FDA advisers recommend approval of over-the-counter naloxone

https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/15/naloxone-otc-opioisa-fda-panel-recommends/

by perihelions • 3 years ago

114 142 3 years ago

Gasp0de2• 3 years ago

The number of opioid deaths in the USA is crazy! The article says that the number of overdose deaths is 110,000 per year. The EU has 1.5 times as many inhabitants as the US and has only 5000 drug related deaths per year!

ysleepy• 3 years ago

Harm reduction policies work.

r00fus2• 3 years ago

But going beyond opioid deaths, Europe in general has a) decent medical coverage b) meaningful employment protections and c) better overall social safety net

Apparently the poor are most at-risk from this crisis according to a large study [1] - so maybe the fix isn't just harm reduction, but alleviating the existential crisis we put people of lower income in the US - making them more susceptible to drug addiction & death

[1] https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2020/large-study-links-lower-...

version_five• 3 years ago

Years ago (2017 ish) I remember reading an article where they interviewed some French public health or law enforcement people about whether they were concerned about the opioid problem coming there, and they basically said no, we have lots of treatment options here (which I understood to mean more legal access to opiates) so it's not a problem. The drug way is entirely the cause of all of this. I'm generally right wing but when I see the nonsense about the illegal immigration / border crossing being in any way related to the overdose problem, I find it idiotic. Its squarely a problem with how we've handled drug prohibition

mattigames2• 3 years ago

In the US many opiod makers of things like fentanyl spray and Oxycontin bribed doctors to prescribe it so a lot of those deaths are a direct cause of that, sources: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/founder-and-former-chairm... https://www.voanews.com/a/us-states-purdue-pharma-reach-new-...

WheatMillington• 3 years ago

Are Americans just permanently zonked on powerful prescription painkillers 24/7? Hard to understand how doctors are legitimately prescribing enough of this medicine to kill this many people.

esaym• 3 years ago

It is a money maker https://youtu.be/KAJ-lTtt4yk

floxy• 3 years ago

I don't think most people are ODing from prescription abuse. It is fentanyl. I'd be interested to know how many are being poisoned by fentanyl-laced drugs, vs. fentanyl addicts who OD. Maybe that stat would be too hard to come by?

tnel777• 3 years ago

I don’t mean to be a bummer, but walking around a Walmart in a lower income area shows you just how bleak the situation is in the United States.

My wife and I recently went to a Walmart near a “not good area” and it was depressing. Just about everyone was overweight. Many were hobbling or needed the use of the electric scooters. Looking into their eyes often resulted in a near zombie stare that went right through you. People looked at Walmart’s relatively low prices in desperation and despair as they mentally tried to grasp how they’d be able to handle the bill for the mass produced garbage they were trying to buy to save money (compared to fresh meat and produce). My wife and I paid for our stuff and headed to our basic SUV (one of the nicest cars in the parking lot) and you could see rundown cars on the edge of the parking lot with blankets up to block the sunlight (aka homeless people).

Things are not good over here.

Edit: I didn’t directly address your question, but it’s all tied together. People are drugged up and just trying to get by. For many Americans, day-to-day life is nothing short of a nightmare.

the_mar7• 3 years ago

I know it's not the same as opiates, but a crappy dentist in suburban Illinois once gave me a Vicodin prescription after a root canal. I was so confused

MavisBacon2• 3 years ago

not anymore, in certain parts of the country there is actually an issue of under-prescription of narcotics as an overreaction to the opioid crisis we are facing, with painkillers of course being the most difficult to access. Chronic severe pain patients and people with horrendous neurological conditions are going without the medications they need because prescribers are now terrified of heavy-handed medical boards

that said, 20 or so years ago prescribers in the U.S. were in various ways made to believe that painkillers such as oxycodone were not addictive and were these magical drugs that helped pain patients regain their lives in ways we had never seen before. Ended up in so many homes, lots of excess prescription opioids hanging around and as a result a lot of people ended up abusing them. For a significant number of people that led to heroin use, and then fentanyl came into the picture in 2015ish; so that's how we got here. heroin on its own when injected isn't actually that easy to accidentally overdose on- fentanyl however, is.

