Science Magazine The drug push This past January, microbiologists Kim Lewis and Slava Epstein reported the discovery of teixobactin, a compound that in lab dishes kills several antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Media outlets heralded the discovery, announced in Nature, as a new solution to the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance. A White House press release mentioned teixobactin, which Lewis and […]
NBC Boston A Northeastern Student Has Started a Push to Make Testing for Date Rape Drugs Easier A Northeastern University student’s TikTok could soon make it easier for anyone in Massachusetts to get tested for date rape drugs. She posted on social media about her frustrating experience getting denied at a local hospital and it caught the attention of a state lawmaker who is now trying to help.
Filter Magazine The DA Prosecuting OD Survivors Also Pushes Drug-Induced Homicide Laws Leo Beletsky, a Northeastern University professor working at the intersection of public health and criminal justice, considers the Hancock County prosecutor’s policy to be a de facto criminalization of naloxone.
No money for drug pipes: Feds douse social media firestorm Leo Beletsky, professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University School of Law, said he was disappointed by the White House response. “This administration has said repeatedly they are making harm reduction one of their key priorities,” Beletsky said. “As soon as there’s a little right-wing echo chamber pushback against something that is quite […]
The War on Drugs Is Coming for Vapes, and It’s Not Going to End Well “Prohibition is just a bad idea,” said Leo Beletsky, a professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University, later adding, “Enacting sweeping bans on e-cigs risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater by pushing users toward traditional cigarettes and illicit markets for e-cigs. All of this plays into the hands of traditional tobacco […]
How does a $575 life-saving drug jump to $4,500? Blame a perverse system In the past few years, state legislatures responded to the growing opioid epidemic by passing laws requiring first responders to carry naloxone. President Obama even signed a law last summer to provide $181 million in funding for naloxone programs. “There was this major push to get cops access,” says Leo Beletsky, a professor of public […]
Nova Next What drug researchers can learn from a Kenyan clinic When I arrived at the remote clinic some 180 miles from Nairobi, it was near mid-day, and the Kenyan sun had pushed the thermometer to uncomfortable heights. Small insects buzzed in and out of the open windows of the low building—the only thing keeping them from landing on the patients were the insect nets draped […]
Asia Pacific Forum Generic Drug War: Global South vs. Big Pharma Can you put a price tag on your health? Around the world, people are being denied life-saving medicines simply because they can’t afford the cost of medicine. But there is a growing movement to resist the power of the big pharmaceutical companies that currently control the global medicine market through monopolies and patents.You might have […]
Deccan Chronicle Made for big pharma Certain US experts have pointed out that the American administration consistently uses trade working groups to push for more severe patenting regimes that favour Big Pharma. Professor Brook Baker of the Northeastern University School of Law has cautioned that the working group would give the US a dedicated forum to continue to pressure India to […]
U.S. News Prescription Painkillers Trail Only Marijuana in Abuse Rates, Report Shows Another expert, Leo Beletsky, an assistant professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University School of Law & Bouve College of Health Sciences in Boston, is concerned that government efforts to curb narcotic painkiller abuse may go too far. “Government officials have championed a number of solutions drawn primarily from the drug enforcement playbook, […]