by the federal Food and Drug Administration to crack on the hot youth trend of using e-cigarettes by barring sales at gas stations and convenience stores like 7-Eleven of certain flavored liquids and devices used in vaping.

But the FDA, in its formal policy announcement, retreated from that tough stance. Instead, the agency says it will require gas stations and convenience stores to require age verification and keep specified products away from the under-aged. It is unclear if this means vendors simply can stash these items under the counters, or if they must be kept in separate adults-only areas.

November 9, 2018

Big Pharma shows off its big gall with risky products and dubious practices

by Patrick A. Malone

Big Pharma is a broad commercial sector with many diverse enterprises large and small, but they keep showing they’re united in their giant gall when it comes to their unacceptable products and practices, as timely news reports demonstrate.

Just consider:

As the nation grapples with an overdose epidemic that kills tens of thousands of Americans annually, why would the firm AcelRx race to market — and why would federal regulators approve — a new opioid painkiller? Experts warn the drug is incredibly powerful and so tiny and easy to use that it fast will be much abused and lethal. The new pill, Dsuvia, is just 3 millimeters in diameter — the size of a big grain of sand. Placed under the tongue, it delivers its dose almost as soon as it dissolves. It is said to pack 10 times the potency of an already deadly synthetic painkiller: fentanyl, which is up to 100 times more potent than morphine and many times that of heroin.

October 12, 2018

Unhappy meals: Fast food still tops out too many time-stressed eaters’ menus

by Patrick A. Malone

Americans can’t stop chowing down on fast foods, despite years of warnings about their health harms.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that 36.6 percent of Americans — 37.9 percent of men and 35.4 percent of women — eat some kind of fast food on any given day.

As the Los Angeles Times reported:

October 9, 2018

Congress approves 650-page bill to attack opioid crisis, as doubts abound

by Patrick A. Malone

Congress has approved a major new push to deal with the opioid crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans annually. Voters can expect President Trump to sign the big bill, passed easily and with rare bipartisan support in the House and Senate, just in time for politicians in the mid-term elections to campaign on their drug-fighting initiatives. But critics say it won’t be enough.

The opioids legislation covers 650 pages, and, in brief, the Washington Post reported, would:

Require the U.S. Postal Service to screen packages for fentanyl shipped from overseas, mainly China. Synthetic opioids that are difficult to detect are increasingly being found in pills and heroin and are responsible for an increase in overdose deaths.

September 26, 2018

‘Fat shaming’ plays ugly role in medicine’s failing campaign to treat obesity

by Patrick A. Malone

The medical establishment needs to take a hard, long look at its failing efforts to combat obesity and overweight, conditions that now affect just under 40 percent of American adults (93.3 million people) and 20 percent of youngsters (13.7 million) in the U.S.

That’s because doctors and medical scientists have “ignored mountains of evidence to wage a cruel and futile war on fat people, poisoning public perception and ruining millions of lives,” Michael Hobbes has reported in a long, strong story on the Huffington Post.

Hobbes has marshaled an array of available data to wag an unhappy finger at U.S. society, acting on conventional medical wisdom, for blaming and shaming those who are overweight or obese, contending that they lack self-control, discipline, and the personal fortitude to deal with what he says is clearly an uncontrolled medical and public health menace.

September 16, 2018

Is FDA’s new crackdown on e-cigarettes too little, too late?

by Patrick A. Malone

Has one of the nation’s top health watchdogs awoken too late, barked too little, and, maybe won’t bite enough as Big Tobacco and its allies have addicted a generation of young people to nicotine?

Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the federal Food and Drug Administration, captured extensive media attention by hitting the alarm button about “epidemic” vaping and teens’ use of e-cigarettes, notably the wildly trendy Juul device and others of its kind.

He said the FDA has acted against 1,300 retailers for peddling e-cigarettes and their liquid flavorings to underage customers. More key: The agency has told Juul and other leading makers that they have 60 days to show how they can keep their products out of the hands of customers 18 and younger — or the FDA may ban them from the market.

September 7, 2018

Big Tobacco skunks regulators yet again in finding new ways to target teens

by Patrick A. Malone

Big Tobacco and its allies long have exploited evolving media to hawk harmful products, promoting them as desirable and sexy in print, movies, radio, television, and online. So, it’s not exactly a surprise that these merchants of death have become masters of marketing on social media, targeting young consumers worldwide.

Their latest campaigns may let cigarette- and e-cigarette-makers skirt regulations, some of them tough and aimed at protecting naïve, vulnerable kids from lifetime addictions.

The tobacco hype may be working all too well, with researchers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere finding that 10.8 million adults in the United States are “vaping,” with 54.6 percent of e-cigarette users also smoking cigarettes. “About 15 percent of vapers had never smoked cigarettes, and 30.4 percent had quit smoking them,” the newspaper reported.

August 20, 2018

Drug overdose toll hits another record as abusers fall prey to synthetic opioids

by Patrick A. Malone

In 2017, drug overdoses killed 72,000 Americans, a 10 percent increase over 2016 and yet another record, according to the latest provisional federal estimates.

That single year toll would be more than double the American deaths attributed to the Korean War, and almost 1.25 times those caused by the Vietnam War. The New York Times reported that 2017’s overdose deaths were “higher than the peak yearly death totals from HIV, car crashes or gun deaths.”

The newspaper said experts, analyzing the numbers, blamed them on a few reasons (see NYT chart above): “A growing number of Americans are using opioids, and drugs are becoming more deadly. It is the second factor that most likely explains the bulk of the increased number of overdoses last year.”