FDA demands pain pill drug makers reduce deaths

Posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 and is filed under Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Federal regulators say pain medication death rate too high.

Dallas, TX (AmericanInjuryNews.com)–The Associated Press (AP) reported federal regulators with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) www.fda.gov sent letters to over a dozen drug companies demanding the drug makers develop plans to reduce the high incidence of patient misuse of their pain medications. The FDA announced Monday the letters addressed drug companies who make 24 different painkillers under the opiate drug classification including morphine, oxycodone and methadone.

The high incidence of serious injury while using these medications are associated with unavoidable addiction, misuse, over prescribing practices and even patient deaths. In 2007, the FDA found 3.7 million patients in the United States were taking some form of the medications under scrutiny including morphine, methadone and oxycodone to medically treat pain conditions. The 2007 federal survey also found 5.2 million patients reporting using prescription pain drugs inappropriately.

Federal regulators claim deaths continue to occur from the use of these medications because medical doctors prescribe the medications for unapproved off-label uses like migraine headaches. Death are also associated with patient abuse after becoming addicted to the known over-prescribed, highly addictive pain medications.

AmericanInjuryNews.com by Dallas Injury Lawyer Shelly T. Greco
Practice areas: Drug Product Liability Lawsuits
Shelly Greco. Eberstein & Witherite, LLP. 3100 Monticello Avenue, Suite 500. Dallas, TX 75205 - Toll Free: (888) 407-6669 News Source: http://www.americaninjurynews.com -

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