All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Mar 9 2018 // Injured workers who were not weaned off of opioids had much higher drug costs and higher treatment transaction volumes, according to a report released on Friday by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating...
Mar 9 2018 // Two more South Carolina counties have sued major drug companies because of opioid abuse cases.Media outlets reported that Greenville and Spartanburg counties have sued drugmakers, pharmacies, distributors and doctors. The...
Mar 8 2018 // The National Transportation Safety Board says it found several safety issues during its investigation of a 2015 rail yard death at a Pine Bluff packaging plant. The agency says it found illicit drug use by employees,...
Mar 8 2018 // U.S. health insurer Cigna Corp. struck a $52-billion deal to buy pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) Express Scripts Holding Co on Thursday, looking for new ways to hold onto their profits as the industry faces greater...
Mar 8 2018 // Using prescribed opioids adds significant time to temporary disability taken by workers with work-related lower back injuries, according to a new industry study. Temporary disability is time that workers spend away from...
Mar 7 2018 // The Indiana General Assembly has passed legislation that adopts a drug formulary for the state’s workers’ compensation system.The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) is urging Indiana Gov....
Mar 6 2018 // Purdue Pharma LP’s decision to stop promoting its opioid drugs to doctors is being hailed as the first result of a judge’s push for concrete solutions to a nationwide epidemic, even though the company says the...
Mar 6 2018 // Employers are struggling to hire workers in tightening U.S. job market. Marijuana is now legal in nine states and Washington, D.C., meaning more than one in five American adults can eat, drink, smoke or vape as they...
Mar 5 2018 // Louisiana’s attorney general is taking charge of a state lawsuit against drug manufacturers, under a deal that ends a dispute with the governor’s office over who controls litigation against the companies over...
Mar 2 2018 // President Donald Trump on Thursday called for a federal lawsuit against opioid companies and stiffer penalties for drug dealers, arguing that the government must take a strong approach to combat an opioid addiction...
Feb 28 2018 // A judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit challenging federal laws criminalizing marijuana as unconstitutional, saying the five plaintiffs had failed to pursue changes in the drug’s legal status by first going through...
Feb 28 2018 // Ten doctors have been charged with overprescribing pain pills from clinics in West Virginia and Virginia, federal prosecutors announced Feb. 20. Two of those patients died.Most of the 69-count indictment charges the...
Feb 27 2018 // The nation’s largest prescription drug distributor has lost its bid to keep a lawsuit out of a West Virginia county.News outlets report a judge rejected McKesson’s claim that it has no duty under state law to...
Feb 26 2018 // The Florida House’s version of legislation to combat the state’s opioid epidemic is headed to the floor. The bill, which passed the Health & Human Services Committee last week, would impose new restrictions...
Feb 23 2018 // Though states and the federal government remain at odds on marijuana legalization, the drug is gaining traction as a viable treatment in workers’ compensation claims.In a recent discussion with Claims Journal, Brian...
Feb 21 2018 // Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says he’ll call a special legislative session to address reimbursement rates for pharmacies and to amend the state’s open container law if there is consensus among lawmakers on the...
Feb 21 2018 // Kentucky’s attorney general on Monday filed a lawsuit against drug distributor Cardinal Health Inc , accusing it of contributing to the opioid epidemic by failing to halt or report suspiciously large or frequent...
Feb 19 2018 // According to National Safety Council (NSC) analysis of federal data, 1,086 more Pennsylvanians died accidentally in 2016, an increase of 15 percent over 2015. Opioid overdose led to 78 percent of those deaths.This comes on...
Feb 16 2018 // President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Trade Commission said he’s “very concerned” about price increases for prescription drugs and will explore forming a task force to monitor whether...
Feb 12 2018 // The Cherokee Nation has refiled a lawsuit against opioid distributors in state court after a federal judge ruled that tribe’s court system had no jurisdiction over the companies. Lawyers filed the suit in Sequoyah...