Opioids Story Archives - Page 3 of 11 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

White House Renews Push For HIV Treatment, Prevention

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, slightly more than half of West Virginians with HIV are receiving treatment. The national goal is 80 percent.

West Virginia has seen a surge in new HIV cases in the past couple of years. The White House is mounting a campaign to increase awareness of treatment options.

Medication can suppress HIV so that people living with the virus have virtually no risk of transmitting it. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, slightly more than half of West Virginians with HIV are receiving treatment. The national goal is 80 percent.

Tim Harrison, a senior policy adviser on HIV and AIDS policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says the state is part of a renewed focus by the Biden administration on HIV prevention and treatment.

“What the numbers really tell us is there are not enough people who are virally suppressed,” he said. “Viral suppression is the gold standard if we want individuals with HIV to live healthy lives as well as not being able to transmit the virus to their sexual partners.”

West Virginians who are at the highest risk for HIV might not know there is an effective medication that can prevent them from getting the virus. It’s called PrEP, and only a fraction of the people who fall in that category are taking it.

Needle exchange programs are another effective tool for preventing HIV transmission. But state and local governments have enacted policies to discourage needle exchanges.

Stigma, lack of health insurance and homelessness are factors that can also discourage HIV prevention and treatment.

The opioid epidemic has been a driver of increased HIV infections in a number of states, including West Virginia. Harrison says the problem needs more attention than it’s received.

“I think that West Virginia has gone under the radar, perhaps far too long,” he said. “And I think it’s really important that we’re recognizing the need that exists there.”

Harrison’s goal is to get more people into care and stay in care.

W.Va. Took On J&J Alone And Got $99 Million Settlement

The drugmaker Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has settled for $99 million with the state of West Virginia for its alleged role in the opioid crisis.

“It’s far higher than what anyone ever expected West Virginia to get,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said.

The deal came two weeks into a bench trial naming Janssen and two other drugmakers, Teva and Allergan, as defendants.

A fourth pain pill manufacturer, Endo, was named in the case but settled before the trial began.

Johnson & Johnson said it would settle for billions of dollars to end lawsuits across the nation. But West Virginia did not sign on to that deal. Instead the state with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths said it would take the drug maker on alone. Morrisey said that’s why the state will receive twice as much as it would have from the national settlement.

“That’s because of all the work we’re doing out of this office to argue that settlements should be based on severity not based on population.”

Counties and cities in West Virginia have 45 days to approve the deal. Morrisey’s office put forth a formula earlier this year to decide how opioid settlement funds would be distributed. It says a quarter would go to municipalities and the rest would go to a tax exempt nonprofit organization created by the state to distribute the money. The governor and municipalities would appoint the nonprofit’s board members.

Morrisey said the settlement is a win in part because it would send money to combat the crisis sooner rather than later.

“You reach an agreement because there’s obviously going to be risk for both sides in a trial,” Morrisey said. “We can save lives this year.”

Huntington and Cabell County took three drug distributors to trial about a year ago and a verdict has not yet been issued.

The current opioid trial in Kanawha County will continue for up to six more weeks. Further settlements could be reached before the end of the trial if the state, defendants and judges agree to it.

“We’re only going to settle if there’s a deal on the table that is absolutely in the best interest of West Virginia,” Morrisey said.

Expert: Supply Poured ‘Gasoline’ On Opioid Crisis

Testimony in an ongoing opioid trial in Charleston suggests supply had more to do with the opioid crisis in West Virginia than any other factor.

Dr. Katherine Keyes is the director of Columbia University’s Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program. She said supply made a greater impact on the epidemic than poverty, job loss and other economic stressors.

While economic conditions were the “kindling” of the crisis, she said “the opioid suppliers were the gasoline that was poured directly on that kindling.”

The state of West Virginia is currently suing Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc., AbbVie Inc.’s Allergan and their family of companies.

Last summer Cabell County and the City of Huntington sued three drug distributors in Federal Court, but there has been no decision in that case.

A trial on whether pharmacy chain Walgreens bears responsibility for the opioid crisis started Monday in Florida. The cases are pressing ahead even as companies have been settling many of the claims filed by state and local governments across the U.S.

Going to trial brings risk for both sides. If the suing governments win, they could get major payments. But rulings for the companies could help bolster their cases that they shouldn’t be held liable for a complicated epidemic linked to the deaths of more than 500,000 Americans over two decades.

W.Va. Overdose Deaths Slow Down As Pandemic Winds Down

Those in recovery have a phrase: the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s human connection. That’s why federal and state officials say fatal overdoses rose to new heights during the early, most isolating days of the pandemic.

“There’s a clear correlation with regard to the pandemic and the isolation and the inability to access support services for folks who have [substance use disorder],” said West Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Crouch.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated last November that fatal overdoses nationwide had risen to 100,000 a year, a new record. Data now suggest these deaths may be slowing down.

Provisional data show reported overdose deaths plateaued nationwide, and decreased 15 percent in West Virginia, from April to September of 2021. The CDC says it takes four months to estimate the number of deaths, and up to a year to accurately report these deaths.

Crouch said more treatment and wrap-around services are being offered in recent years with direction from the Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse and Prevention and DHHR’s Office of Drug Control Policy, led by Dr. Matthew Christiansen.

“In 2018, with the efforts we were going forward with, we had a 22 percent reduction in overdose deaths. In 2019, we had a 13 percent reduction in overdose. And then the pandemic hit,” Crouch said. “We ended up with a lot of folks who lost those contacts, lost those resources, lost a lot of the support mechanisms they needed to tackle this.”

