May 8 Health House Committee Questions Opioid Distributors About Flood Of Pain Pills Legislators grilled representatives from five major opioid distributors Tuesday on how painkillers flooded West Virginia under their watch. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing came as part of an investigation into why Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, McKesson, Miami-Luken and H.D. Smith failed to report suspiciously large orders of opioid painkillers at the beginning of […] By Aaron Payne May 8 Health House Committee Questions Opioid Distributors About Flood Of Pain Pills Aaron Payne
Apr 27 Health Regional Hep A Outbreak Linked To Ohio Valley Addiction Crisis A Hepatitis A outbreak growing in the Louisville area since last summer reached a new peak recently with a travel advisory from Indiana health officials. They told Hoosiers heading to Kentucky to get a Hep A vaccine. Soon, Kentucky’s Acting Commissioner for Public Health Dr. Jeffrey Howard was pushing back. “Let me say that it […] By Mary Meehan Apr 27 Health Regional Hep A Outbreak Linked To Ohio Valley Addiction Crisis Mary Meehan
Mar 30 Health Exchange of Ideas: How A Rural Kentucky County Overcame Fear To Adopt A Needle Exchange Greg Lee, Kentucky’s HIV/AIDS educator, starts the town hall on a somber note. “How many people in this room know someone who has died of an overdose death?” It is a standing-room only crowd. Most hands go up. “Amazing,” he says, sadly. The meeting is at the Bourbon County Public Health Department, just next to […] By Mary Meehan Mar 30 Health Exchange of Ideas: How A Rural Kentucky County Overcame Fear To Adopt A Needle Exchange Mary Meehan
Mar 20 Health CDC Outlines Plan To Address Ohio Valley’s Opioids Crisis President Donald Trump’s call to implement the death penalty for drug traffickers grabbed headlines Monday. But public health officials within the Trump administration are stressing other elements of the president’s plan to address the opioid crisis. Acting Director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Anne Schuchat, outlined her agency’s plans for the […] By Aaron Payne Mar 20 Health CDC Outlines Plan To Address Ohio Valley’s Opioids Crisis Aaron Payne
Mar 2 Health Rural Risk: Fighting Disease Amid The Opioid Crisis Health officials in the Ohio Valley are investigating outbreaks of disease associated with needle drug use in what is emerging as a new public health threat from the region’s profound opioid addiction crisis. In northern Kentucky the health department is tracking a cluster of 43 recent HIV cases, about half of which are related to […] By Roxy Todd Mar 2 Health Rural Risk: Fighting Disease Amid The Opioid Crisis Roxy Todd
Feb 16 Health Painful Lessons: Using Data On Overdose Deaths To Combat Opioid Crisis The Ohio Valley’s numbers on the opioid crisis are grim, especially so in West Virginia, which has the nation’s highest rate of overdose deaths. But those numbers could give health workers the ability to identify people at risk of drug overdose and then reach them before they die. That’s what researchers from the West Virginia […] By Aaron Payne Feb 16 Health Painful Lessons: Using Data On Overdose Deaths To Combat Opioid Crisis Aaron Payne
Jan 30 Health Trump Takes Enforcement Approach To Opioid Crisis President Donald Trump addressed the opioid crisis affecting the Ohio Valley region in his first State of the Union address Tuesday night. “We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge,” he said. “My administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping […] By Aaron Payne Jan 30 Health Trump Takes Enforcement Approach To Opioid Crisis Aaron Payne
Dec 29 Economy $econd Chance: The Economic Case For Drug Treatment Over Jails Imagine living and working somewhere designed to fit a couple hundred people. Now picture that same space crammed with twice that number. Madison County, Kentucky, Jailer Doug Thomas doesn’t have to imagine it. He lives it. “I’m doing all that I can with what I have to work with, which is not a lot,” he […] By Becca Schimmel Dec 29 Economy $econd Chance: The Economic Case For Drug Treatment Over Jails Becca Schimmel
Dec 14 Health Survey Finds Teen Use Of Opioids Declining A survey produced by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found a rare bit of good news about the opioid crisis: fewer teenagers reported using opioids outside of medical purposes. The Monitoring the Future Survey 2017 results show a continued trend in decreased misuse of opioids by teens that dates to the early 2000s. Public […] By Aaron Payne Dec 14 Health Survey Finds Teen Use Of Opioids Declining Aaron Payne
Oct 27 Health Opioid Emergency: How Trump’s Plan Will — And Won’t — Help The Ohio Valley As bad as the opioid epidemic is across the nation, it is even worse here in the Ohio Valley. Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia collectively have a rate of opioid-related deaths that is more than twice the national average. Last year 5,306 people died from opioid overdoses in the three states — 15 deaths a […] By Aaron Payne Oct 27 Health Opioid Emergency: How Trump’s Plan Will — And Won’t — Help The Ohio Valley Aaron Payne