Amount Of Opioids Prescribed In U.S. Is Falling, But That’s Where The Good News Ends
Scientists say there are still "too many people getting medicine at too high a level and for too long."
The New York Times:
Opioid Prescriptions Fall After 2010 Peak, C.D.C. Report Finds
The amount of opioid painkillers prescribed in the United States peaked in 2010, a new federal analysis has found, with prescriptions for higher, more dangerous doses dropping most sharply — by 41 percent — since then. But the analysis, by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found that the prescribing rate in 2015 remained three times as high as in 1999, when the nation’s problem with opioid addiction was just getting started. (Goodnough, 7/6)
Los Angeles Times:
In Rural America, Opioid Prescriptions Continue To Flow, New CDC Report Shows
The CDC’s comprehensive report offers a mixed picture of progress in a national effort to reduce the availability of the prescription painkillers, which have been implicated in roughly half of the nation’s 33,000 opioid-related overdose deaths last year. (Healy, 7/6)