The number of patients being prescribed both opioids and benzodiazepine has risen by 41 percent
U.S. health officials informed that combining prescription opioids with sedatives such as Xanax and Valium can generate a lethal overdose.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that the public and health professionals must be warned on more that 389 separate products of the potentially fatal overdose.
Dr. Doug Throckmorton, the manager of regulatory programs at the FDA’s Center for Research and Drug Evaluation, mentioned that benzodiazepines, including Xanax and Valium, attack the central nervous system, and are utilized to handle diseases like insomnia, anxiety, and seizures.
Throckmorton believes that when these medications are combined with opioids such as hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (Oxycontin), a drug synergy can take place which could be followed by coma or death.
The move appears after an extended review of scientific proof by the FDA pointed out that doctors have been frequently prescribing these medications together. Moreover, in February, the health officials in states across the country requested the agency to change the drug labels, indicating a rise in overdoses from concomitant use of the drugs.
Baltimore’s health commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen and head of the effort mentioned that she had seen many patients who have been prescribed benzodiazepines and opioids together. She believes that changing the labels of the medicine could stop deaths from this deadly combination.
FDA’s commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf, says that the sharp increase of avoidable overdose and death associated with two extensively used drug classes being combined is close to a public health crisis.
The agency stated that the number of patients being prescribed both opioids and benzodiazepine has risen by 41 percent during the period of the research. It could be interpreted as an enhancement of more than 2.5 million opioid patients being prescribed benzodiazepines.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more individuals died from prescription medicine overdose in 2014 than any other recorded year. In 2014, opioids killed more than 28,000 people, and the CDC mentioned that more than half of the death were due to prescription drugs.
Dr. Leana Wen urged the patients to examine the drugs they use and doctors to notice the new warning.
Image source: Wikipedia
Roxanne Briean
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