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It is welcome news that the companies that profited from the opioid epidemic will soon be held responsible for the pain and financial damage they caused. When all is said and done, the amount of money that will flow from these opioid related settlements could reach about $50 billion. These settlements represent a prime opportunity to solve not just the symptoms of the crisis but the root cause as well. In order to do so, we must put the funding toward solutions that work. (David Trone, 11/5)

We’ll never know exactly how many people with drug convictions have seen their dreams of a college degree brought to an end due to the federal government’s withholding of financial aid. While hundreds of thousands have had their aid applications rejected, that number doesn’t capture the countless others who expected rejection and didn’t even bother applying. With 1.6 million Americans arrested for drug law violations annually, the true count of affected individuals is likely staggering. This discrimination against those with addictions has been woven into the fabric of the financial aid system for over 20 years now. However, last week the House Education & Labor Committee approved the Financial Aid Fairness for Students Act, which would end this unjust policy. (Brian Barnett, 11/5)

America is indeed in the middle of a public health crisis, but when it comes to vaping, the real culprits are the marketing and sales group who targets underage minors - and the illegal and unregulated tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) cartridges being sold through the black market, not the regulated e-cigarette products legally sold to adults in Tennessee’s vape shops. (Dimitris Agrafiotis, 11/5)

Americans are under siege by drug-resistant bacteria. The challenge of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR as it is referred to in the medical community, has become a public health crisis. Thousands of deaths every year are attributed to drug-resistant microbes, as well as billions of dollars in health expenditures. And the problem is only going to get worse, which will certainly be a topic of discussion at this week’s World Antimicrobial Resistance Congress.Why? In part because front-line antibiotics are becoming less effective. Access to new antibiotics today is so limited today that the United States — the land of patient choice — has desperate patients like Roger Poser stuck on waiting lists to get the right drug for their drug-resistant infections. (Seema Verma, 11/6)

At a news conference where the state controller announced the results of a study on the economic impact of gun violence, Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFirePA, said she was tired — and not just because after she stood by the controller, she led a call to action against violence at her own rally. Tragedy and trauma take a toll far beyond shattered families and loved ones, but we cede the work of improving our world to a handful of activists. We tell ourselves that we don’t have the time, but they do. In the end, they become our proxies. And they are suffering because of it. (Helen Ubiñas, 11/5)

As an American and a physician, I am disturbed that we are no longer capable of making decisions to protect the lives of Americans as nearly 40,000 fatalities from firearms occur each year. A commonsense solution does exist -- to approach this issue as a public health crisis.If you don’t think that gun violence in America is a national public health crisis and growing epidemic, please take a day to walk in the shoes of health care practitioners. (Joseph Nally, 11/6)

November is National Adoption Month, so it is fitting that the Trump administration has just taken a step that will make it a little easier to find permanent homes for children who need them.On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to roll back a regulation that for three years has discriminated against traditional Christian adoption and foster care agencies. The regulation — imposed during the final days of Barack Obama’s presidency — decreed that agencies providing child-welfare services could not receive federal grants if they were unwilling to place children with same-sex couples. (Jeff Jacoby, 11/5)

The Trump administration’s move to relax regulations regarding disposal of coal ash and wastewater produced by coal-burning power plants is yet another example of the president’s environmental defiance — fueled by a combination of fealty to big industry and pandering to the portion of his base that revels in tearing down anything that smacks of Obama-era progress. It’s also President Donald Trump’s latest move to prop up the struggling coal industry at a time when America should be transitioning away from it. (11/5)