Xanax, Benzodiazepines Tied to Soaring ER Visits
Xanax, Benzodiazepines Tied To Soaring ER Visits – A rise in prescription drug abuse involving Xanax and similar anti-anxiety pills in recent years has prompted some doctors in the US to rethink the frequency with which they dole out the prescription. Between 2004 and 2009, New York City emergency room visits involving Xanax and other anti-anxiety prescription drugs known as benzodiazepines increased more than 50 percent. That’s up from 38 out of 100000 New Yorkers in 2004 to 59 out of 100000 New Yorkers. Data from the New York City Department of Health also show benzodiazepines were tied to more than 30 percent of all the city’s overdose deaths in 2009, or 3.3 out of 10.9. Nearly all of those overdoses involved multiple drugs, of which benzodiazepine was just one. Xanax is the most popular anti-anxiety drug in the benzodiazepine family. In 2010, Xanax was America’s 11th-most prescribed pill, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. In Louisville, Ky., psychiatrists at the Seven Counties Services network of mental health clinics took the unusual step of halting all Xanax prescriptions. The self-imposed ban has now been in effect for a year. Dr. Scott Hedges says benzodiazepines are fast-acting when it comes to remedying acute panic attacks, but he says they are not meant to be long-term treatments. Instead, he focuses on more traditional behavioral therapies. “The problem is, in terms of longer term treatment, there are really much better treatments that have better outcomes than the use of that short …
Peter Fuller's unfinished business: He fought for Dancer's Image's 1968 Derby …
Filed under: Drug Use Louisville
LOUISVILLE 40222 — It is ironic that 89-year-old Peter Fuller died last week in the midst of a contentious debate within the horse racing industry about equine drug use. Fuller holds the dubious distinction of being the only Kentucky Derby-winning …
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Price hikes offset slower health care use
Filed under: Drug Use Louisville
Newly available data from private health insurance plans show that price hikes by hospitals, doctors and drug companies have kept employer spending rising recently even as their employees and dependents have moderated their consumption of health care …
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