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drugs

American Opioid Epidemic: Future Recommendations

Substance abuse disorders were always undertreated. Although there has been an improvement in treatment due to increased education and research, there is still more that can be done. Only 10% of substance abuse patients receive specialized treatment (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). Over 40% of patients with a substance abuse disorder also […]

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drugs

American Opioid Epidemic: Not Helping the Crisis

The prescribing of fentanyl is highly regulated by the FDA as it’s a scheduled II drug. This means that it’s rather addictive and subject to abuse. Some pharmaceutical companies are seeking to enter this market by formulating the drug in different forms of administration (ie: spray, injection, oral, etc.). Michael Babich from Insys Therapeutics was […]

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drugs

American Opioid Epidemic: Action Taken

In 2017, the FDA restricted the manufacturing of Schedule II Opiates by 25%. Obviously the FDA has a critical role in controlling the manufacturing quotas of Schedule I and II substances. When setting quotas, the institution did their due diligence in reviewing: Estimates of the legitimate medical need Estimates of retail consumption based on prescriptions […]

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drugs

American Opioid Epidemic: The Start

The American Opioid Epidemic was a major topic of discussion of the twenty-first century. Opioid pain medication was being prescribed left-and-right. Initially, prescribers were being coached to prescribe more pain medication as pain was being greatly undertreated in patients. This was demonstrated in James Campbell’s presidential address of the American Pain Society where he stated […]

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drugs

Big Pharma Corruption: Placebos

Placebos are commonly viewed as fraud among the general public. Some news stories have said that some drugs that were sold as prescriptions were just milk and sugar. Although it is wrong to sell placebos in place of real drugs, placebos have a great deal of importance in pharmaceutical research. Placebos can make a control […]

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drugs

Big Pharma Corruption: Clinical Trials Gone Wrong

The sneaky relationship between researchers and drug companies taint the trials and therefore put the patient in danger. Borison and Diamond, two psychiatrists from the Medical College of Georgia, are in jail because of endangering the safety of multiple patients by tainting trials of over twenty drugs in order to receive hundreds of thousands of […]

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drugs

Big Pharma Corruption: Drug Design and Designer Drugs

Over the past five years, debates about designer drugs have been growing. This new sector’s main focus is to genetically alter drugs so that they are custom for the individual patient. Although in theory this sounds like a health-improving technology, the failure of the multiple companies to agree on a destination and move forward is […]

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drugs

Big Pharma Corruption

Big Pharma, the name we collectively attach to all of the drug companies, has been under scrutiny for the past few decades. The government, healthcare institutions, and drug companies collaborate together to supposedly provide us with the finest drugs for our consumption to maintain or improve our health. Peter Coy puts it perfectly, Big Pharma […]