Fda Orders More Stringent Labeling For Opioid Drugs

A Times analysis of nearly 4,000 prescription drug deaths in Southern California over a six-year period found that opioids and other drugs prescribed to victims played a role in nearly half the cases. Hydrocodone and oxycodone were among the drugs most frequently cited in these deaths. The FDA will now require the manufacturers of 20 long-acting opioid products to rewrite the drugs' labels to reflect that they should be used more sparingly. Those labels should be revised calories burned on the elliptical by December. Drug manufacturers will also have to conduct new research aimed at identifying what doses and modes of use are most likely to harm patients, said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg.
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