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

http://archive.today/jbMxb

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/15/21214734/deaths-of-despair-cor...

(First link fixed)

corbulo2• 3 years ago

It used to be even worse.

In 2012 the Opioid dispensing rate was 81 per 100 people.

https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/rxrate-maps/index.html

This doesn't even include antidepressants/ssri and such.

giantg2• 3 years ago

Some people stay on the meds after a legitimate need. Some doctors misprescribe meds (in part misled by pharma reps) or are not aware of alternatives (if you're on some meds for 1 month it can take 1 year to safely taper off of them). There are some doctors who basically sell prescriptions (Netflix has a documentary on this).

The biggest issue is the lack of hope. Most people turn to these because they're tired of their shitty life and don't see any realilistic hope for improvement.

I mean, I got good grades, I worked hard, I'm an employed (not highly paid) software dev and I'm so disillusioned I completely get why some people turn to these things. I'm supposed to be at least in the top 25% of the current generation/my age group. Yet I feel like I'm barely making it to the same level that my parents were able to. Don't get me wrong, we aren't on assistance, we have good groceries, we have private/employer healthcare. But it's tough trying to save for retirement, healthcare, and stuff. There's no way 50% of the population will be able to retire at all, pay for Healthcare, etc as they get older or aren't able to work.

A4ET8a8uTh0• 3 years ago

Is it though? I remember having some opioids prescribed by dentist after a major procedure and I was on them for a week or two. Withdrawal was painful and I am saying that as a person, who dealt with bad headaches before. That was after 2 weeks. I can't even begin to imagine what people who have to take them longer ( surgeries, chronic pain and so on ). Those are still a useful tool, but the risk of addiction comes from several fronts and it is easy to get caught in a rather vicious circle.

faddypaddy34• 3 years ago

The problem isn't pain killers it is massive quantities of fentanyl being brought into the country. Made worse by it being so cheap it is basically pressed into pill shape and sold as other less lethal substances like Xanax, Percocet, MDMA etc. People are also just selling it as cocaine. There have been several stories of people thinking they bought cocaine and overdosing because it was or contained fentanyl.

turdprincess2• 3 years ago

It's crazy how eager American doctors are to prescribe opioids. Over the last few years, Ive gotten narcotic painkillers for serious stuff like surgery, but also for more minor stuff like dental work or joint injections. In most of those circumstances I would take one or two of these pills and then be just fine with non-narcotic over the counter pain medicine. But every time, I am highly encouraged to take the narcotics "just in case" the pain gets bad.

blindriver• 3 years ago

China is purposefully funneling fentanyl into the US to create this opioid catastrophe. Fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death of young people these days. It's pretty shocking and sickening that this is happening and you see very little being done about it.

atdrummond• 3 years ago

Most of the fentanyl is now made in Mexico. The China pharma labs could all be closed now and it wouldn’t do a thing. The cat is out of the bag.

zpthree• 3 years ago

China exports precursor chemicals which are manufactured into fentanyl in Mexico and then smuggled in. I don't think it's that big of a scandal that some chemicals are exported from a country that does manufacturing for most of the world. We should focus on our own culture and society that has resulted in young people destroying their lives for a drug.

MBCook2• 3 years ago

The article says that the number of overdose deaths is 110,000 per year.

For comparison NHTSA recorded just under 43,000 car accident deaths in the US in 2021. That’s also very close to the 2020 death by suicide number of 45,000.

That’s 25% more opioid deaths per year than our both cars and suicides COMBINED.

In fact we could add in the 19,000 Americans who were killed with guns in homicides in 2020.

Cars + Gun Homicides + Suicides = 107,000. Still less than opioid deaths by a few thousand.

It’s bad out there.

chiefalchemist• 3 years ago

Keep in kind, some of the opioid deaths are effectively suicide. They might not be classified as such but rest assured plenty of those people reach their limit and take their own lives.

So yeah, it's *really* bad out there.

colechristensen• 3 years ago

That’s such a big difference, is there perhaps a difference in the ways these things are counted?

thatswrong05• 3 years ago

I always have Narcan on me when I go to parties or shows just in case. Feels like something that should be in every first aid kit at this point.

flanbiscuit• 3 years ago

I always have Narcan on me when I go to parties or shows just in case.