Crouch said much of those services returned or even expanded last year. Record numbers of naloxone, an overdose reversal treatment, were distributed by state agencies, local health departments and grassroots volunteers.

“There are hundreds of West Virginians working every day, unpaid and largely unacknowledged, to get naloxone where it needs to be, and hundreds more doing the extremely emotional work of reversing overdoses,” said Dr. Robin Pollini, an infectious disease doctor specializing in substance use disorder. “It’s always good news when we hear fatal overdoses are down. That said, this is a marathon and not a sprint.”

DHHR recommends anyone with substance use disorder looking for help to contact HELP4WV, which offers 24/7 confidential support and resource referrals through call, text, and chat lines. HELP4WV also offers a Children’s Crisis and Referral line. Residents may call HELP4WV at 844-HELP4WV, text at 844-435-7498, or chat at www.help4wv.com.

AG: Nonprofit Should Help Manage Opioid Settlement Money

West Virginia’s attorney general and a coalition of cities and counties are calling for the creation of a nonprofit foundation to distribute money obtained through settlements or judgments in opioid-related litigation against pharmaceutical companies.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said all but one of the state’s 55 counties are currently in the midst of litigation against companies over their role in perpetuating the opioid crisis. Lawsuits allege that manufacturers’ conduct led to opioids becoming a common treatment for chronic pain and fueled substance abuse in West Virginia, one of the states that has been hit hardest by opioids.

The city of Huntington and Cabell County brought the three largest U.S. drug distributors — AmerisourceBergen Corp, McKesson Corp and Cardinal Health Inc — to trial last year. Communities are still awaiting a verdict in that case, which was the first lawsuit over the U.S. addiction epidemic to go to trial.

The state is set to go to trial in April against Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc., Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Endo Health Solutions Inc.

“The opioid epidemic is one of the challenges of our time here in West Virginia,” Morrisey said during a Wednesday press conference at the state Capitol. “There’s been a lot of senseless death over many, many years.”

Morrisey said the state’s counties and cities signed on to an agreement calling for the private nonprofit foundation. The foundation will be managed by a board of 11 members: Five would be state appointees and the rest would be local representatives from six different regions of the state. The board members will have expertise in fields like mental health, substance misuse and law enforcement.

An executive director appointed by the attorney general would run day-to-day operations.

As the central organization dedicated to addressing the opioid crisis throughout the state, the foundation would receive 72.5% of each settlement or judgment, 24.5% would be allocated to local governments and 3% would held in escrow by the state.

Many other states already have similar agreements and others have been pushing them. Morrisey said if the counties and the cities of the state don’t reach an agreement on how the money will be allocated, the court gets to decide.

All of the money would be used to address needs related to the opioid crisis.

Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said Wednesday that any money won in litigation will go to new initiatives and program to help fight the opioid epidemic.

“One thing that’s been very, very specific in our minds is that we’re not looking to be reimbursed for what we have expended in the past,” he said.

Williams said there’s a lot of need — need that’s only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is such a broad umbrella,” he said. “You have grandparents who are having to take care of grandchildren. You have children growing up in the midst of adverse childhood experiences that we need to be able to address,” he said. “What we’re seeing is that we have babies that are being born exposed to substances… it is the entire community that’s being affected.”

Game Changers Program Will Start At 3 Harrison County Schools This Fall

Gov. Jim Justice introduced the Game Changers initiative in 2018 with the goal of preventing kids from trying drugs and developing substance use disorders.

This fall, that program will enter schools, Justice announced Tuesday.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am today to make this announcement of the first Game Changers Schools,” Justice said at a press conference.

The program will place full-time Game Changers counselors in three Harrison County schools for the entire year starting in the fall of 2022. Those schools are Lincoln High School, Lincoln Middle School and Big Elm Elementary School.

“We are very excited about it being student-led, students sharing their experiences, and hopefully it leading them to want to change their lives,” said Lincoln Middle School Principal Lori Scott.

Scott said while most of her middle-schoolers aren’t using drugs, she’s seen that many come from unstable homes that could make them more susceptible to substance use disorders down the road.

“We see they’re products of their environment. They’re 12, 13 years old raising themselves, raising siblings, because they’re being neglected at home,” Scott said.

Each Game Changers counselor will teach age-based programming to elementary, middle and high school students. That will include in-class, after school and one-on-one guidance.

Game Changers Executive Director Joe Boczek said these counselors will also enlist students to take on peer leadership roles.

“It’s been proven that kids are more, nowadays, likely to go to a peer with a problem with issues at home, which could be opioid use,” Boczek said. “They feel more comfortable than going down to the counselor.”

Each counselor will be trained by the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, a partner of the program. Boczek said these counselors will bring expertise that other school staff might not have.

“Guidance counselors are frustrated because they don’t know what to do…There’s no plan of attack,” Boczek said.

The goal is to eventually bring the Game Changers program to all schools in the state by 2027. Boczek estimates that expanding the program would cost $20 million a year.

There’s been a lot of fundraising and promotion of the initiative since it was announced in 2018. Game Changers gained financial support from corporate and private donors as well as public backing from leaders like U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin. So far, that’s resulted in large-scale summits that brought kids and experts in drug prevention to one place.

The school’s program will be more intimate and long term. Boczek said it will be a work in progress.

“Studies that will be done after the first year to evaluate the program… they may find some things that we think are going to be really good may not be as successful, and we’ll have to adapt like you have to adapt with anything else,” Boczek said.

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.