‘We simply don’t have the resources’: Surgeon general’s call to carry naloxone raises red flag (ThinkProgress)

It’s been 13 years since a United States Surgeon General issued a public health advisory, but on Thursday Jerome Adams did so to urge every person to carry the overdose-reversal medication naloxone.

“Neither this [advisory] nor naloxone is a panacea,” said Surgeon General Adams at the National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit. Instead, the advisory serves as a way to draw attention to a public health crisis, where more Americans have died of drug overdoses in 2016 than the entirety of the Vietnam War. And naloxone, which comes as a nasal spray or auto-injector, is intended to keep more people alive. Another issue is funding.

In response to Thursday’s announcement, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, arguably naloxone’s most ardent advocate, asked for more financial assistance as local officials have already been trying to get the medication into the hands of every person — and that’s been costly.

“Unfortunately, we are having to ration naloxone because we simply don’t have the resources to purchase this life-saving antidote,” said Wen in a statement. “The Federal Government needs to follow their policy guidance with specific actions to actually ensure access: they can either negotiate directly with the manufacturers of naloxone so that it’s available at a much-discounted rate, or they can provide direct, sustained funding to local jurisdictions like ours so that we can provide evidence-based, effective treatment.”

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When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

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