Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Retreat: Opioid Epidemic, Barry Diller, Bill Gates Take Center Stage
Another day at Sun Valley and another round a panel discussions, with attention this year paid on this country’s growing opioid epidemic — i.e. overdoses and prescription drug dependency driven by over-prescriptions of drugs such as pain meds. The crisis is growing at an alarming rate in this country and now is the leading cause of death for those under age 50. Heroin use also is on the rise, a lot of the “black tar” coming in from Mexico. Moderated by Gayle King, the panel talking about these issues included former Sen. Bill Bradley, Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco and also a doctor who has seen it firsthand. There are no easy answers, they said, but there are a lot of things that have been done in this country have had unintended consequences, including the way doctors have been treating pain and how they have been rated on how well they manage pain. There also are a lot of stakeholders involved (Ahem! Big Pharma, perhaps … or maybe lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies “helping” to draft bills, which is what happened recently in Indiana). The number of opioid deaths has quadrupled from 1999 to 2015 with the average of 91 deaths per day…
Link to Full Article: Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Retreat: Opioid Epidemic, Barry Diller, Bill Gates Take Center Stage
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