FDA to consider disapproving opioids for chronic pain

hthr007

hthr007

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking an overdue look at the use of prescription opioids to treat chronic, long-term pain amid increasing calls that it should be illegal to market these drugs for such use.

A Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today investigation found that since 2007, top-selling opioids dispensed to people 60 years and older have increased 32%, based on an analysis of prescription data from IMS Health, a health care information company. The safety and effectiveness of such drugs for chronic pain is unproven, the investigation found; some experts believe the drugs are harmful for older patients.

The increasing use of opioids is partly the result of recommendations by doctors and pain advocacy groups that receive money from drug companies. These advocates have downplayed the risk of the side effects, including overdoses, an increased risk of falls and fractures in older people, cognitive problems and a condition in which opioids actually cause more pain.

Continue reading here:

http://m.jsonline.com/news/opinion/...t-prescription-opioids-7b5lfl7-157076105.html
 
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At last week's FDA meeting, some speakers expressed what we think is a legitimate fear that people who really need such drugs would no longer be able to get them. Heather Pierce, who has a genetic connective tissue disorder called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, said she is worried about limiting the approval of opioids to just severe pain.

"It is limiting access to people who need it," Pierce said. She has taken prescription opioids for five years.

The FDA needs to consider that point. But the rising use of prescription opioids should be the bigger concern, as doctors writing in last week's New England Journal of Medicine pointed out. "In this new model, physicians, dentists and nurse practitioners - rather than drug cartels and street dealers - play prominent roles in escalating drug use," wrote Jeanmarie Perrone of the University of Pennsylvania and Lewis Nelson of New York University School of Medicine.
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More desire to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Also, this is backwards. Medical professionals should freely distribute heroin to addicts. Get the opiate market off the streets and into supervised venues.
 
Totally agree with you 23536, it's backward thinking like this that really gets on my nerves.
 
I know i'm not covered by the FDA living in Australia, but if someone contrived to take my grandfathers pain medication from him i'd kill them.

Plain and simple.
 
In a world where viable alternatives to opioids exist, this wouldn't be an absurdly stupid proposition. Just a stupid proposition.
But as it stands...
 
Surely this is just going to make the black market (heroin, imitation pharmacuticals) florish in the united states?
I never thought of doing heroin or harder opiates until my pain got too much for me to handle and doctors refuse to give you anything stronger than tramadol so I thought fuck it I am gonna treat myself. Enter Heroin/Methadone/Diconal combined with benzodiazepines to keep the crushing depression at bay. Must have spent thousands.
 
What a sad day if it actually comes to this. Many of us CPP would not be active therefor we could not be apart of society. We would be merely lying in bed all day in pain just wanting to die. The age does not matter 10-100, pain does not pick an age, nor do debilitating conditions.

If my pain meds were to be taken away I would turn to heroin, no doubt about it, not that I would ever want to. Be we need to live, weather it be support to our families; support our own lives so we don't have to depend on the government for there measly 2cents a month.
 
Are there any other sources for this? This is so absurdly stupid I just have a hard time believing it. What are we going to prescribe to cancer patients, ibuprofen? The reason that opiods are prescribed despite their risks is that there is not anything close to an alternative.

I keep hearing reports of end-of-life pain and pain from terminal illness or chronic conditions being under treated. At that point, who gives a shit if you get addicted to opiates? People actually think that opiate addiction is more debilitating than severe pain? Go fuck yourself, puritans. Stop injecting your baseless morals into medicine.
 
Transcendence said:
Are there any other sources for this?
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The only paper that reports on it is the one in the OP, the Milwaukee Journal Standard. Nevertheless, it is an accurate portrayal. In the article, they link to an earlier story which is not an editorial and provides more detail:

http://www.jsonline.com/features/he...oids-for-longterm-pain-285kc4b-156078935.html

It doesn't mean the FDA is going to do it any time in the next few years. But then, every once in a while, they de-canonize a popular medicine. What became of all the old popular sedatives like chloral hydrate, Placidyl and the barbs (to say nothing of methaqualone)? Not that those were necessarily bad losses, but it goes to show that it has happened before, and can happen again.
 
I think it's ironic that they are complaining about the pain-advocacy groups having ties to the pharmaceutical manufacturers because in all probablity the politicians proposing these crackdowns on pain meds most likely have ties to the insurance companies, who simply don't want to pay for people's pain medication anymore. IMHO this has nothing to do with safety and I don't think it's even about the war on drugs, it's just about appeasing the insurance companies.
 
Being a CPP myself I hate to say it but I see really bad things coming from this, painkillers and the like make it possible for me to function somewhat normally and without them Im pretty much 30% away from seriously thinking about topping myself. I'd guess America might see an influx of both heroin addiction ( yay hear the war on drugs drums roll harder) and suicides unfortunately. Both of which I can completely sympathise with. This is pretty much a human rights violation, but alas it is a very good way of keeping a generation of already stigmatised patients subjugated. What effect is this going to have on the workforce anyway? Im sure many CPP can only maintain a job thanks to their prescriptions?
 
oh wow. this would be extremely dangerous and irresponsible if they did this.


:::shakes head:::


our politicians and everyone running them are some of the dumbest, insincere, and merciless people i have ever heard of.
 
I don't even know what to say to things like this. People are going to start going to things that aren't controlled like kratom which I'm sure anyone on here would agree is far more dangerous for idiots than a prescription that clearly says "Take 1 tablet by mouth every 6 hours, do not exceed 4 in any 24-hour period."

There are always going to be people who abuse prescription drugs. No matter what. And it's always going to be going up with immigration and overpopulation. Nothing they do is going to change anything.
 
I would not take this seriously concidering there are no other sources for this issue. The idiot journalist doesn't seem to understand that the FDA wanting to look into the effectiveness of opiates being used for chronic pain is not the same as them wanting to eliminate it. If it does happen to be true and I can't find a steady heroin connection then I'm gonna find a nice tall building and jump. My pain is only gonna get worse and worse as the years go on and opiates are what help supress the pain I get in every joint of my body enough for me to get out of bed and feed my self.
 
This is the most fucked up thing ive read in a long time. So someone like me who has horrible neuropathic pain would be left to go score whatever pills or heroin i could get off the street to ease my pain? That makes much more sense :! . I'm kind of glad that i am not moving to the US after reading nonsense like this.

Sadly like a toilet backing up on your nice clean floor Americas bullshit has a way of making it up here in Canada too.
 
I want to stay away from opiates because I am not a pain patient, just one of those addicts fucking it up for legit patients :(

I have had my whole mind changed over the last few years, yeah... pot has to be legalized to save people from prison/bullets... I think heroin should be legalized first! It is madness that people seem to think heroin is some evil monster but their oxy's and hydromorphone are just dandy!

I have started growing opium poppies as a political statement. I think if 5 people in every major township did what I was doing, there would be too many poppies for the police to take care of. It is simply one of the easiest plants to grow and it grows all on its own, you dont even really need to keep up with watering them or tending to them in any way! I really like the idea that there will be several hundred poppies laying around my town and our biking trails for whoever needs them. Grandmothers and people who like to grow flowers arent going to lance them or take lots of them, but I absolutely welcome anyone in a hard way whether it is through physical or mental pain to find some relief in my poppies... I think everyone should start doing the same... every large tree planter in your town should have at least 5 poppies growing in them. Public property, not illegal to grow... get at it!
 
Sure make these drugs illegal for pain... maybe people will turn to medical marijuana and or help the marijuana legalization movement
 
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