FDA takes away powerful pain killer
In a move that has baffled pain management doctors, the FDA has decided to restrict distribution of a newly approved pain killer. The drug called Onsolis is a short acting but powerful fentanyl pain killer. The drug was originally to be used for acute pain management and end of life pain control. However, the FDA changes now make it very difficult to gain access to the drug for home and institutional settings. The FDA asked 24 companies that make powerful pain killers to develop plans to reduce overdoses. This plan has come down to reducing the number of people that have access to the drugs rather than letting doctors decide the best course of action for each patient. (Source: ohsonline.com).
It is unfortunate that yet another useful drug that was designed for use by the chronic pain suffers has been removed from the pharmacy. Making drugs more difficult to get hold of is not the answer to overdoses. Training for doctors and patients is the best remedy to keep patients safe. In the end the FDA should be trying to find the best balance between drugs that can help and making sure that everyone understands the issues for the drugs they take. Arbitrarily making it hard to get a drug just puts stress on families that are trying to help a member that is either in chronic pain or dying. They do not need to hear that a drug that would help relieve suffering has been approved but the government has decided that they really don’t need it. This makes everyone scramble to figure out the second best way of dealing with pain and hope that there is not some kind of contraindication that makes the whole matter worse.
It takes many years to bring a new pain killer to the market. There are many facets of what needs to be verified so the drug is both effective and safe. To go through all the tests and prove itself to be a useful and safe drug, and then hit a political problem is unacceptable. The people that live with chronic pain do not want to hear about yet another drug that works great, but because some small group worries that the drug may be abused it is blocked from being released. Any and all drugs can be abused, drug dealers and the idiots that use drugs always find new and bizarre ways to screw up their bodies and minds. Law enforcement is given the task of finding these dregs of society and put them in jail to pay for their crimes against society. The drug itself is not evil, it must be given to doctors who are trained in it’s use. Patients that have run to the end of many pain drugs are in dire need of a new pain killer that works well and gives them time as their bodies get used to that drug. Allowing people to sit and live in pain because an excellent pain killer may be abused is a sorry excuse to not take care of the patients that need the help most.
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