Industry News

• September 13, 2011
  Why should we use UDT in our pain practices? (Emerging Solutions in Pain)
  

  From Emerging Solutions in Pain: Steven D. Passik, PhD, discusses the need for uring drug monitoring in pain practices.

  
  
  
  
• September 13, 2011
  National survey shows a rise in illicit drug use from 2008 to 2010 (SAMHSA)
  

  From SAMHSA: The use of illicit drugs among Americans increased between 2008 and 2010 according to a national survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows that 22.6 million Americans 12 or older (8.9-percent of the population) were current illicit drug users. The rate of use in 2010 was similar to the rate in 2009 (8.7-percent), but remained above the 2008 rate (8- percent).

  
  
  
  
• September 12, 2011
  A Diet for Patients With Chronic Pain (Practical Pain Management)
  

  From Practical Pain Management: Many serious conditions and diseases, including hyperlipidemia, obesity, congestive heart failure, and renal failure, have their own recommended diet. Considerable scientific information and clinical observation have accumulated in recent years that chronic pain, particularly the debilitating, severe form that requires opioid treatment, needs a “chronic pain” diet.

  
  
  
  
• September 8, 2011
  Reducing the Risk of Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Noncancer Pain (MD News)
  

  From MD News: In the past decade, opioid analgesic abuse, addiction and overdose have skyrocketed in the United States. During this time, deaths from opioid analgesic overdose have increased four-fold and, since 2003, have exceeded deaths from heroin and cocaine combined.

  
  
  
  
• September 3, 2011
  Florida Shutting ‘Pill Mill’ Clinics (NY Times)
  

  From The New York Times: Florida has long been the nation’s center of the illegal sale of prescription drugs: Doctors here bought 89 percent of all the Oxycodone sold in the country last year. At its peak, so many out-of-staters flocked to Florida to buy drugs at more than 1,000 pain clinics that the state earned the nickname “Oxy Express.”