In a decision that drew the ire of everyone from leaders in the medical community to members of Congress, the FDA recently approved the use of OxyContin for use in children as young as eleven years old.
An incredibly powerful opioid, OxyContin is highly addictive and can be lethal at high doses. And, when the nation is already in the throes of a prescription drug abuse and overdose crisis, the thought ...
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A growing body of evidence seems to suggest that the FDA; the regulatory agency in charge of ensuring that the foods and drugs we ingest will not harm us, may not be as independent as the public may assume them to be.
One of the largest and most publicly visible hits to the agency’s credibility occurred earlier this year when the FDA issued a draft guidance which cleared the way for drug ...
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In recent years, painkiller overdose and resulting fatalities have been a matter of great concern. The rate of death from painkiller use has nearly doubled in the past decade. However, in a recent article, USA Today reports of the first decrease in deaths since 1999.
The data on death by prescription painkillers shows a strong inverse correlation with deaths by heroin overdose. While the rates of prescription overdoses declined, there was a corresponding increase in heroin ...
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Abuse of painkillers has become an epidemic in America. The journal Medical Care recently released a study that found a growing number of people on disability from work were prescribed powerful prescription narcotic painkillers.
The research found that about 44 percent of people that receive Social Security Disability Insurance benefits were prescribed narcotic painkillers between 2007 and 2011. The percentage of people using the drugs long-term rose from 21 percent in 2007 to 23 ...
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Prescription painkillers are becoming much more prevalent in the United States and there are serious risks associated with these drugs that many are not aware of. The use of prescription opioids has increased dramatically in the past decade as prescriptions for OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin and other pain medications have climbed 300 percent. Painkillers containing the narcotic hydrocodone are now the most commonly ...
Prescription drug abuse has become a widespread and serious issue. Purdue Pharma, the maker of the often abused painkiller OxyContin, claims that this is a result of pharmacy robberies, doctor-shopping, and medicine cabinet raids. A story in the LA Times reveals that the company has known of the role physicians play in overprescribing and has a database of the suspected doctors. But the company has not disclosed this information to authorities.
Purdue generated a database of about 1,800 doctors ...
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