Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. “Abusers.” “Reckless criminals.” These are the words of one pharmaceutical executive to describe the hundreds of thousands of Americans with opioid use disorder, uncovered in a wave of litigation facing the nation’s leading drug makers and sellers for their contributions to the opioid crisis. As these investigations bring more information to light, they are sure to change the way Americans think about the opioid epidemic. That’s good news. For too long, the stigma surrounding opioid use disorder has been a barrier to adopting public policies that treat the disease of addiction and prevent drug overdoses and death. Reluctance […]

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. “When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.” –  Franklin D. Roosevelt E-cigarette use among youth has grown at an alarming rate. In 2017, over 2 million U.S. middle and high school students used an e-cigarette. This figure prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to launch a new youth e-cigarette prevention campaign this week to help stem what it refers to as an epidemic. Contrary to a popular misconception, e-cigarettes – including the dominant market brand, JUUL – do contain nicotine, which is a […]