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New drugs raise old concerns

The abuse of prescription painkillers has reached epidemic proportions in America.

Nearly half of the nation’s 38,329 drug overdose deaths in 2010 involved painkillers like hydrocodone and oxycodone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The New York Times reports that: “These narcotics now kill more adults than heroin and cocaine combined, sending 420,000 Americans to emergency rooms each year.images-1

“So many state health officials and advocacy groups were incredulous last fall when the Food and Drug Administrationapproved an even more powerful prescription painkiller — against the advice of its own expert advisory committee.The drug is Zohydro ER, a long-acting formulation of the opioid hydrocodone. The short-acting form, sold under brand names like Vicodin and Lortab, is already the most prescribed drug in the country, and the most abused.In March, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts sought to ban Zohydro outright, calling it “a potentially lethal narcotic painkiller.” The manufacturer, Zogenix of San Diego, went to court, and last week a federal judge struck down the ban pending further legal action.But other states in New England are moving to restrict the use of Zohydro, and 29 state attorneys general have asked the F.D.A. to reconsider its approval.“People are fearful this will be another original OxyContin,” said Sharon Walsh, director of the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research at the University of Kentucky, referring to an early formulation of the painkiller that resulted in a wave of prescription drug deaths in the 1990s and early 2000s. (OxyContin is now available in an abuse-deterrent formulation.)Zohydro is pure hydrocodone in an extended-release formulation. It is intended for people suffering from chronic pain who now must take short-acting hydrocodone pills every few hours around the clock. Continue reading “New drugs raise old concerns”

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No wealthy child left behind

Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. As today’s New York Times puts it: “Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion.

“Whether you think it deeply unjust, lamentable but inevitable, or obvious and unproblematic, this is hardly news. It is true in most societies and has been true in the United States for at least as long as we have thought to ask the question and had sufficient data to verify the answer.

“What is news is that in the United States over the last few decades these differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially. Continue reading “No wealthy child left behind”