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The CDC and FDA are trying to cut back opioids by 25% nation wide
Chronic Pain | Last Active: Dec 7, 2016 | Replies (27)Comment receiving replies
As I understand the 25 percent cut in opioid production, the initiative came from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), not the Center for Disease Control (CDC) or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The difference could be crucial. The DEA has authority under federal law to limit the amount of a scheduled drug that may be produced and marketed by a drug manufacturer. Neither the CDC nor the FDA has that power over the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, the DEA is not required to take account of patient needs when it moves to limit the manufacture of a drug. In contrast, the CDC and the FDA are focused -- by law as well as by basic principles -- on sensible concerns for patient health and comfort.
The DEA's final decision in the matter was published about a month ago in the Federal Register. You can read it at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-23988.pdf.
An analysis of the DEA ruling is available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dea-cutting-prescription-opioids_us_57f50078e4b03254526297bd.
A good example of the FDA dealing with patient use of opioids was published two months ago. The FDA issue a strong warning that the use of prescription opioids and benzodiazapines pose major risks to users, especially if they are taken together or in combination with alcohol. In a notice published at http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm518473.htm, the FDA told health care professionals to stop prescribing opioid cough medicines for patients taking benzodiazapines -- or other depressants of the Central Nervous System (CNS) including alcohol. They should prescribe opioids for pain only when other treatment options are inadequate.
Opioids are widely prescribed for pain and cough. Benzodiazepines are often used for anxiety, insomnia, seizures, and sleep problems. Combinations of these drugs can cause extreme sleepiness, slowed or difficult breathing, coma, and death, the FDA said. At the FDA web site, several pages explain the risks and list the dozens of opioids and benzodiazapines on the market to which the FDA warning applies.
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@predictable:
This is my second attempt to reply. Thank you for clarifing the source of the 25% reduction. I only saw articles giving the FDA and CDC as being involved. Also thanks for the Huffington Post article reference it helps explain things. Still I am disheartened to see that there is little being done to improve things.
The medical-industrial complex is out to make money at the expense of everyone no matter the cost in lives and sufffering. They have no problem in finding the few weak links in our government and influencing them to help with ill conceived regulations and laws that are likely to increase their profits.
The need for good research to develop alternative pain medication as well as research into what pain is and how it works in our body, how to objectivily measure it, and what works best to control it are all areas that need more work. When I read some of the postings on the chronic pain site it is evident that there is much that medical science does not know. My pain started when I lost my leg and I experience strong phantom pain that no one could explain to me. Some doctors said it was all in my head, others believed I had the pain but did not want to give me any evil drugs to treat it. At the time all I knew was that I could not sleep or rest or do anything without considering the pain I felt. It did not help that among the other amputees on my ward only a few of us had strong pain and a few luckly ones had no pain or sensation of any kind. In a private room down the hall was a nurse from world war II who was much worst off than all of us. She had no appearent injuries but was in constant pain all the time. When anyone came near her she would scream at the top of her lungs as she feared they were going to touch her in some manner thus causing her immeasurable pain. The floor nurses told us no one had any idea what caused her pain nor what to do about it. It was here, some 48 years ago, that I learned how little medical science knows about pain.
The current manipulations by our government agencies just confirms that they have not learned much except what has always been known, that money is king. (please excuse the errors my spell check is still not working) 19lin