The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "painkillers" ...
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Methadone and the Politics of Pain
Since 2003, at least 2,173 people have fatally overdosed on methadone, a narcotic painkiller that is both cheap and unpredictable. Washington steers people with state-subsidized healthcare -- most notably, Medicaid patients -- toward the drug in order to save money.
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ESPN, Outside the Lines: Painkiller Misuse Numbs NFL Pain
The story examines the degree to which current and former NFL players used and misused prescription pain medications.
Tags: painkillers; drugs; NFL; football
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Medicating the Military
The stories looked at the nature and scope of the use of prescription drugs in the military community, with a focus on psychiatric medications and painkillers. The reporting found that use of psychiatric medications has risen dramatically in the past several years and some doctors suggest it may be a factor in the military's suicide epidemic of recent years. Reporters found that many psychiatric drugs - including powerful anti-convulsants and anti-psychotic medications - were being used "off label", or in ways not formally approved by the FDA. Reporters found that many troops were taking up to 10 medications at a time in so-called drug cocktails that experts say are untested and unproven in these combinations. Reporters also found that deaths caused by accidental drug overdoses had tripled during the past several years and that the Army's specialty care units were quietly conducting internal investigations and making significant changes to hospital protocols to reduce risk of accidental deaths. Finally, they found that psychiatric drug usage was also up significantly among military children.
Tags: Military; Army; Veteran; Health; Wellness; Medicine; Drugs; Pain killers; Psychiatric Medication; Mental Health; Suicide; Depression; Military Children; Hospital; Prescription
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The New Addiction
Nevada per capita are the nation's number one users of hydrocodone, the narcotic in Vicodin and Lortab. The amount of painkiller abuse in the state was found after analyzing the Drug Enforcement Administration's controlled substance database.
Tags: prescription drugs; medicine; pharmaceuticals; methadone; oxycodone; DEA;
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World of Pain
“Retail sales of five leading painkillers nearly doubled from 1997 to 2005, reflecting a surge in use by patients nationwide who are living in a world of pain, according to a new Associated Press analysis of federal drug prescription data. The analysis reveals that oxycodone usage is migrating out of Appalachia to areas such as Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and significant numbers of codeine users are living in many suburban neighborhoods around the country.â€
Tags: prescription drugs; oxycodone; federal prescription drug data; codeine; Drug Enforcement Administration; painkillers; prescription; drug abuse; narcotics; ARCOS; Census Bureau
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High on Prison Life
The authors uncovered the excessive prescribing of very strong and highly addictive pain-killers in Washington State prisons.
Tags: FOIA; drug abuse; prisons; Morphine; Oxycodone; inmates
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Merck Suppressed Vioxx Dangers
NPR reveals how Merck conducted a sophisticated campaign to hide the health risks of Vioxx from physicians over many years. This was done long before it pulled the painkiller from the market in 2004 because of a study that showed that Vioxx increased the risk of heart attacks, strokes and death.
Tags: Merck; Vioxx; painkiller; pharmaceutical industry
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Prescription for Pain
The stories demonstrated that Eastern Kentucky led the nation in the distribution of prescription narcotics-much of it illegal. Reporters found a series of unlikely accomplices to the illegal trafficing including the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Local cops were corrupt or compromised and a $30 million federal enforcement effort was rendered ineffective by a lack of cooperation among the police agencies involved. The reports found an elected judge who admitted that he'd had private business dealings with rug dealers and was unilaterally lowering drug offenders' sentences set by plea bargains. The reporters also found that effecive drug treatment was hard to find in rural areas of Kentucky. The newspaper also produced an examination of how OxyContin was marketed through "detailing," the practice of sending sales men directly into doctor's offices. The reporting also took readers inside one local drug ring. Finally, the newspaper examined how public Medicaid payments were providing some rural Kentucy drug dealsers with millions of silent partners-U.S. taxpayers- who were helping to ensure their supply.
Tags: prescription narcotis; illegal trafficking; federal Drug Enforcement Administration; OxyContin; painkillers; FBI; methanphetamine; taxpayers; medicaid; substance abuse; rural Kentucky; Social Security Administrationn; drug traffickers; drug abuse; lortab; tylox; xanax; cocaine; marijuana; Lee County Sheriff's Department; Beattyville; Beattyville Police; Operation Grinch; Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program; HIDTA; Kentucky State Police; Office of National Drug Control Policy
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U W Drugs
A team physician at the University of Washington was accused of dispensing drugs in the form of painkillers and other steroids which were mainly muscle relaxants. All these drugs were given to the student athletes without any valid prescriptions and often without any physical examination as well. Once this came out in the open the state suspended the doctor's licence.
Tags: Dr. William J. Scheyer; University of Washington; athletes; student athletes; team physician; health department; drugs; painkillers; valid prescriptions; FOIA
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Drugging the poor
The story uncovers how a "small group of doctors have prescribed huge quantities of narcotic painkillers and other addictive drugs to low-income people on Medicaid, costing taxpayers hundreds of million of dollars and adding a torrent of overdose deaths in the state". The reporter used more than five databases, including autopsy data and Medicaid physician billings.
Tags: prescription drugs; painkillers; Medicaid; autopsy