The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is pushing to cut salt levels by an average of 12 percent in food ranging from packaged meats to cheese, trying to clamp down on a growing epidemic of preventable health issues that has plagued the country.
American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine on Oct. 4 for the discovery of receptors in the skin that sense temperature and touch and could pave the way for new pain-killers.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4 cleared the way for New York to collect a $200 million surcharge imposed on opioid manufacturers and distributors to defray the state’s costs arising from the deadly epidemic involving the powerful painkilling drugs.
Generics giant Teva Pharmaceuticals reached a $15 million agreement with the state of Louisiana to settle claims against the company over its marketing of opioid products that contributed to the opioid addiction epidemic that swept across the United States and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
Although the U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved the OxyContin maker’s reorganization plan that freed the Sacklers from greater financial accountability and shielded them from additional lawsuits, the Department of Justice moved to block the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy deal.
A U.S. judge said on Sept. 1 he would approve OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP’s bankruptcy reorganization plan, clearing a path to resolve thousands of opioid lawsuits and shielding the company’s wealthy Sackler family owners from future opioid litigation.
At least six U.S. states, including Georgia, did not fully sign on to a proposed $26 billion settlement with three drug distributors and Johnson & Johnson – which have been accused of fueling the nation’s opioid epidemic – according to the states’ attorneys general.
U.S. states are racing to meet a deadline to commit to a $26 billion opioid settlement with three drug distributors and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, as some grapple with local resistance and concerns the amount is not large enough to address the damage done by an epidemic of addiction.
A study in Science shed new light on the global epidemic obesity by evaluating nearly 650,000 exomes from the United Kingdom, United States and Mexico and identifying those with strong implications for body mass or obesity.
Endo International Plc agreed to pay $35 million to settle a lawsuit by Tennessee local governments and on behalf of a child allegedly born addicted to painkillers accusing the drugmaker of fueling the opioid epidemic, the company announced July 22.
