Author: Lenny Bernstein
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Fueled by drug crisis, U.S. life expectancy declines for a second straight year
American life expectancy at birth declined for the second consecutive year in 2016, fueled by a staggering 21 percent rise in the death rate from drug overdoses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The United States has not seen two years of declining life expectancy since 1962 and 1963, when influenza caused an…
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Nearly half of U.S. adults will have high blood pressure under new guidelines
Leading heart health experts tightened the guidelines for high blood pressure Monday, a change that will sharply increase the number of U.S. adults considered hypertensive in the hope that they, and their doctors, will address the deadly condition sooner. The American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology and nine other groups redefined high blood…
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How the drug industry derailed the DEA’s war on painkillers
In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets. By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of…
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Deaths from drug overdoses soared in the first nine months of 2016
Deaths from drug overdoses rose sharply in the first nine months of 2016, the government reported Tuesday, releasing data that confirm the widely held belief that the opioid epidemic worsened last year despite stepped-up efforts by public health authorities. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that overdose deaths reached a record 19.9 per 100,000…
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FDA seeks removal of opioid painkiller from the market
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday asked a drug company to remove its opioid pain medication from the market, the first time the agency has made such a request because of the public health consequences of abuse. The agency concluded after an extensive review of Endo Pharmaceuticals’ Opana ER that the “benefits of the…
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You’ll save a lot of money buying running shoes online
It’s pretty clear that buying online can save you money, and quite a bit when it comes to running shoes, according to the latest survey released by the number-crunchers at RunRepeat.com. How does an average of 38.14 percent – $46.19 per pair – sound? If you spend $120 on a pair of shoes at your…