Health officials call for “all hands on deck” for opioid crisis.
USA Today (10/5, Collins) reports Francis Collins, MD, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said at a Senate hearing on the opioid crisis, “We need all hands on deck.” Collins “said more emphasis must be placed on alternative treatments, such as acupuncture, which might be effective in treating pain and would keep people from getting addicted to drugs.” Debra Houry, MD, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, testified at a Senate hearing that the opioid crisis “is one of the few public health problems that is getting worse instead of better.”
The Washington Times (10/5, Howell) reports FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, also testified at the hearing and “said his agency will promote medical devices that attack pain without the need for addictive pills, while making sure doctors don’t prescribe more opioids than they need to.”