Opioids under attack: Government now is on the offensive
Two announcements from the federal government represent progress in the fight against opioids. On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration said it will require drug manufacturers to better educate physicians about the painkillers. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced a $35 million settlement with Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, a company charged with looking the other way when it had reason to believe some of its opioids were landing on the black market.
If the tide of the epidemic has not been turned, the battle at least is joined. In addition to the contributions of federal agencies, the states and local governments are becoming increasingly aggressive against drug dealers, manufacturers and the insurance companies that limit treatment for substance abuse. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has been calling on insurers to make sure they adequately cover addiction treatment, make it easy for people to access that treatment and better cover alternatives, such as physical therapy, that can reduce the need for painkillers.
Ohio and other states have sued drug companies, alleging they fueled the epidemic by underplaying or misrepresenting the drugs’ danger. There’s more to come. Mr. Shapiro last month said he is part of a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general that is using “investigative tools, including subpoenas for documents and testimony, to determine the appropriate course of action.”
Pharmaceutical companies should regard the Justice Department’s settlement with Mallinckrodt as a shot across the bow. The agreement, described as the first with a manufacturer tied to the opioid crisis, carried more than a stiff financial cost. It requires the company to begin tracking its drugs as they move through the supply chain into the hands of consumers. That obligation, if required of other manufacturers and suppliers as well, should help to dampen what seems to be a free flow of drugs.
Physicians represent another potential choke point. If people aren’t prescribed opioids, they can’t become addicted and move on to related drugs, such as heroin. Last year, Pennsylvania restricted the prescription of opioids in emergency departments and to juveniles and ramped up physician training. The FDA’s expanded education mandate is another welcome step.
The FDA already requires drugmakers to provide training to physicians about extended-release opioids. Now, they’ll have to offer the training about fast-acting opioids, too, and provide information about pain management and non-drug therapies (some of the same ones that Mr. Shapiro wants insurance companies to cover). Physicians don’t have to accept the training, but they should. One wonders why physicians don’t learn enough about the dangers of opioids in medical school. Addiction, as Greensburg Bishop Edward Malesic has said, is not a moral failing. The failing would be if government and other parties did not marshal all available resources against the scourge. Increasingly, we are seeing what Mr. Shapiro has called a “multidisciplinary approach.”
Filed under: General Problems
KLONDYN,,,IS PUTTING THIS LIE OUT THERE,,,,,THATS A FACT!!!!!!,,,,,NOW JMO,,,BACK IN 2010 THEY LITERALLY CHANGED THE DEFINITION OF ,”WHAT,” A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE/ DRUG IS,,,FROM ACTUALLY ,”NAMEING,” THE DRUG ,,,TO ,”CHEMICALLY SIMILIAR,””’,,,there were 12 men,,it was a stale mate,,,5 out of the 12 said NO,,, do not change it,,but again,,,THEY DID IT ANYWAYS.Now all thee edits are at the bottum of the pages,,,,,if I find out klondyn was sitting is this ,”meeting,” or anyone he knew was in that meeting,,to literally change the definition of a drug,,,,,his sick twisted.little mind,,,planned all this,,,way back!!!..In another post,,,we should suggest in those ,”comments,” to fly any of us out to Washington d.c.,,,,for these genocide meetings by klondyn,,”’,,for a HUMAN BEINGS point of view!!!!!!!Also today,,I looked up mallencroft,[sp] usa office in St.Louis,,,and told them,.,I WOULD TESTIFY IN A COURT OF LAW ”FOR” THEIR MEDICINE AGAINST THEE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT,,,,,, he told me on the phone,,i was the 5th person who call him here in America,,,stating the same thing!!!,,,,maybe call mallincroft,,let them know,,,how much their MEDICINE help’d,,,,my medicine from them is/was oxycodone and methadone,,,,,,,,it states the manufacturer on your bottles,,,,,jmo,,maryw
As I said in a previous post. The Government told the doctors, psychiatrists, and pharmacists back in 2010, [healthcare reform], that-they were going to change both dosage and formula; now they’re acting as there’s been this sudden-death, and addiction explosion. All the while putting the former under a gag-order, illegally creating, and withholding emergency-adverse and potentially deadly [ legally mandated health and ethics laws required -notice to patients, but instead gave pharmacists immunity from death, or injury lawsuits, because this was done covertly, w/o consent or warning. The worse obviously is the back-door deal anticipating death and injury, and playing God with our lives, as if they had the legal right to injure and kill. I am enraged by our government, secretly experimenting, w/o our knowledge, and with the approval of the FDA, CDC, DEA, and designed from places so hi-up in authority, [selected, or elected, unconstitutional, and against all rights]…..Something as HUGE as this must have been known and agreed upon, behind thick back-doors, and by congress and up. And this is-was done with other medications as-well, like Ambien, ADHD, Benzos, and many others, I’m sure. Besides Secretly “transforming” medically necessary meds, adding Heavy Metals and Radio-active nano-devices,lowering the dose of effective ingredients by up-to 40% What More Can I Say-except that I’m gathering my journals, medical reports, er med-related dr visits, along w/ my sisters, and LOW & BEHOLD, this all happened when the “Lyme” epidemic in the Mid Hud Valley became public. No Co-incidence. The doctors, psychiatrists, pharmacists, and [“it’s an election year’], must be going crazy, especially because the ones that didn’t follow the heard, are under a gag order as-well,, and this is about-to go “VIRAL”, it HAS-TO, IT’S OUT OF CONTROL. I’m at My end from this War On The Most Vulnerable, and soon to be “dissed”-Abled, as CDC-suppressed truth ERUPTS!!…and it’s not Zika !!, where Congress “invested” the peoples money..
Medications for pain DO NOT EQUAL= Heroin Addiction !! I am reading this and similar statements almost daily…. this just isn’t true!!! Who is putting this lie out there? “If people aren’t prescribed opioids, they can’t become addicted and move on to related drugs, such as heroin.”