Opioids

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.

An Oklahoma judge determined that Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals played a role in the opioid crisis, and he ordered the company to pay more than $572 million based on public nuisance claims.

Substance use record privacy restrictions would be loosened under a rule proposed Thursday (Aug. 22) by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), but HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the administration is limited in fully aligning the scheme with the less-stringent Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and would support congressional action to do so.