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The Editorial Board operates independently of the UT Newsroom, but holds similar ethical standards. We base our editorials and endorsements on reports, interviews and rigorous debates, striving for accuracy, fairness and civility in our sections. Don’t you agree? let us know.
It’s been six years since the New York Times published a startling article detailing how a deadly opioid overdose is tearing rural America “like a plow through the soil.” The report was produced at a time when the country began to see that it was facing the worst wave of drug use in U.S. history, not just the struggling Rust Belt region. Fatal overdoses of prescription drugs and illicit opioids increased from 21,089 in 2010 to 42,249 in 2016 and 107,622 in 2021. Reversing opioid overdose quickly — should become ubiquitous in daily life by both addicts and those they know, and not allow its cost to inhibit its widespread use.
His initial recommendations quickly gained acceptance, and naloxone is now held not only by first responders but also by librarians. Only recently has Adams moved to realize his goal of making things happen. On November 15, after years of review, the FDA concluded that “certain naloxone products may be safe and effective as flat-priced, much cheaper, less targeted over-the-counter drugs.” There is,” he announced. And the day after Christmas, The Wall Street Journal reported that Harm Reduction Therapeutics — a pharmaceutical nonprofit — could get his naloxone nasal spray final approval by late April. It costs about $18 each. That’s less than 10% of the typical drug cost for someone without health insurance. His RAND research last year found that such price breakthroughs are key to limiting overdose deaths.
The drug approval process shouldn’t be rugged, but that concern doesn’t apply here. The FDA approved the use of naloxone as an overdose treatment in 1971. Its extreme effectiveness was documented long before the opioid epidemic began. It is no exaggeration to say that tens of thousands of Americans would still be alive if only bureaucrats understood that vigilance was, in fact, reckless in this case, as the Surgeon General did in 2018. is not.
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