Tag Archives: chronic pain

Biden pushes for long COVID sufferers to be protected by law

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden said Monday the White House is pushing for people with long-term symptoms of COVID-19 to be protected against discrimination, as he marked the anniversary of a landmark law for people with disabilities.

U.S. agencies will coordinate to ensure people suffering from severe long-term health problems are protected after the end of their infections with the novel coronavirus, he said.

“Many Americans who seemingly recovered from the virus still face lingering challenges like breathing problems, brain fog, chronic pain or fatigue,” Biden said. “These conditions can sometimes rise to the level of a disability.”

Around one in 10 COVID-19 patients are still unwell 12 weeks after their acute infection, and many suffer symptoms for far longer, according to a World Health Organization-led report published in February.

Biden spoke at a Rose Garden event celebrating the 31st anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities in public accommodation, employment, transportation and community living. Nearly 57 million Americans had some form of disability in 2010, the U.S. Census bureau reported.

The new effort will be aimed at making sure people with those long-term COVID-19 symptoms “have access to the rights and resources that are due under the disability law,” Biden said.

That could include mandating new accommodations for those disabilities at restaurants, in workplaces, at school and in the healthcare system.

The White House did not immediately provide additional details on the program.

“This was a Democratic bill signed by a Republican president,” Biden said. “For our nation, the ADA is more than a law” he said. “It’s a testament to our character as a people, our character as Americans.”

The effort comes as the fast-spreading Delta variant and slower uptake of vaccines has threatened to derail the administration’s efforts to control the pandemic.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Merdie Nzanga; Editing by Heather Timmons and Dan Grebler)

Opioid abuse crisis takes heavy toll on U.S. veterans

Needles used for shooting heroin and other opioids along with other paraphernalia litter the ground in a park in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 26, 2017.

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Opioid drug abuse has killed more Americans than the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars combined, and U.S. veterans and advocates this Veteran’s Day are focusing on how to help victims of the crisis.

Veterans are twice as likely as non-veterans to die from accidental overdoses of the highly addictive painkillers, a rate that reflects high levels of chronic pain among vets, particularly those who served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to federal data.

U.S. government and healthcare officials have been struggling to stem the epidemic of overdoses, which killed more than 64,000 Americans in the 12 months ending last January alone, a 21 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. About 65,000 Americans died in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Donald Trump named opioids a national public health emergency and a White House commission last week recommended establishing a nationwide system of drug courts and easier access to alternatives to opioids for people in pain.

“Our veterans deserve better than polished sound bites and empty promises,” said former Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy, a recovering addict and a member of the president’s opioid commission.

Kennedy said in an e-mail that more funding was needed for treatment facilities and medical professionals to help tackle the problem.

One effort to address the issue has stalled in Congress – the proposed Veterans Overmedication Prevention Act, sponsored by Senator John McCain. That measure is aimed at researching ways to help Veterans Administration doctors rely less on opioids in treating chronic pain.

“The Veterans Administration needs to understand whether overmedication of drugs, such as opioid pain-killers, is a contributing factor in suicide-related deaths,” McCain, one of the nation’s most visible veterans, said in an e-mail on Thursday. He noted that 20 veterans take their lives each day, a suicide rate 21 percent higher than for other U.S. adults.

The VA system has stepped up its efforts to address the crisis, having treated some 68,000 veterans for opioid addiction since March, said Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman Curtis Cashour.

The department’s Louis Stokes VA Center in Cleveland has also begun testing alternative treatments, including acupuncture and yoga, to reduce use of and dependency on the drugs, the VA said.

A delay in naming a Trump administration “drug czar” to head the effort, however, has fueled doubts about immediate action on the opioid crisis. Last month the White House nominee, Representative Tom Marino, withdrew from consideration following a report he spearheaded a bill that hurt the government’s ability to crack down on opioid makers.

 

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Dan Grebler)