"Health & Medical News"

From:
Treatment Research Institute
600 Public Ledger Building, 150 S. Independence Mall West
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: (215) 399-0980
http://www.tresearch.org

Paying substance abuse treatment providers for results, not services, may lead to improved quality of care, according to the first published study of a novel performance-based contracting system implemented by the State of Delaware in 2002.

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Washington — The halting on Feb. 6 of an arm of the large type 2 diabetes trial, ACCORD, sent shock waves through the medical community. The lower-the-better conventional wisdom for blood glucose levels was questioned when it was found that those getting the most intensive glucose-lowering treatments were more likely to die.

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Heath Ledger’s father and others are casting the death of the young actor as a warning about the dangers of prescription drug use.

Reacting to the New York medical examiner’s ruling that Ledger, 28, died of an accidental overdose of multiple painkillers and sedatives, the actor’s father, Kim Ledger, said, “While no medications were taken in excess, we learned today the combination of doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy. Heath’s accidental death serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication, even at low dosage.”

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Nearly one in ten first-year college students at a mid-Atlantic university have a cannabis use disorder (CUD), according to a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded study of drug use conducted by Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) investigators.

First-year students attending new student orientation were randomly selected to participate in a multiyear follow-up study. Overall, 9.4% of first-year students met the clinical definition for cannabis abuse (5.4%) and/or dependence (4.0%).

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The vast majority of U.S. taxpayers say that youth offenders can be rehabilitated and that failing to do so is tantamount to giving up on their future, according to a new survey and study.

A poll (PDF format, 246 KB) conducted by the Center for Children’s Law and Policy found that 70 percent of Americans view imprisoning young offenders without providing rehabilitation negatively, while 90 percent believe that nearly all young offenders have the potential for change.

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Salisbury, N.H., police chief David L’Esperance is working to improve drug-related law enforcement and education for personal and professional reasons: his son, Christopher, 20, died last year of a methadone overdose.

The Boston Globe reported Jan. 12. that L’Esperance has helped focus?  attention on the dangers of methadone, an effective treatment for opiate addiction that also is increasingly being prescribed as a pain medication — and being diverted for illicit use.

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Minnesota lawmakers are considering restrictions on cheap drink specials after the deaths of four college-age people from alcohol-related causes over the last few months, the Associated Press reported Jan. 17.

Ladies-drink-free and “bottomless cup” promotions could be on the way out if the state legislature approves a measure sponsored by Rep. Morris Lanning (R-Moorhead), who previously was successful in curbing so-called Power Hour celebrations by prohibiting students who turn 21 from drinking before 8 a.m. on the day of their birthday.

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Deaths from overdoses on methadone rose 390 percent between 1999 and 2004, and the trend is continuing, according to a new report from the National Drug Intelligence Center.

USA Today reported Dec. 6 that the report attributes the trend mostly to increased use of methadone as a painkiller; the drug is seen as a cheaper alternative to drugs like OxyContin, which also have more potential for abuse and diversion. Doctors prescribed 715 percent more methadone in 2006 than they had in 2001.

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While the match is made by a computer, the decision whether someone actually gets on a list, and his medical urgency classification, is made by local transplant committees. At Columbia-Presbyterian, the adult transplant coordinating committee meets every Friday morning, chaired jointly by Yoshifumi Naka [MD, PhD], the transplant surgery program director and Donna Mancini [MD], a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Advanced Cardiac Care, who oversees transplant cardiology. There are usually about 30 people around the table — transplant cardiologists, social workers, psychiatrists, infection specialists, neurologists, surgeons, transplant nurses and others. Most of the cardiologists are from Mancini’s section, but very occasionally an outside cardiologist may attend as well, to help advocate a listing for one of his patients.

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Guards and a nurse involved in the death of a 14-year-old resident of a Florida boot camp for young offenders have been cleared of manslaughter charges by a state jury, the Associated Press reported Oct. 12.

The case centered on the question of whether boot-camp employees acted properly in their treatment of Martin Anderson, who was physically restrained after refusing to run laps around an exercise field. Anderson collapsed after he was held and forced to inhale ammonia fumes in an incident captured on surveillance video. The incident took place on Anderson’s first day at the camp.

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