Opioid

The FDA recently announced that is has issued warning letters to 17 website operators for illegally selling opioids that are unapproved or misbranded, meaning they were sold without a prescription or lacked adequate directions for use.

States and tribes will receive nearly $3 billion over the next 2 years for prevention, treatment and recovery support services for people with opioid use disorders, according to a press release from HHS.

An interdisciplinary working group, using electronic health record data as feedback, was able to improve compliance with national and state opioid prescribing guidelines at a tertiary academic rheumatology practice, researchers noted.

Many women seeking treatment for opioid use disorder, particularly pregnant women, face significant barriers to receiving treatment, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.

Factors such as advanced age and recent severe exacerbation may predict opioid-related pulmonary events in older adults with COPD, according to a study published in Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Ankylosing spondylitis presents significant challenges in pain management and remains a controversial topic with limited data for efficacy.

A clinical trial recently launched in Canada is the first of its kind to collect real-world data on the use of validated medical cannabis products.

Although opioid prescriptions decreased in the last year, the use and overdose rates of illicit drugs — including fentanyl and stimulants — have increased, according to a progress report released by the AMA Opioid Task Force.

The FDA announced that drug manufacturers will now be required to include information about naloxone in prescribing information for opioids and medications to treat opioid use disorders.

State-level opioid-reduction policies — specifically, the prescription drug monitoring program and pain clinic legislation — were associated with decreases in pediatric opioid exposures, a study showed.