Is the just in case there's any problems with drugs you take voluntarily? (no judgement, been there)

or to have it on hand in case someone else ODs?

or for the worst case scenario of someone drugging you (spiking a drink, etc).?

fragmede2• 3 years ago

If you're passed out from a fentanyl overdose, there's no way you can administer narcan on yourself, so carrying narcan is for saving someone else.

mattigames2• 3 years ago

d) all the above

cwkoss2• 3 years ago

Let's focus on the second one for plausible deniability, not the sort of data trail most people would want to follow them.

I'm sure the likelihood of opioid ODs happening at shows and festivals is very high in some places, wouldn't be too surprised if some shows have dozens. Very good-samaritan kind of thing to carry if you go to crowded places.

hammock6• 3 years ago

There is no more heroin on the street in the US, it is all fentanyl. There is starting to be fent in a lot of coke as well, and of course counterfeit oxy, it's really not good and I always recommend people test new supply

thatswrong05• 3 years ago

The intention is more so for my friends and anyone else around me, but all of that I guess.

I see people OD pretty frequently at music festivals, and while there is medical around, minutes matter when it comes to fentanyl overdoses, and it can take a while for someone to get out, notify medical, and get medical back into the middle of a 10 thousand person crowd.

I wish the US would follow Canada's lead and allow for drug testing tents to legally exist :/

aljp• 3 years ago

I would guess it's in case there's fentanyl mixed with other substances, there have been instances of people doing cocaine, ketamine, and other substances, dying from opioid overdose. I volunteer with harm reduction services and many of us carry naloxone, and we advocate for drug testing with fentanyl testing kits, pill testing, and educating people on reagent testing. Unfortunately we can't actually sell or administer these tests at festivals.

Narcan/Naloxone won't help drink spiking, that's usually done with other substances as far as I'm aware.

r00fus2• 3 years ago

Read up on a twitter thread where someone had an anecdote where one of their family members was ODing, the ER first responders didn't have narcan, and a homeless person came up, asked if the person was OD, administered narcan and disappeared before anyone could thank them.

So all of it.

kragen3• 3 years ago

naloxone was patented in 01961 and known to prevent death from opiate overdose by 01971

how many people have been killed in the usa by its prescription-only status over the last 52 years

for that matter, how many opiate overdose deaths would be avoided if you could buy pure, safe heroin of known concentration over the counter instead of depending on organized crime not to put too much fentanyl in it

adzm• 3 years ago

I can't help but wonder about the leading zero on your 5 digit years

graypegg• 3 years ago

Thinking ahead for the y10k bug! /s

dag11• 3 years ago

By the time I had read "naloxone was patented in 01961" I thought it was some sort of patent identifier, so I was really confused when they said that it was "known to prevent death from opiate" in some other patent. I was thinking, patents don't have anything to do with researc- oh, it's a date.

I remember seeing someone else on HN use a five digit date years ago, giving the reasoning that it gives us a bigger perspective on our timeline and society.

I like the idea, but it muddies the message since we use standards for a reason. For example, if someone writes "In 13 I tried..." it's a bit confusing, but if they write "In '13 I tried..." it makes immediate sense since we have expectations about communicating dates.

klyrs• 3 years ago

It's to throw the bots off by coaxing them into parsing dates in octal

trimbo2• 3 years ago

for that matter, how many opiate overdose deaths would be avoided if you could buy pure, safe heroin of known concentration over the counter

Since 2000, 75% of US opiate users started with prescription drugs[1]. So my guess is overdoses would be substantially worse if any opiate was freely available over the counter.

[1] https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescript...

kragen3• 3 years ago

presumably you would have more opiate addicts

but the rate of overdoses from prescription opiates is, as i understand it, very low, because the dosage is predictable

a lot more old people needing regular enemas would be kind of shitty but not nearly as bad as millions of people dying from overdoses

frozenport• 3 years ago

Opiods have a network effect and naloxone keeps people addicted.

tstrimple• 3 years ago

It is certainly true that death cures the addiction for good. You may be onto something here.

FDA advisers recommend approval of over-the-counter naloxone

Related Stories