For years, the U.S. government has been at war with itself as the death toll from prescription painkillers continues to rise.
One one side: Public health advocates and the Centers for Disease Control, who for 14 years have advocated tighter regulations and controls of Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet and other opiates.
On the other: The Food and Drug Administration, which has consistently sided with Purdue Pharma and other corporate kingpins who annually sell $8 billion worth of drugs that kill 16,000 people per year.
That’s the conclusion of a recent MSNBC report, which accused the FDA of “dithering” amid one of the most serious public health crises in decades.
Years after doctors concluded long-term use of the painkillers are dangerous, the FDA still allows manufacturers to market and prescribe the drugs in contrary ways.
“We now have overwhelming evidence that long-term use is unsafe and ineffective,” Dr. Andrew Kolodny of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, told MSNBC.
“But the (FDA) lets manufacturers promote long-term use, and it lets physicians think they’re prescribing the drugs appropriately when they’re not.”
The reforms aren’t strict
More than six months ago, a panel urged the FDA to change the classification of hydrocodone — the active ingredient in Vicodin — to Schedule III from Schedule II. The change would make it harder to get refills on the drug and acknowledge that the potential for abuse is great, not “moderate.”
The FDA has rejected such recommendations in the past, and still hasn’t acted on the latest one. The corporate drug lobby has managed to kill other modest proposals, such as limiting daily dosages to 100 mg and capping prescriptions at 90 days for those who don’t have cancer, MSNBC reports.
The FDA says it’s studying the issue. It’s said the same thing for 14 years.
During the same time, the pharmaceutical industry has given nationwide politicians $2.6 billion in campaign donations — making it the top lobbying industry in the nation, according to the group OpenSecrets.org.
Coincidence?
The delays come as the body toll and catalogue of misery continues. More people die from prescription painkillers than heroin and cocaine combined. And the pills have turned everyday Americans into accidental addicts.
They’re folks like Sarah Bowker, a 37-year-old homemaker who was prescribed Vicodin because of arthritis. That led to a two-year cycle of FDA-approved increased dosages that nearly wrecked her life.
“I couldn’t finish a sentence,” she wrote to the FDA last year. “I was losing my memory. I had become severely depressed. I convinced myself that my husband and 2-year-old daughter were better off without the burden of my being.”
Enough is enough.
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