Here's one of the consequences of the new health reform law you might have missed: The number of people seeking treatment for addiction could double, depending upon how many states expand Medicaid programs and how many addicts take advantage of them.
And for many of them, there will be no place to go....
Here's one of the consequences of the new health reform law you might have missed: The number of people seeking treatment for addiction could double, depending upon how many states expand Medicaid programs and how many addicts take advantage of them.
And for many of them, there will be no place to go. "In more than two thirds of the states, treatment clinics are already at or approaching 100 percent capacity," writes Carla K. Johnson (photo) of The Associated Press. That comes from a piece in which Johnson compared federal government data on addiction rates in the 50 states, the capacity of existing treatment programs, and the provisions of the new healthcare law.
The surge of new patients is "expected to push a marginal part of the health care system out of church...
You might know that 12-step programs and abstinence are at the heart of many addiction and alcoholism treatment programs. But you might not know--I didn't--that one of the leading and most influential treatment centers has made a gospel of avoiding any medical treatments for addiction.
The treatment...
You might know that 12-step programs and abstinence are at the heart of many addiction and alcoholism treatment programs. But you might not know--I didn't--that one of the leading and most influential treatment centers has made a gospel of avoiding any medical treatments for addiction.
The treatment center is Hazelden, which began in a Minnesota farmhouse in 1949 and now has a treatment network stretching across five states. The problem with its allegiance to abstinence is that the science showing the value of addiction medications is harder to ignore, writes Maia Szalavitz on Time's website. (Disclosure: Szalavitz and I are members of a writing group in New York City. And we're friends.)
In an important scoop, Szalavitz now...
In the 1990s, Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, put out a promotional video featuring seven chronic pain sufferers, according to John Fauber and Ellen Gabler at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They wondered what had happened to these people, who...
In the 1990s, Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, put out a promotional video featuring seven chronic pain sufferers, according to John Fauber and Ellen Gabler at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They wondered what had happened to these people, who talked on the video about how much OxyContin was helping them.
Here's what the reporters found:
Two of the seven patients were active opioid abusers when they died. A third became addicted, suffered greatly, and quit after realizing she was headed for an overdose. Three patients still say the drug helped them cope with their pain and improved their quality of life. A seventh patient declined to answer questions.
Sales of OxyContin, they report, have...
No. Scientists cannot block addiction now. But you wouldn't know it from this release put out by the University of Adelaide:
...
No. Scientists cannot block addiction now. But you wouldn't know it from this release put out by the University of Adelaide:
Scientists can now block heroin, morphine addicition
In a major breakthrough, an international team of scientists has proven that addiction to morphine and heroin can be blocked, while at the same time increasing pain relief.
If I were addicted to heroin, I guess I'd toddle off to Australia to get my addiction blocked now.
Further along in the release, the researchers from Adelaide and the University of Colorado say that clincial trials "may be possible within the next 18 months." The release does not note that according to...
[Updated with link to Katharine Gammon story, below.]
It shouldn't...
[Updated with link to Katharine Gammon story, below.]
It shouldn't come as a great surprise that human beings are animals. But it's an easy thing to forget, because we're constantly telling ourselves, in one way or another, what special animals we are.
So it's nice to get a reminder from Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, a cardiologist, and Kathryn Bowers, a writer whom I met at the NASW meeting last year, that we do have animal natures.
The New York Times apparently agrees, because it gave the pair two ad-free pages inside the Sunday Review...
...
In a post earlier today, I criticized The New York Times for failing to respond to a letter signed by 45 neuroscientists that challenged the accuracy of a Times op-ed piece. The op-ed was written by a branding consultant...
UPDATE: The public editor of The New York Times has responded to this post....
UPDATE: The public editor of The New York Times has responded to this post. Here's the link.
When something in the paper is wrong, The New York Times is supposed to correct it. Sometimes it is so eager to do so that its corrections border on the trivial. When an article in the Nov. 13 issue of the Times Magazine on rubber duckies referred to the Seiberling Rubber Company, the paper was careful to note, in last Sunday's magazine, that it should have been...
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