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WASHINGTON – The Senate on Monday passed a radically bipartite law to fight the opioid epidemic through new research, treatment and support for families affected by drug addiction.
The bill, which includes more than 70 provisions, was passed by the Senate with a vote of 99-1. Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) voted against the legislation.
To become law, the package will have to be reconciled with the legislation passed by the House of Representatives in June. The Senate assistants are optimistic about measures that can be reconciled and adopted by the end of the year.
A proposal from Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, urges physicians to discuss alternatives to pain management for those who use Medicare. According to the Department of Health and Social Services, nearly one-third of patients using the Medicare prescription system received opioid prescription in 2017.
"The bill also increases the ability to track opioid prescriptions to prevent abuse and misappropriation, while ensuring that recipients receive the medications they need quickly," Hatch told the Senate on Monday. .
Senate legislation would give the National Institutes of Health money to look for a non-addictive painkiller. It would also try to prevent synthetic drugs from being shipped across the border by requiring foreign shippers to provide electronic data to help US officials target illegal parcels.
Another provision would specify that the Food and Drug Administration is empowered to require that prescription opioids be packaged in fixed quantities, for example for three or seven days. Another provision is to increase the detection and seizure of illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, by strengthening communications between the FDA and US Customs and Border Protection.
Federal funding for the fight against the opioid epidemic has increased in recent years as the health crisis worsened. The expenditure bill passed in March this year included $ 4.7 billion to fight the health crisis, including $ 1 billion for state grants. Legislators are also poised to approve $ 3.8 billion for the credit bill crisis for next year.
According to preliminary data released in August by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths in the United States, all drugs combined, soared to more than 72,000 in 2017, a record. This compares to about 66,000 deaths in 2016. The report shows how much more deadly opioid drugs have become, with the highest number of deaths attributed to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
But the data also show a slight decrease in deaths in the last month of 2017 and January 2018, suggesting that efforts to prevent the use of opioids and to treat addiction may begin to have effects.
"I recognize that these provisions are just the beginning, but we are losing 116 lives each day. And we need to save as much as possible – as soon as possible, "said Sen. Gary Peters (D., Mich.) In the Senate. He worked with Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.V.) on legislation to overcome barriers to the management of opioid addiction treatment among youth.
Write to Natalie Andrews at [email protected]
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