As the United States faces a worsening opioid drug crisis, health experts offered an overview of the epidemic, explored the rise in toxic drug combinations, and suggested new ways of approaching the story in a webinar hosted by the Center for Health Journalism this week.
“We are in the midst of a severe epidemic that’s fueling record high levels of opioid overdose deaths,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the co-director of Opioid Policy Research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.
Kolodny, also the executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, said the crisis is a story of addiction and over-prescribing rather than simple drug abuse. Journalists Lisa Girion, top news editor of the Americas for Reuters, and Kimberly Kindy, a national investigative reporter at The Washington Post, also dispelled common misconceptions about the people most affected by the epidemic and shared reporting tips from the epidemic’s frontlines.
[For more of this story, written by Kellie Schmitt, go to https://www.centerforhealthjou...-cover-opioid-crisis]
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