Prescription opioids among older Canadians ‘a silent epidemic’: Report

Prescription Drugs: White pills spilling out of prescription bottles with prescriptions in back.

Addiction to painkillers in seniors can lead to significant adverse effects such as sedation, impaired motor coordination, and increased risk of depression. Seniors are at a higher risk of opioid misuse due to the prescription of these medications for pain relief. Canada’s opioid crisis has also affected seniors, with them being the demographic that has […]

Walmart agrees to $3.1 billion opioid settlement framework

Medicine Products placed in Shelves at Pharmacy

Walmart agreed to the framework of a $3.1 billion settlement, which resolves allegations from multiple states’ attorneys general that the company failed to regulate opioid prescriptions contributing to the nationwide opioid crisis.   The settlement, according to the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who co-led a coalition of attorneys general in the […]

Canada’s Opioid Crisis Worsens

Blonde girl with braids leaving flowers for a loved one in a rural cemetery.

Some parents are losing not one, but two children to drug overdoses, as Canada’s opioid crisis worsens.   The sheer scale of Canada’s ‘other epidemic’ means that some families are suffering multiple losses from drug overdoses, and experts say that this phenomenon is no longer rare Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-opioid-crisis-drug-overdose-parents-grief/

Opioid’s Impact on the Brain Felt Across Generations, Study in Rats Suggests

Brain CT scan x-ray film

New scientific evidence has emerged that opioids, the cause of an ongoing public health crisis, can have a biological impact not only on those who use them, but on their progeny. In a study of rats, males with a father repeatedly exposed to morphine tended to be more sensitive to the pain-relieving effects of the […]

J&J, distributors finalize $26B landmark opioid settlement

candles burning in darkness over black background. commemoration concept

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors finalized nationwide settlements over their role in the opioid addiction crisis Friday, an announcement that clears the way for $26 billion to flow to nearly every state and local government in the U.S.  Taken together, the settlements are the largest to date among the many opioid-related cases […]

CBC News : I watched the opioid crisis from the front lines. I’m glad I’m leaving

As a Calgary firefighter, I’ve seen the opioid epidemic escalate from a “new thing” into a full-blown national nightmare. In 2014, I transferred to one of the busier districts in the city, near Chinook Mall where overdoses soon became commonplace.   At first they occured where you might expect them: derelict corners in industrial spaces […]

Infectious Disease Physician

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