Virginia researchers won a $1 million grant to determine if beginning medication-assisted treatment in emergency rooms within hours of an overdose will help people control their addictions.
Despite all the attention, programs and funding centered on the opioid epidemic in Virginia, the overdose rates aren’t budging. Opioids are on pace to claim the lives of nearly 1,200 Virginians this year, according to the state’s chief medical examiner’s office, and the number of overdose cases in emergency rooms has not abated.
“If anything, the number is going up, unfortunately. So far we have not had an impact with the other efforts taking place,” said Dr. Gerald Moeller, director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies.
