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Tag: opioids

  • Painkiller Zohydro Gets FDA Approval – States Revolt

    The recent FDA approval of Zohydro, a powerful new opiate pain killer, has states rebelling over its release, stating it is much too powerful and deadly and could make the nation’s heroin and prescription drug abuse worse.

    On Thursday, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin initiated an emergency order making it harder for doctors to prescribe Zohydro, which is an extended-release drug that contains up to five times the amount of narcotic hydrocodone previously available in prescription pills.

    The FDA approved Zohydro last fall, and it hit the market last month. Some public health authorities say the pills are in a form too easily crushed so that abusers can then snort or inject the drug.

    “It’s not like we don’t have painkillers in America,” Shumlin said. “We’re just saying, ‘Hey, we understand we don’t control the FDA, but we do have some influence in Vermont.’”

    Prescription drug abuse is the nation’s fastest-growing drug problem, with more than 4.5 million Americans abusing pain relievers, according to a 2013 Drug Enforcement Administration report.

    Some might recall that Shumlin has other “drug” related problems in his state, in January, he devoted the bulk of his State of the State address to Vermont’s “full-blown heroin crisis.”

    Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick went even further last week, ordering an outright ban on prescribing and dispensing Zohydro until it is marketed in a form that is difficult to abuse.

    “The introduction of this new painkiller into the market poses a significant risk to individuals already addicted to opiates and to the public at large,” Governor Patrick said in a news release.

    The hydrocodone-based drug is the latest in a long line of painkillers called opioid analgesics. The FDA approved the medication last fall to treat chronic pain.

    “In the midst of a severe drug epidemic fueled by overprescribing of opioids, the very last thing the country needs is a new, dangerous, high-dose opioid,” the coalition to end opioid addiction wrote in a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg, entitled “Fed-Up“.

    The letter included, “Too many people have already become addicted to similar opioid medications, and too many lives have been lost. We urge you to exercise your authority and responsibility to protect the public’s health by keeping Zohydro off the market.”

    One addiction expert who signed the letter was a bit more candid.

    “It’s a whopping dose of hydrocodone packed in an easy-to-crush capsule,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, president of the advocacy group Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing. “It will kill people as soon as it’s released.”

    Should the FDA remove the drug from the market?

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  • Heavy Opioid Abusers Often Have Prescriptions, Shows Study

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today highlighted new research showing that Doctors themselves often supply patients at risk for opioid overdose.

    The new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, shows that the patients who use opioids (for recreation) 200 or more days out of every year often get their drugs through a prescription. According to the CDC, around 27% of this group have prescriptions for opioids. This is in contrast to the majority of people who abuse prescription opioids, who most often get their drugs freely through friends and family.

    The CDC suggests that these findings call for more prescription drug abuse prevention programs, specifically ones that target doctors and their prescribing behaviors.

    “Many abusers of opioid pain relievers are going directly to doctors for their drugs,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC. “Health care providers need to screen for abuse risk and prescribe judiciously by checking past records in state prescription drug monitoring programs. It’s time we stop the source and treat the troubled.”

    In the U.S. current prescription drug abuse prevention efforts are largely educational, with drug manufacturers required to provide addiction risk educational programs and researchers following overdose trends to learn what they can about drug abuse in the country. The CDC suggests that comprehensive opioid prescription monitoring programs are needed to help identify those at risk for overdose. Also, the agency suggest that pain clinic laws and a crackdown on improper prescribing by doctors could go a long way to preventing opioid addiction or overdose.

  • Medicare: Contributing To Painkiller Addiction

    Addictions to painkillers for Medicare patients is growing rapidly, but could Medicare be fueling this dangerous trend?

    It has been discovered that nearly one in three patients who get prescriptions for painkillers, can get them from multiple doctors, and the physician prescribing them is unaware that they are already receiving prescriptions from another doctor. This is a trend that could create a serious addiction, which can lead to not only further drug abuse, but hospitalization, HealthDay News reported.

    The British Medical Journal recently published a study that included research from medical professionals who analyzed data from 1.8 million people who are Medicare recipients, and who use narcotic pain killer prescriptions, also known as opioids. These drugs are extremely addicting, and include hydrocodone, oxycodone and morphine.

    They found that nearly 35 percent of patients were prescribed opioids from more than one doctor.

    Among 1.2 million beneficiaries with an opioid prescription, 418, 530 patients filled prescriptions from two providers, 171,420 patients, more than 14 percent, from three providers, and 143,344, more than 11 percent, from four or more providers. According to the study’s authors, the greater the number of prescribers, the greater the risk for addiction, abuse and hospitalization.

    “Patients with four or more prescribers were twice as likely to be hospitalized for narcotics-related complications than patients receiving the same number of prescriptions from a single caregiver,” study co-author Pinar Karaca-Mandic, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said in a press release.

    Prescriptions for opioids have increased dramatically in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health. Medical experts have blamed these types of painkillers, also called narcotics, for the recent spike in heroin use, as well as overdose deaths, because many patients often abuse painkillers before switching to heroin.

    According to the Boston Globe, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is working on a new initiative to discourage doctors from over-prescribing opioid painkillers, which are misused by more than 10 percent of Americans.

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