F.D.A. Likely to Add Limits on Painkillers [View all]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/health/fda-vote-on-restricting-hydrocodone-products-vicodin.html

F.D.A. Likely to Add Limits on Painkillers
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Trying to stem the scourge of prescription drug abuse, an advisory panel of experts to the Food and Drug Administration voted on Friday to toughen the restrictions on painkillers like Vicodin that contain hydrocodone, the most widely prescribed drugs in the country.

The change would have sweeping consequences for doctors, pharmacists and patients. Refills without a new prescription would be forbidden, as would faxed prescriptions and those called in by phone. Only written prescriptions from a doctor would be allowed. Distributors would be required to store the drugs in special vaults.

But at the panel’s two-day hearing at F.D.A. headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., many spoke against the change, including advocates for nursing home patients, who said frail residents with chronic pain would have to make the trip to a doctor’s office. The change would also ban nurse practitioners and physician assistants from prescribing the drugs, making it harder for people in underserved rural areas.

The importance of Friday’s vote was more symbolic, he said, a message to doctors that they will need to think twice before prescribing hydrocodone, and to patients that the days of “unbridled access” are coming to an end. The tide has been turning against easy opioid prescriptions, as the medical system and federal regulators slowly make adjustments to reduce the potential for abuse.