The opioid epidemic: how, where, and what can be done?

Air date: Tuesday, April 17, 2018, 4:00:00 PM

Description: Demystifying Medicine 

Overdose deaths from opioid use have nearly quadrupled since the year 2000, and opioids now kill more people each year in the United States than guns or car accidents. We know how the opioid crisis came to be; we know what opioids do to the brain. Now we must put our heads together to curb the epidemic fast. 

Two of the most prominent figures in the national opioid discussion — NIDA Director Nora Volkow, M.D., Ph.D., and NINDS Director Walter Koroshetz, M.D. — describe in detail the state of the opioid crisis and what NIH is doing about it. Come to the lecture to get plugged in to one of the most pressing public health emergencies of our times. 

Every day, more than 115 Americans die after overdosing on opioids, a four-fold increase since 2000, and the numbers continue to climb. Toward this effort, NIH has nearly doubled funding for research on pain and on opioid misuse and addiction from approximately $600 million in fiscal year 2016 to $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2018, made possible from a funding boost by Congress. The focus of NIH's efforts centers on ways to reduce the over prescription of opioids, accelerate development of effective non-opioid therapies for pain, and provide more flexible options for treating opioid addiction. This lecture describes the state of the crisis, the state of our efforts, and how you can be a part of the solution. 

The Demystifying Medicine Lecture Series is designed to help bridge the gap between advances in biology and their applications to major human diseases. The lectures include presentations of patients, pathology, diagnosis, and therapy in the context of major diseases and current research. All clinicians, trainees including fellows, medical students, Ph.D. students, and other healthcare and research professionals are welcome to attend. 

For more information go to https://demystifyingmedicine.od.nih.gov

Author: Nora Volkow, MD PhD, NIDA, NIH and Walter Koroshetz, MD, NINDS, NIH