{"id":13598,"date":"2017-10-27T23:35:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T23:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/10\/27\/counting-the-heavy-cost-of-care-in-the-age-of-opioids\/"},"modified":"2017-10-27T23:35:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T23:35:00","slug":"counting-the-heavy-cost-of-care-in-the-age-of-opioids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/counting-the-heavy-cost-of-care-in-the-age-of-opioids\/","title":{"rendered":"Counting The Heavy Cost Of Care In The Age Of Opioids"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Allison Aubrey<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore’s health commissioner, says the federal government should help pay for a lifesaving drug that reverses opioid overdose.<\/p>\n

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Meredith Rizzo\/NPR<\/p>\n

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Meredith Rizzo\/NPR<\/p>\n

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As deaths from opioid overdoses rise<\/a> around the country, the city of Baltimore feels the weight of the epidemic.<\/p>\n

“I see the impact every single day,” says Leana Wen<\/a>, the city health commissioner. “We have two people in our city dying from overdose every day.”<\/p>\n

As part of Baltimore’s strategy to tackle the problem, Wen issued a blanket prescription<\/a> for the opioid overdose drug naloxone, which often comes in a nasal spray, to all city residents in 2015.<\/p>\n

She says many deaths have been prevented by getting the drug into the hands of more people. But now, there’s a problem:<\/p>\n

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“We’re out of money for purchasing Narcan [a brand of naloxone]. We’re having to ration this medication,” Wen says.<\/p>\n

People can purchase Narcan at pharmacies on their own. As we’ve reported<\/a>, it’s now sold at all Walgreens. But at a cost of about $125 a pop, many people can’t afford it.<\/p>\n

Thursday, the Trump administration declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency<\/a>, but many critics say it doesn’t go far enough when it comes to funding.<\/p>\n

Wen says she would like a commitment from the administration to help pay for this drug. She says the administration could also negotiate directly with manufacturers to lower the price of naloxone. “We know treatment works, but we don’t have [the] money,” Wen says.<\/p>\n