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Opioids were the most common substance contributing to the poisoning deaths of children ages 5 and younger, according to a new study. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics, found that opioids accounted for more than 47% of the poisoning deaths among children in that age group between 2005 and 2018 — 346 of 731 total deaths reported to the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention. (McShane, 3/8)

About 42 percent of the 731 fatalities were among infants one year old and younger and most of the incidents occurred in the child’s home, the study found. Many of the fatal poisonings happened while the child was supervised and nearly 100 of the children had open child protective services cases at the time of their deaths, the authors said. Over-the-counter pain, cold and allergy medications were the second most common substance contributing to the pediatric poisoning deaths. These accounted for about 15 percent and most often affected children two years old and younger, according to the study. (Chung, 3/8)

“It truly is striking to see, looking at this data, how different the proportions were between 2005 and 2018,” said study co-author Dr. Christopher Gaw, an associate fellow at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia whose research primarily focuses on pediatric injury and poisoning. The number of deadly poisonings in this age group had been decreasing since the passage of the Poison Prevention Packaging Act in 1970, when harder-to-open childproof packaging became a standard for many medicines, other studies have shown. Gaw thinks that people’s preferences for particular drugs have shifted and that that has had an impact on fatality numbers. (Christensen, 3/8)

A new study by Oregon State University, Oregon Health & Science University and Portland State University found people who are recently released from prison have 10 times the risk of an opioid overdose than the general public. Researchers say this underscores the need to help former inmates transition back to the real world safely, especially in the first two weeks. (3/8)

Physicians scrambling to stop people from dying in America’s unyielding opioid crisis say Biden administration officials are working at cross purposes in their fight to reverse record numbers of fatal drug overdoses. Even as the administration is implementing a new law that makes it easier for doctors to prescribe a lifesaving drug to treat opioid use disorder, one of its agencies, the Drug Enforcement Administration, subjects the drug to such strict regulation that many are reluctant to dispense it. As a result, physicians and treatment advocates say, the DEA policy is inadvertently making it more difficult to reduce opioids’ toll: more than 80,000 lives in 2021. (Mahr and Leonard, 3/8)

More than four years ago, Denver’s city council approved an ordinance that would allow for the creation of overdose prevention centers. Sometimes referred to as safe injection sites or safe consumption sites, these centers offer a safe place for people to use illicit drugs under the supervision of trained staff that can reverse overdoses and connect people with recovery resources, if necessary. As the U.S. grapples with the worst overdose crisis in its history — nearly 1,900 people died from an overdose in Colorado in 2021, a record high — Denver still does not have an overdose prevention center. (Cooke and Sandoval, 3/7)

In his quarter century as chief executive of Rochester Drug Cooperative Inc., Laurence F. Doud III made the distributor the country’s seventh-largest wholesaler, sending stock dividends to record highs as revenue topped $1 billion. He also directed a criminal conspiracy to deceive the Drug Enforcement Administration and pump opioids into pharmacies throughout the Northeast, federal prosecutors said, despite knowing that retailers were diverting the drugs and supplying them to addicts. (Moynihan, 3/8)

A federal proposal to impose new restrictions on a key addiction-treatment medication has caused an uproar in certain segments of the medical community. But health secretary Xavier Becerra seems to be on board. (Facher, 3/8)

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Wednesday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved its nasal spray for emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose. (3/8)