dr. halverson? >> yes. >> absolutely. >> dr. waller? >> yes. >> how would you each advise hhs to take this principle into account with considering how to responsibly implement secretary burwell's recent announcement to expand the use of medication assisted therapy? dr. halverson? >> since i'm not a physician i would like to defer to my colleagues here. >> all right. dr. sledge. >> i think that prescribing physician should be trained in all modalities of medication assisted therapy as well as other option, particularly psychosocial treatment with abstinence as an option. >> dr. waller? >> we've looked at this close in the area i'm in charge of a seven county area with patient and putting out how to treat that very. we been able to delineate two separate groups which have good data for. those that started very early in life and started earlier in their adolescence which have a different brain disease and start later in life. those groups of patients separate u us out as forceout treatment worked either many patients in my clinic that are

dr. halverson there your sort of public health perspective and dr. waller but others as well, the word "epidemic" is getting used a lot to describe this. i, frankly, myself didn't appreciate that by the cdc definition of epidemic, we've actually gotten to that point. can you comment on -- because, you know, epidemic, that's kind of used in the vernacular to just describe something that's sort of out and hand and serious. you know, if you talk about epidemic where it could be, you know, analogous to sars or ebola, that's to a different degree, and if you could to speak to that. >> epidemic is used in large part because of the fact that we don't see an easily controllable end, that we experience the phenomenon, whatever it might be, an epidemic of flu or an epidemic related to any disease where the disease is raging beyond our ability to control it. and the disease has the potential to have a profound impact. and so under those definitions, we certainly have seen an epidemic of opioid abuse, of deaths, and the reality is is that we do have an idea of h

dr. halverson being here. welcome to washington. honor to have you before the panel and always nice to have fellow hoosier in the nation's capitol. your experience, state health director, cdc, fairbanks school of public health, we're very fortunate to have you in indiana. i want to thank you because dr. halverson convenient ad roundtable at iupy with pharmacists, members of hhs, va. we discussed challenges indiana was facing then, as unfortunately one of the states leading country in prescription opioid and heroin drug abuse. we had quite a discussion that day. we had also someone from the med school who attended. we appreciated his participation. but one thing that ondcp, they released a report in 2011 that cited their intent to encourage and medical and health proal schools such as fairbanks continue expanding education programs for subscribers. more instruction measuring pain and subscribing to treat it. that was four years ago. i think we're still really struggling in the country with getting our medical schools and our continui

dr. paul halverson, dean, indiana university's school of public health. welcome. secondly, dr. chapman sledge, chief medical officer, cumberland heights. welcome. third, dr. robert waller, chair of the american society of addictions. then dr. kenneth katz, department of emergency medicine, section of medical toxicology, lehigh valley health network, welcome. and i don't see dr. alan anderson yet, president of the american orthopedic society for sports medicine. so thank you for coming. your written testimony will be made a part of the record. you'll each have five minutes to summarize your testimony. and after opening statements, we will do the questioning. so dr. halverson, you're recognized for five minutes for your summary. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman pitts, ranking member green, representative books, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i come before you today as the founding dean of the richard m. fairbanks school of public health as well as the former state health officer of arkansas, to discuss a very important and far-reaching public health issue, th