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Steve Birr | Vice Reporter
Americans Suffering From Pain Chronic supplements are "supplicant" health regulators to restore their access to opioid analgesics as part of the federal crackdown.
Patients flocked to the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration Monday for a hearing on how best to administer chronic care. pain. They argue that recent measures to combat opioid abuse are deterring physicians, making it increasingly difficult to access prescription opioids that are essential to their care. NBC News reports.
guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in response to increased rates of overdose mortality, which tells providers to significantly limit the number of opioid prescriptions that they write, and encourage patients to exhaust all alternatives before turning to analgesics. (RELATED: How a painkiller ignited the addiction epidemic)
"I have not yet had a doctor who accepts me as a patient", Sandra Flores, an emergency room nurse who suffers from an affection membranes that protect her brain and spine, told NBC News. "No doctor will fight, they just do not want to get in trouble They have forgotten the people for whom these drugs were made When can I get medicine to be comfortable in my body?"
Patients with daily pain say that CDC guidelines, as well as prescribers 'and prescribers' lawsuits, leave them with little access to drugs – desperately need to function. possible alternatives to opioid analgesics are not covered by insurance.
Patients testifying stressed the seriousness of the situation for people with chronic pain, one of them declaring that suicide is always an option.
"To the FDA – we beg you. Fix the blatant mistakes of the CDC, "said Rose Bigham, with the Alliance for the Treatment of Pain Intractable, according to NBC News. "The CDC's recommendations have caused irreparable damage to people who are suffering."
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says the agency is trying to balance the need to combat opioid addiction with the appropriate treatment. painkillers. Opioid-related deaths are increasingly linked to illicit drugs such as heroin and fentanyl, but prescription opioids still account for more than 40% of opioid-related deaths in 2016, killing about 46 people each day.
"We do not want to perpetuate the practices that led to the misuse of these drugs, and the addiction crisis," Gottlieb said, according to NBC News. "At the same time, we do not want to act in a poorly targeted way and end up disadvantaging legitimate patients, and in most cases, opioids should only be used for the treatment of acute pain and prescribed for short periods of time."
Overdose deaths increased by 21% in 2016, resulting in more than 64,000 deaths according to the CDC, mainly due to opioids, which claimed 42,249 lives in 2016, an increase of 28% over to some 33,000 lives lost in 2015.
Death of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, pain reliever 50 to 100 times more potent than Morphine has experienced a particularly dramatic increase, having more than doubled from 9,580 lives in 2015 to 19,413 lives in 2016.
The epidemic is contributing to the decline in life expectancy in the United States, according to authorities.The life expectancy has dropped for the second year con in 2016 for the first time since an influenza epidemic in 1962 and 1963.
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