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the associated press said:Anti-addiction activists are calling for the US Food and Drug Administration's top official to step down, saying the agency's policies have contributed to a national epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse.
In a letter released yesterday, more than a dozen groups asked the Obama administration's top health official to replace FDA Commissioner Dr Margaret Hamburg, who has led the agency since 2009.
The FDA has been under fire from public health advocates, politicians and law enforcement officials since last October, when it approved a powerful new painkiller called Zohydro against the recommendation of its own medical advisers.
The new letter is the first formal call for new leadership at the FDA over the issue.
"We are especially frustrated by the FDA's continued approval of new, dangerous, high-dose opioid analgesics that are fuelling high rates of addiction and overdose deaths," states the letter, which is addressed to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, who oversees the FDA and other health agencies.
The groups signing the letter include Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, a 900-member advocacy group which petitioned the FDA to drastically restrict opioid use. The FDA rejected that petition last year.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said opioid abuse "is a serious issue and one that the secretary is focused on".
"Secretary Burwell appreciates hearing from stakeholders on the important issue of prescription opioid abuse, and looks forward to responding to their letter," said spokeswoman Tait Sye, in a statement.
Deaths linked to the addictive medications, including OxyContin and Vicodin, have more than tripled over the last 20 years to an estimated 17,000 in 2011, the most recent year for which the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reports figures.
The CDC has called on doctors to limit their use of the medications to the most serious cases of pain, such as cancer patients and end-of-life care. But the vast majority of prescriptions written in the US are for more common ailments like arthritis and back pain.
Hamburg has supported broad use of the drugs, noting that 100 million Americans reportedly suffer from chronic pain.
FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson said Hamburg had been "a tireless public health advocate".
"Preventing prescription opioid abuse and ensuring that patients have access to appropriate treatments for pain are both top public health priorities for the FDA," she said.
seems silly to blame her, when it is the doctors that are prescribing the drugs for their patients....
seems silly to blame her, when it is the doctors that are prescribing the drugs for their patients....
seems silly to blame her, when it is the doctors that are prescribing the drugs for their patients....
Why does this remind me of the gun control debate:
Lets see, the best way to control a problem is to punish the people who actually need the drugs, as opposed to going after the people who abuse the drugs.
Yeah, i thought I heard this line of reasoning before....
seems silly to blame her, when it is the doctors that are prescribing the drugs for their patients....
Why does this remind me of the gun control debate:
Lets see, the best way to control a problem is to punish the people who actually need the drugs, as opposed to going after the people who abuse the drugs.
Yeah, i thought I heard this line of reasoning before....
Yeah, but what if the people who actually need the drugs do themselves abuse them???
Somebody's gotta play devil's advocate here.
Most of this country, are either potheads, on anti- depressants, or pain killers.
care4all said:Maybe it's time for the AMA to give guidelines to their members....and educating them better with the risks, what to watch out for, how to wean them off of said drugs once pain subsides, alternative combinations of pain killers not as addictive etc.
