Public Health

You can think of Covid-19 as a hurricane whereas the opioid crisis is more like global warming. It’s happening, it’s slow, it’s dangerous.
-Dr Mike Brumage

Dr Raeford Brown, a former chair of the Food and Drug Administration’s opioid advisory committee, is a longstanding critic of drug industry influence over opioid medical policy and the government’s response to the epidemic. He sees a parallel with coronavirus with US states lifting strong social distancing orders too early under corporate pressure.

“The United States is not good at doing public health,” he said. “It failed the test with opioids and it failed the test with viral pandemics. But coronavirus and pandemics, and the things like the opioid crisis, are much more likely to get us than the Russians or the Chinese are.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/09/coronavirus-pandemic-us-opioids-crisis