Dr. James Surrell, Journal columnist

The U.S. National Institutes of Health begun as a one-room Laboratory of Hygiene in 1887, and today the NIH is one of the world’s foremost medical research centers.

The NIH is one of the many agencies of the US. Department of Health and Human Services. Today, the NIH serves our country and the whole world making frequent major health research contributions to help us all.

The overall mission of the NIH is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. Let us now take a more detailed look at the specific goals of our highly respected United States NIH organization. Following is a brief summary of the four primary goals of the NIH.

1. To foster fundamental creative discoveries, innovative research strategies, and their applications as a basis to advance significantly the Nation’s capacity to protect and improve health.

2. To develop, maintain, and renew scientific human and physical resources that will assure the Nation’s capability to prevent disease.

3. To expand the knowledge base in medical and associated sciences in order to enhance the Nation’s economic well-being and ensure a continued high return on the public investment in research.

4. To exemplify and promote the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability, and social responsibility in the conduct of science.

NIH is the largest public financial contributor of biomedical research in the world, investing more than $30 billion in taxpayer dollars to achieve its mission to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. In pursuing this mission, NIH improves health by promoting treatment and prevention, contributes to society by driving economic growth and productivity, and expands the biomedical knowledge base by funding cutting-edge research and continuing to develop the very important biomedical workforce of today and tomorrow.

A very serious medical issue facing the U.S. and many countries around the world is drug abuse, also referred to as substance abuse. Recently, nearly 50,000 people in the United States died from opioid involved drug overdoses. The misuse of and addiction to opioids, including prescription pain relievers, heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, has led to a very serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total “economic burden” of prescription opioid misuse alone in the USA is nearly $80 billion a year, including costs for healthcare, addiction treatment, and criminal justice.

So, what is being done to help our nation deal with this very serious substance abuse issue. As noted above, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation’s leading medical research agency and is working diligently to help solve the opioid crisis. They are working on discovering new and better ways to prevent opioid misuse, to treat opioid use disorders, and to manage pain.

In response to the U.S. opioid crisis, the USA Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is focusing its efforts on the following five major priorities.

1. Improving access to treatment and recovery services.

2. Promoting use of overdose-reversing drugs.

3. Strengthening our understanding of the epidemic through better public health surveillance.

4. Providing support for cutting-edge research on pain and addiction.

5. Advancing better practices for pain management.

If you or anyone you know has any concerns about possible substance abuse, please discuss it with your health care provider without any delay! And yes, these are Doctor’s Orders!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Jim Surrell is the author of “The ABC’s For Success In All We Do” and the “SOS (Stop Only Sugar) Diet” books.Contact Dr. Surrell by email at sosdietdoc@gmail.com.