Gottlieb suggests sea change as administration looks to alter course of Rx drug prices (BioWorld)

Putting drug prices front and center at the Food and Drug Law Institute's (FDLI) annual conference Thursday, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb took on some of the current rules and restrictions that prevent true market-based pricing and competition.

As Gottlieb was speaking at FDLI, the government watchdog group Public Citizen and the Baltimore City Health Department were calling on the Trump administration to address the high price of specific drugs used to reverse life-threatening opioid overdoses. The groups urged the government to use its march-in rights to enable generic competition for Kaleo Inc.'s naloxone auto-injector Evzio and Adapt Pharma Ltd.'s naloxone nasal spray Narcan.

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Lead poisoning cases fell 19 percent in Baltimore last year, even as more children tested for exposure (Baltimore Sun)

The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin.

Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday.

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Trump declared an emergency over opioids. A new report finds it led to very little. (Vox)

To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

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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Azar Unveils Plan to Help Pregnant Patients Quit Opioids (MedPage Today)

States will get help from the federal government integrating services for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid patients with opioid use disorder under a pilot program announced Tuesday by Health and Hu