With stunning speed, on Thursday the FDA approved an injection device designed to deliver naloxone — a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose — for use in the home and other non-hospital settings. The approval comes after a four-month, fast-track priority review, and may represent a tipping point in how heroin and prescription opioid addiction…
U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder this week declared rising heroin and opioid overdose deaths “an urgent and public health crisis” and vowed renewed enforcement and treatment efforts. In a five-minute televised video, the nation’s top cop referred to the 45 percent increase from 2004 to 2010 in the fatal overdoses from heroin and other opiates found…
A new super-potent narcotic painkiller called Zohydro is set to enter the marketplace and critics fear the country will see a spike in opioid addiction and overdose deaths as a result. Zohydro, which was approved by the FDA last year in a controversial decision, is an extended release formula of pure hydrocodone. In spite of the warnings from…
Daniel Parks’ wife had fallen asleep, shattered after a long day at the UK-based music festival Bestival. Daniel locked himself in the bathroom—his mind frazzled by his use of drugs over the weekend—and took a kitchen knife with him. He mutilated his lower arms, sending blood cascading down onto the floor of the small cubicle…
Gene therapy is the general term that doctors and scientists use to describe any medical technique that relies on purposeful manipulation of units of DNA inside individual cells, called genes, in order to treat, cure or prevent an illness. Depending on individual circumstances, use of this type of therapy can involve deactivating or switching out…