ATLANTA — Dr. Nora Volkow has heard a frightening scenario play out around the country. People are administering naloxone to synthetic opioid drug users who have overdosed. But the antidote doesn’t work well. So they give another dose. And it’s only after multiple doses — four, five, even six times — that drug users finally come to their senses.
Naloxone is the only widely available drug to reverse opioid overdoses. But anecdotal reports of its limitations against synthetic opioids are on the rise. Spurred by that public health threat — as well as a booming commercial market for the antidote — drug companies, researchers, and health officials are eagerly eyeing the development of new treatments to augment the use of naloxone or, in some cases, potentially replace it.
“The strategies we’ve done in the past for reversing overdoses may not be sufficient,” Volkow, director of the National Institute for Drug Abuse, said in a recent speech at the 2018 National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit. “We need to develop alternatives solutions to reversing overdoses.”
Although I’m not a researcher in opioids or addiction, I was just looking at an excellent simulation model that really clearly demonstrates the short-term effects of individual doses of Naloxone on Fentanyl. The model is free to use and accessible here: https://exchange.iseesystems.com/public/sara-rosenbaum/fentanyl-induced-respiratory-depression-and-its-reversal-with-naloxone/index.html#page1
Big Pharma is all about the medication and the hell with the bigger picture addiction prevention and treatment, community development, education, jobs and wellness. there is NO medication that will eliminate this disorder. When are we going to recognize this. Recovery and wanting to get well takes people, not more drugs