WASHINGTON â House lawmakers are restructuring their bipartisan task forces dedicated to combating the drug epidemic and expect the chamber to consider behavioral health legislation this year, members told CQ Roll Call.
The push is spearheaded by four lawmakers in an effort to broaden the scope of legislative efforts beyond opioids to include all forms of addiction and mental health.
More than 86,000 individuals died from drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in July 2020, the highest ever recorded in a year, according to preliminary Centers for Disease Control data. A separate American Medical Association brief found that more than 40 states reported increases in opioid-related deaths during the pandemic.
Since 1999, when the unconstrained prescription of painkillers was beginning to emerge as a public-health crisis, more than 535,000 lives have been lost to opioid overdoses. If that grim number seems familiar, itâs just a bit higher than COVID-19âs toll of 527,000 deaths so far.
COVID-19 and the opioid crisis are linked in other ways too. The pandemic has driven an alarming increase in overdose fatalities over the past year, as people struggling to recover from opioid dependence have been undone by isolation, job loss and the added difficulty of getting support and treatment with social distancing rules in effect. All this at a time when lethal illicit fentanyl is increasingly turning up in street narcotics, including counterfeit hydrocodone and oxycodone pills. The 12 months ending last July saw 61,000 deaths, a surge from the previous year â even though the period includes only the first five months of the pandemic.
Brett Giroir, M.D. to serve as Chief Medical Advisor for AI-Powered Diagnostics Company, Gauss
Share Article MENLO PARK, Calif. (PRWEB) March 16, 2021 Gauss, a leader in computer vision in healthcare, today announced that former Assistant Secretary of Health and Admiral in the US Public Health Service, Brett P. Giroir, M.D., who previously served as the Trump administration s testing czar during the coronavirus pandemic, is joining the company as its Chief Medical Advisor.
Dr. Giroir joins Gauss as the company is pursuing Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its smartphone-powered, fully at-home COVID-19 rapid test. Upon authorization, the technology will improve Americans’ widespread access to testing, and enable anyone to test themselves within 15 minutes in the comfort of their home at substantially lower cost, enhanced convenience, and assured accuracy.
Promise me, Joe, that you’ll remember Alex in your first 100 days | Opinion
Updated Mar 15, 2021;
Posted Mar 14, 2021
Patricia A. Roos is in the midst of writing a book about her son, Alex Roos Clarke, who died of an overdose. She asks that President Biden remember Alex as he develops a drug policy during his first 100 days in office. Photo of Alex courtesy Patricia Roos.
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By Patricia A. Roos
Your son and mine died the same month, May 2015. Your Beau died from cancer. My Alex died from heroin.
You have spoken poignantly of your son Hunter’s recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, so you know my pain. Your book about Beau “Promise Me Dad” comforted me in a time of great sorrow. We weren’t, aren’t, alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 70,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in 2019. Since 1999, more than 760,000 have died. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of drug overdoses has spiked to more than