Prevention
Our prevention efforts about opioid risk and non-opioid alternatives for pain management include our annual awards for outstanding journalism.
For 2023, we are pleased to announce the following recipients for Allen Research Endowment Awards for Outstanding Opioid Addiction Journalism.
By Megan Lebowitz
White House asks Congress for more money to fight fentanyl overdoses
August 10, 2023: The White House asked Congress for nearly $800 million in additional funding to fight drug addiction and overdoses, which killed more than 100,000 people in the United States in 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By Dr. Priscilla Koirala and Dr. Ankita Aggarwal
Overdose deaths from fentanyl combined with stimulants increased 50-fold since 2010
September 14, 2023: According to an analysis by researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), many people who use drugs like cocaine recreationally may not be aware these drugs are laced with fentanyl, a powerful opioid that can be deadline in small doses.
September 2023 🖶 ✉
We published our latest research report on Opioid Addiction Prevention, whose highlights included:
Opioid addiction prevention efforts should target multiple levels of society from (1) individuals and families, to (2) healthcare provider, and to (3) policymakers.
Intervene with at at-risk individuals, such ad adolescents experimenting with opioids or those with a family history of addiction.
October 2023 🖶 ✉
We published excerpts from the Stanford University-Lancet Report “What Led to the Opioid Crisis” and interview with Howard Koh of Harvard’s School of Public Health Leadership, whose highlights included:
Q. What were the main drivers of the opioid crisis?
A. ...a multi-system failure of regulation. OxyContin approval [by FDA] is one example—Purdue Pharma was later shown to have presented a fraudulent description of the drug as less addictive than other opioids.
...post-[FDA] approval, it’s usually left up to industry—not regulators—to educate and advise prescribers…
...a revolving door of officials leaving government...to join the pharmaceutical industry.
A. ...more recently, a third wave of deaths has arisen from illegal synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
...the second wave of deaths was from a heroin market that expanded to attract already addicted people.