Latest Drugs Headlines

All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Texas Workers’ Comp Research Group to Complete Report Card, Study Compound Drugs

Jun 5 2017 // The Texas Workers’ Compensation Research and Evaluation Group has released its 2017 research agenda, a blueprint for its efforts to provide critical data for decision-makers in the Texas workers’ compensation...

Growing Number of Municipal Suits Over Opioids Face Uphill Battle

Jun 2 2017 // A growing number of U.S. states, counties and cities are filing lawsuits accusing drug companies of deceptively marketing opioid painkillers to downplay their addictiveness, but some lawyers say the industry’s highly...

Bill Creating Workers’ Comp Drug Formulary Advances in Louisiana

Jun 1 2017 // A bill establishing a workers’ compensation closed drug formulary in Louisiana passed the House and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations. A legislative analysis of House Bill...

Ohio AG DeWine Sues 5 Drug Companies Over Opioid Crisis

May 31 2017 // The state of Ohio on May 30 sued five major drug manufacturers, accusing them of misrepresenting the risks of prescription opioid painkillers that have fueled a sky-rocketing drug addiction epidemic. The suit, filed by...

Motorist Deaths by South Carolina Police Trigger Costly Settlements

May 31 2017 // Police forces in South Carolina have reached several high-dollar settlements in cases where officers have shot and killed drivers and others in moving vehicles in the past several years. Here are some of the most expensive...

Alabama ‘Pill Mill’ Doctor Gets 21 Years in Prison

May 31 2017 // An Alabama doctor was sentenced on Friday to 21 years in prison for running two clinics with a colleague that prosecutors called a massive “pill mill,” in a case tied to the U.S. probe of Insys Therapeutics...

Patients on Opioids Before Knee Surgery Have Worse Pain Outcomes

May 23 2017 // Six months after knee replacement surgery, pain outcomes were not as good for patients who previously took prescription opioids, according to a study in the May 17 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint...

Bipartisan Senators Look to Address Banking Risk for Marijuana Industry

May 18 2017 // Republican and Democratic senators on Wednesday renewed their drive to make banking easier for marijuana-based businesses in those U.S. states where the drug is legal, undeterred by signals from the Trump administration...

New York County Sues Purdue, J&J Over Opioid Marketing

May 18 2017 // A county in New York state has sued Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson & Johnson and other drugmakers, accusing them of engaging in fraudulent marketing that played down the risks of prescription opioid painkillers, leading to...

Drug Use at Work at Highest Rate in 12 Years: Quest

May 17 2017 // Drug use in the American workforce, fueled by illicit drugs including cocaine, reached the highest positivity rate in 12 years last year, according to an analysis of more than 10 million workforce drug test...

Louisiana Bill to Limit Opioids for Injured Workers Passes Committee

May 15 2017 // Hoping to prevent fatal overdoses, a House committee passed a bill to make it harder for injured Louisiana workers to access highly-addictive opioid drugs. Lawmakers voted 8-5 on May 11 to have prescribers consult a...

Feds Grant $5.9M to West Virginia for Drug Addiction Fight

May 15 2017 // West Virginia will receive $5.9 million from the federal government to help fight drug addiction. U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin announced the grant from the U.S. Department of Health...

Jury Clears J&J, Bayer of Liability in First Xarelto Product Liability Trial

May 5 2017 // Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG aren’t responsible for a Xarelto user’s internal bleeding, a jury found in the first trial over the blood-thinning drug. J&J and Bayer didn’t mislead a Louisiana man...

California DWC Posts Interim Report on Workers’ Comp Drug Formulary

May 1 2017 // California’s Division of Workers’ Compensation has posted the second interim status report on its efforts to promulgate regulations for an evidence-based workers’ compensation drug formulary. The...

Feds Grant $5.9M to West Virginia in Drug Addiction Fight

May 1 2017 // West Virginia will receive $5.9 million from the federal government to help fight drug addiction. U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin announced the grant Thursday from the U.S. Department...

Workers’ Comp Programs Assist Workers in Addiction Fight

May 1 2017 // Meet a victim of the nation’s opioid addiction scourge: The American worker. A number of U.S. states are taking steps through their worker’s compensation systems to stem the overprescribing of the powerful...

Feds Grant $5.9M to West Virginia for Drug Addiction Fight

Apr 24 2017 // West Virginia will receive $5.9 million from the federal government to help fight drug addiction. U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin announced the grant Thursday from the U.S. Department...

States to Get $485 Million for Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs

Apr 24 2017 // The federal government will provide states nearly half a billion dollars for prevention and treatment programs aimed at confronting the opioid epidemic, which Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price described last...

French Regulator Links Sanofi Epilepsy Drug to Birth Defects

Apr 21 2017 // Up to 4,100 children in France suffered major malformations in the womb after their mothers took a treatment against epilepsy and bipolar disorders known as valproate between 1967 and 2016, France’s drug regulator...

West Virginia Overdose Deaths Up 15% in 2016

Apr 17 2017 // The number of reported overdose deaths that occurred last year in West Virginia has continued to rise. Citing data released March 22, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that at least 844 people died in the state of drug...