Word: detoxicating
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...message taken home by millions of E.R. viewers is that ultra-rapid detox is a shortcut to drug withdrawal. And that's a problem, say many doctors. They fear it will result in a stampede of new patients to the controversial and still experimental procedure. Ultrarapid detox, they charge, has not been adequately studied and is often promoted by medical entrepreneurs who make exaggerated claims and operate out of hotel rooms and storefronts...
...safety of the process and that more study is needed to determine its efficacy. Says Dr. Thomas Kosten, of Yale University School of Medicine, who co-authored the journal review: "It's like using a cruise missile when all you need is a hatchet. It's overkill. Opiate detox is not that hard to accomplish." In May 1997 the British Medical Journal reported that a patient had died while undergoing the procedure...
Addicts who can afford ultrarapid detox--the procedure costs as much as $10,000--are attracted to it because they can escape days and even weeks of agonizing withdrawal symptoms. They are given an antagonist, usually naltrexone or naloxone, that quickly displaces opiates and attaches itself to the same brain receptors that opiates seek out. During the several hours of detoxification, patients are under general anesthesia and unaware of the severe "shake and bake" symptoms they are enduring. Still, they are often dizzy, exhausted and barely able to walk after awakening. And they need the same follow-up counseling...
Just opened off-Broadway in a strong if not ideally cast production, Shopping revolves around three young London roommates. Mark (Philip Seymour Hoffman) leaves for a detox center in an effort to kick his heroin habit. Robbie and Lulu (Justin Theroux and Jennifer Dundas Lowe) keep busy by dealing drugs for a scuzzy TV producer (Matthew Sussman). They reunite when Mark brings home a young hustler (Torquil Campbell), who takes part in a sordid bout of fantasy game playing that makes Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? look like Scrabble...
...using the rest to bolster their overall finances. Says Bruce Vladeck, administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, which runs the Medicare and Medicaid programs: "Until now Medicare has been giving hospitals an incentive to hire more residents. We need to change that." Even with such a generous specialist detox program, Medicare will save $300 million by compensating the New York institutions in this way. Under the new system, participating hospitals will be credited for each residency slot they leave vacant, and will be encouraged to use those funds to hire more nurses and physician assistants or other medical staff...