Online Pharmacy Medicine Blog

Hundreds of patients die every year in the United States after taking powerful prescription painkillers like OxyContin. Now the FDA is taking action to prevent this drug and others from being prescribed too cavalierly by physicians. It plans to only permit doctors who have completed a specific training program to prescribe a list of 24 narcotic drugs.

According to eFluxMedia, the FDA has previously avoided restricting physicians’ prescribing habits:

The FDA avoids interfering with the practice of medicine because doctor behavior is governed by state medical boards. However, the agency still tries to provide doctors with the best and most current information, and then allows them to decide how to use it. It’s interesting to see that most of the drugs withdrawn over the last 20 years were taken off shelves because doctors continued to use them in a way the FDA strongly disapproved.

Dr. John K. Jenkins of the FDA told the New York Times:

“What we’re talking about is putting in place a program to try to ensure that physicians prescribing these products are properly trained in their safe use, and that only those physicians are prescribing those products,” Dr. Jenkins said in a news conference on Monday. “This is going to be a massive program.”

OxyContin, an extended-release formulation of oxycodone, was first introduced to the United States market by Purdue Pharma in 1996. One of the reasons for its increased populariy — and abuse — has been Purdue’s aggressive marketing of the drug to physicians.

This has included claiming, inaccurately, that the drug was less addictive than other opiate drugs. Purdue also marketed the drugs to general practitioners, who in many cases were less knowledgeable about the drug than specialists. Purdue has pleaded guilty to felony charges for its misleading claims; now the FDA hopes to increase its control over the doctor side of the equation.

While this program is a step in the right direction, it will likely do little to end the problem of doctor shopping — whereby patients attain prescriptions for painkillers from a variety of physicians.