addiction drug effect

As a physician and public health professional who has dedicated my career to improving the lives of those with addiction to heroin and other opiates, I read with dismay The Sun's articles on buprenorphine ("The 'bupe fix,'" Dec. 16-18). I have never seen a newspaper report so lacking in balance and context.

Every medication has side effects; what's critical is the balance of risks and benefits.

Buprenorphine is an effective treatment for the dangerous disease of opiate addiction. Balanced against the benefit of saving thousands of lives is the small risk of diversion of the drug, which is a tiny slice of the overall illegal drug trade.

It is telling that despite months of reporting and thousands of words, The Sun did not find a single person in Baltimore whose life has been ruined by buprenorphine.

'Bupe' to draw closer scrutiny

The addiction treatment drug buprenorphine will come under closer scrutiny through a new federal initiative to track the deaths of opiate addicts taking it or methadone.

U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration officials hope the new tracking system will significantly improve the safety and quality of drug treatment for more than 400,000 addicts across the country, including thousands in Baltimore.

A series of articles published in The Sun in December showed that while buprenorphine can be a highly effective addiction medicine, misuse of the drug is on the rise. Some people have died when taking buprenorphine with other drugs. But the number of deaths is unknown, because medical examiners in Maryland and most other states don't test for buprenorphine in overdose deaths.

Senators urge action to reduce 'bupe' abuse

Two U.S. senators from New England are calling for action to reduce misuse of buprenorphine, a narcotic that federal officials are promoting for treatment of tens of thousands addicted to heroin and pain pills.

In Maryland, two key lawmakers said yesterday that they will question health officials about abuse of the drug and state spending on it when the General Assembly convenes next month in Annapolis.

The responses follow a series of articles this week in The Sun, which showed that while many experts champion buprenorphine as a highly effective addiction medicine, the drug is starting to cause some of the kinds of problems that it was created to solve.

Genes behind drug addiction tracked

Chinese scientists have found a way to track genes and biological pathways linked to drug addiction, unraveling potential ways to treat drug abuse and disorders.

"We have found 396 addiction-related genes and identified five pathways that are common to addiction to four different substances: cocaine, opium, nicotine and alcohol," the director of the center for bioinformatics of the life science college under Peking University, Wei Liping, told China Daily yesterday.

"The research provides a more complete picture of drug addiction, as genetic factors contribute to about 60 percent of the vulnerability to drug addiction," she said.

Wei said identifying common pathways meant that treatment targeting these pathways may be more effective for a wide range of addictive disorders.

Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners Announces Positive Phase II Trial ...

Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners, Inc. (Nasdaq: CPRX), a biopharmaceutical company that acquires, in-licenses, develops and commercializes prescription drugs for the treatment of drug addiction, announced positive initial top-line results from an investigator-initiated Phase II double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, which demonstrates that vigabatrin is effective for the treatment of cocaine addiction. Catalyst's lead compound, CPP-109, is bioequivalent to vigabatrin.

This 103 subject trial is the first randomized, double-blind, placebo- controlled clinical trial studying vigabatrin's effectiveness in treating cocaine addiction. These data show that a statistically significantly greater number of subjects treated with vigabatrin were able to abstain from cocaine usage during the last three weeks of the dosing period compared to those receiving placebo.

Marking National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month

Imagine a nation in which a deadly but treatable disease is taking its toll on more than 5 percent of the population. One that is wreaking havoc with the lives of millions of men, women, and children, but only 20 percent of the people who need treatment are receiving it. Would we help?These are the statistics that prevail in the U.S. today. The disease is alcohol and drug addiction.Alcohol and drug abuse disrupts families, threatens the safety of our neighborhoods and ruins the lives of countless men, women and youths. During September, National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, we recognize the damaging effects of substance abuse and renew our support for individuals battling to overcome addiction.The theme for the 2006 Recovery Month campaign is "Join the Voices for Recovery: Build a Stronger, Healthier Community." It is always our hope that the campaign will urge all Americans to help prevent alcohol and drug abuse and to promote treatment and recovery options.Recovery Month is a national public education campaign developed by the U.S.