Two intractable failings of the U.S. health care system — addiction treatment and medical costs — come to a head in the ER, where patients desperate for addiction treatment arrive, only to find the facility may not be equipped to deal with substance use or, if they are, treatment is prohibitively expensive.
What’s known as emergency room boarding of psychiatric patients has risen between 200% and 400% monthly in Massachusetts during the pandemic — and the problem is widespread. The CDC says emergency room visits after suicide attempts among teen girls were up 51% earlier this year as compared with 2019.
Lack of access and infrastructure, stigma and isolation intensify a mental health crisis in agricultural communities.
Health Canada is warning health care practitioners and patients that unauthorized health products prepared and sold by Galena Pharm Inc. pharmacy (4315 Canada Way, Burnaby, B.C.) may pose serious health risks. Health care practitioners and patients should stop administering or using them.
Health Canada is warning Canadians not to buy COVID-19 vaccines sold on the internet or from unauthorized sources as they are counterfeit. Counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines may pose serious health risks, and are ineffective at protecting an individual from the COVID-19 virus.
Health Canada has followed up on the two reports of anaphylactoid reactions to Pfizer BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine in the U.K. These reactions occurred on December 8, 2020.
Sunstar Americas, Inc. is recalling five lots of its prescription anti-gingivitis oral rinse, GUM Paroex, after testing by the company revealed the presence of Burkholderia lata. 
In a series of July U.S. Census Bureau surveys, nearly half of California adult respondents reported levels of anxiety and gloom typically associated with diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder, a stunning figure that rose through the summer alongside the menacing spread of the coronavirus.
State officials in California have achieved some success in promoting the use of medication-assisted treatment for people with opioid addictions, but they are bumping up against familiar resistance and constraints.
People in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction have to weather a new storm of depression, anxiety and isolation during the pandemic, just as the social supports of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs move online.