AGG Talks: Healthcare Insights Podcast - Episode 2: Substance Use Disorder Litigation
DE Talk | Uncovering the Non-Traditional Workforce: Recruiting & Retaining Talent in Addiction Recovery
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Podcast | Episode 105: Sara Goldsby, Director, DAODAS
Author Brian Cuban Talks About “The Addicted Lawyer” and the Addiction Crisis Among Lawyers: On Record PR
Can an employer require drug testing in the workplace?
Avid readers know we have speculated that the legalization of psychedelics as a prescription medicine was “closer than ever.” Unfortunately, for proponents of the legalization of psychedelics like MDMA, progress is rarely a...more
In the grand experiment of American democracy, it is often said that states serve as laboratories, testing policies that challenge the status quo without risking the stability of the whole. Oregon, known in recent years for...more
Executive Summary: This is Part 3 of a series of Alerts exploring different facets of the ongoing opioid addiction crisis afflicting our country. Our initial Alert on June 12, 2023 outlined the big-picture issues associated...more
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a final rule intended to implement a 2020 modification to the federal substance use disorder (SUD) privacy statute. The final rule more closely aligns the...more
Suboxone is a medication used to treat opioid addiction, containing buprenorphine and naloxone. While Suboxone is highly effective in helping individuals overcome opioid dependence, there have been concerns about its...more
On February 8, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule (Final Rule) updating federal “Part 2” regulations to more closely align the requirements applicable to substance use disorder...more
On May 26, 2023, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published a final decision and order (the “Final Order”) affirming an Administrative Law Judge's (ALJ) August 29, 2019 recommendation (the “ALJ Order”) to revoke DEA...more
In Westfield National Insurance Co. v. Quest Pharmaceuticals, the Sixth Circuit held that two insurers owed no coverage obligations to Quest Pharmaceuticals in connection with 77 lawsuits filed against it alleging misconduct...more
In 2021, drug-related overdose deaths topped 107,000. Despite a nearly 50% decrease in opioid prescribing over the past decade, drug overdose mortality continues to trend in the wrong direction. Of particular concern is that...more
In 2021, drug-related overdose deaths topped 107,000. Despite a nearly 50% decrease in opioid prescribing over the past decade, drug overdose mortality continues to trend in the wrong direction. In the face of these...more
Prompted by rising rates of overdose deaths, suicides and incidence of mental illness in at-risk populations, such as children, Congress has spent the better part of the year working in a bipartisan manner to develop and...more
In a shift from prior policy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposed on February 22, 2022, new guidelines for prescribing opioid painkillers. The new guidance largely avoids figures on dosage strength...more
In October of 2018, Congress passed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act (P.L. 115-271). The comprehensive opioid treatment law passed both chambers of Congress with large bipartisan support and tackled many aspects...more
The Supreme Court will hear argument next week in two consolidated cases that will decide what standard applies when a doctor asserts a good faith defense to a criminal prosecution for unlawful drug distribution. ...more
With drug overdose deaths reaching record numbers, policymakers and other stakeholders must increase their efforts to end the nation’s drug overdose epidemic with targeted, evidence-based interventions and emerging best...more
This episode of OnAir: Health Care is the first in a series on the opioid epidemic in the U.S. Akin Gump health care senior policy advisor Matthew Hittle and consultant Dr. Mario Ramirez welcome Gary Mendell, founder and CEO...more
Patients who say they were injured by wealthy corporations must possess great fortitude as they seek justice in the civil system, as has been reaffirmed by the courts in California and Oklahoma that rejected separate cases...more
On July 6, 2021, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed into law Public Act 21-113 titled “An Act Concerning Opioids” (PA 21-113), which establishes pilot programs to help serve persons with opioid use disorder in urban,...more
“It’s huge, it’s historic, it’s unheard of, unprecedented, and a real shame. It’s a complete shame”... That quote, reported by the New York Times and made by Daniel Ciccarone, a professor of medicine at the University of...more
By legislation enacted last month, on June 9, 2021, amending the New York Finance Law, Mental Hygiene Law and Executive Law, New York State established an opioid settlement fund (“OSF”). Finance Law §99-nn(1). The purpose...more
Health workers with legal prescribing privileges have gotten newly revised federal guidelines — once again — making it easier for them to help those addicted to powerful opioid painkillers by prescribing buprenorphine,...more
Members of the plutocratic Sackler clan have upped the ante yet again in a bankruptcy court bid to settle thousands of lawsuits targeting Purdue Pharmaceutical, the company long in the family’s grip and blamed for untold...more
While too many Americans struggle with skyrocketing prescription drug costs, so much so that a $10 insurance co-payment may be lethally dissuasive, Big Pharma firms are seeking billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded benefits...more
The opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis has tarred yet another of the nation’s business titans: McKinsey, a globally renowned consulting firm, has discovered that providing corporate clients sketchy advice about addictive,...more
The stain of the nation’s opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis has spread now to Bentonville, Ark., as federal prosecutors have sued Walmart, accusing the nation’s largest retailer of improperly allowing its pharmacists to...more