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Insys Therapeutics, which had profited wildly from the sale of a powerful fentanyl spray known as Subsys, was by then being investigated by federal prosecutors for its marketing practices. Former employees were filing whistle-blower complaints in courthouses nationwide. (Cramer, 2/14)

Just over two weeks into the racketeering trial of Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor, a Boston jury has a new item to consider in a catalog of dubious tactics the company is accused of using to push sales of its opioid drug. Prosecutors played a five-minute in-house rap video extolling the virtues of persuading doctors to prescribe higher doses of the Insys’s liquid opioid, Subsys, and featuring the company’s vice president of marketing Alec Burlakoff in a giant prescription bottle. (Lawrence, 2/13)

Kaiser Health News: Discharged, Dismissed: ERs Often Miss Chance To Set Overdose Survivors On ‘Better Path’

The last time heroin landed Marissa Angerer in a Midland, Texas, emergency room — naked and unconscious — was May 2016. But that wasn’t her first drug-related interaction with the health system. Doctors had treated her a number of times before, either for alcohol poisoning or for ailments related to heavy drug use. Though her immediate, acute health issues were addressed in each episode, doctors and nurses never dealt with her underlying illness: addiction. Angerer, now 36 and in recovery, had been battling substance use disorder since she started drinking alcohol at age 16. She moved onto prescription pain medication after she broke her ankle and then eventually to street opiates like heroin and fentanyl. (Bluth, 2/15)

Kaiser Health News: Two Crises In One: As Drug Use Rises, So Does Syphilis

Public health officials grappling with record-high syphilis rates around the nation have pinpointed what appears to be a major risk factor: drug use. “Two major public health issues are colliding,” said Dr. Sarah Kidd, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and lead author of a new report issued Thursday on the link between drugs and syphilis. The report shows a large intersection between drug use and syphilis among women and heterosexual men. In those groups, reported use of methamphetamine, heroin and other injection drugs more than doubled from 2013 to 2017. (Gorman, 2/14)