Opioids

The Senate on Thursday (Oct. 31) passed 84-9 an FDA spending package that gives the agency $3 billion in discretionary funding, which is an $80 million increase over fiscal 2019 levels but still a far cry from the $184 million increase in the bill passed by the House in June.

Providers and hospitals applauded a rule proposed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to loosen privacy protections on substance use records but still called on SAMHSA to make the scheme, known as 42 CFR Part 2, more like the less-stringent Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act by altering parts of the proposal.

In a brief two-page report, the Government Accountability Office highlights the potential for opioid vaccines and lays out the challenges and policy questions surrounding their development, including what standards FDA should set for clinical trials and what resources would be needed.

A group of medicine and public health researchers and historians are calling on an Ohio court overseeing the national multidistrict opioid litigation to ensure that any settlement guarantees full and permanent access to records that contain information about and shed light on the abuse potential and distribution patterns of opioids.

The Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic demonstration program lost its funding Friday (Sept. 13) for the second time this year after a short-term extension lapsed, threatening access to medication-assisted treatment and the jobs of those who work at these clinics, according to patient advocates.

The Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic demonstration program will lose its funding on Friday (Sept. 13) if the Senate does not act to pass another extension, and, despite reassurances by senators that funding is a priority, nothing appears to be moving forward ahead of that deadline.

The American Medical Association (AMA) said Medicaid is leading the way in combating the opioid crisis and outlined opportunities for the program to further expand treatment for opioid-use disorders, including by removing barriers to medication-assisted treatment (MAT), providing more non-opioid pain management options and expanding access to providers who treat substance-use disorders.

HHS is granting more than $1.8 billion in funding to expand access to treatment and support near real-time data on drug overdoses, the agency announced Wednesday (Sept. 4).

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, offered to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company for $10 billion to $12 billion, according to media reports.