USA Today (6/12, Smith, DeMio) reports on the growth of heroin addiction, saying that “there are medicine-based treatments available today that can give addicts a fighting chance.” The story cites Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, saying that “the stigma attached to drug addiction has dragged down development and investment in better treatment options.”

The story mentions methadone and buprenorphine as possible means of controlling heroin cravings, and naltrexone. It also says that researchers are trying to develop “vaccines.” Volkow is quoted saying, “Multiple targets look promising, but we cannot move them (forward) because research on medication development is terribly expensive,” adding, “the pharmaceutical companies have been resistant to get into the space.”

Related Links:

— “Heroin addicts left trapped; families, heartbroken,” Carrie Blackmore Smith and Terry DeMio, Cincinnati Inquirer via USA Today, June 12, 2014.

In a piece for the New York Times (6/13, Subscription Publication), Parker Marie Molloy, a freelance journalist and activist, praises HHS for overturning the “decades-old ban on Medicare coverage for gender-confirming surgeries,” but warns that state-level restrictions remain. These, she says, leave “many, many” people without such coverage. Molloy concludes by urging readers to “stop fearing what we don’t understand, and push to end the anti-transgender stigma that empowers politicians and insurance companies to deny relatively inexpensive, lifesaving medical treatment.”

However, in a piece for the Wall Street Journal (6/13, Mchugh, Subscription Publication), Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, argues that simply providing surgery for transgendered individuals will not solve their underlying mental health issues.

Related Links:

— “Under the Skin: The Next Fight for Transgender Insurance Equality,” Parker Marie Malloy, New York Times, June 12, 2014.

MedPage Today (6/13, Brown) reports that according to a study published in the June 11 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, expectant mothers “who had symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder [MDD] were four times more likely to deliver preterm than women without symptoms.” While other studies have “shown that women who took antidepressants and benzodiazepine had higher risk of a preterm delivery…the risk associated with PTSD and a major depressive episode (OR 4.08, 95% CI 1.27-13.15) was separate from that risk,” the study of 2,654 women revealed.

Related Links:

— “Preterm Births Higher With PTSD, Depression,” Parker Brown, MedPage Today, June 12, 2014.

Modern Healthcare (6/11, Conn, Subscription Publication) reports that yesterday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration conducted a “daylong ‘listening session,’” the subject of which was “whether patients of federally funded drug and alcohol abuse programs should continue to enjoy some of the most stringent privacy protections in all of US healthcare.”

Last month, SAMHSA gave written notice “that it was considering amending the rule covering drug and alcohol abuse records because some complain the rule’s more stringent privacy protections present barriers to record-sharing” which, some critics charge “impinge on the ability of new care models such as accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes to provide coordinated care at lower costs.”

Related Links:

— “Limits on sharing substance abuse patients’ records under debate,” Joseph Conn, Modern Healthcare, June 11, 2014. (Requires registration)

The Kaiser Health News (6/11, Hancock) “Capsules” blog reported that according to a National Bureau of Economic Review working paper produced by researchers at Purdue and Indiana Universities, “expanded coverage for young adults under the Affordable Care Act substantially raised inpatient hospital visits related to mental health.” Economist Kosali Simon, of Indiana University, who helped author the paper, pointed out that “greater hospital use by the newly insured might be caused by inadequate outpatient resources to treat mental-health patients earlier and less expensively.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Health Law Boosts Hospital Psych Care For Young Adults,” Jay Hancock, Kaiser Health News, June 11, 2014.