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Despite a $634.5 million settlement (one of the largest penalties imposed on a drug company) against Oxycontin in 2007 that found executives guilty of misleading the public about the opioid drug’s safety, pharmaceutical companies continue to race for ways to make highly dangerous pain killers more marketably “safe” against abuse. The news about a “safe” opioid is disturbing, especially at a time when addiction of prescription drugs is at epidemic proportions.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new formula for the time-release OxyContin, which is intended to prevent the pills from being cut, broken, chewed, crushed or dissolved to release more medication. The FDA noted that such an improvement in the drug may lead to less overdose risk due to tampering. However, a pharmacist with Prescriptionaddictionradio.com has argued that the drug company has yet to present a study about the effects of heat on the drug, and that tampering could become even easier than before. And it’s known that the drug can still be abused or misused if people take more doses than recommended.

In fact, it’s after FDA approval and after the drug is released to the public that the drug company is required to conduct a study on whether the “new” formula actually reduces abuse of the drug.

Along side this news, is a report that a drug known as Acurox is looking for approval from the FDA. Acurox is a drug that contains the B vitamin niacin to oxycodone in order to combat abuse due to the fact that large doses of niacin can cause uncomfortable flushing. However, the FDA has concerns about the use of niacin as it appears to worsen the medication’s side effect profile in pain patients that weren’t abusing their dosage. The drug company also said that in addition to the niacin, other added ingredients are designed to cause burning in the nose if abuser attempts to crush and snort the drug. And the drug turns to gel if added to water or other solvents to discourage injection.

However, many are saying that it’s a lot too little and too late for drugs that has been so destructive. And that the only “safe” formula is to remove these drugs completely from the market.

For more information:

• OxyContin – Questions and Answers
• A Guide to Safe Use of Pain Medicine

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Are prescription drug overdoses on the rise? According to a report released by Reuters Health on April 6, the number of annual U.S. hospital admissions due to poisoning by prescription opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers rose from about 43,000 to 71,000 between 1999 and 2006, respectively. This 65 percent increase is nearly double the amount observed in admissions due to the poisoning by other drugs and medications.

According to Dr. Jeffrey Coben of West Virginia University School of Medicine, most Americans see the headlines related to stars such as Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, and Anna Nicole Smith and think that such tragedies pertain only to Hollywood. Coben and his colleagues who performed the study, said this assumption was to the contrary. The reality is research across the country is seeing “very significant increases in serious overdoses associated with prescription drugs.”

The most predominant prescription drugs associated with these overdoses are opioids, such as morphine, methadone, Oxycontin and the active ingredient in Percocet. These powerful narcotic painkillers have been found to be habit-forming. Also, sedatives or tranquilizers such as Valium, Xanax, and Ativan are the reason for the increase in admissions.

When asked why there has been such a rise in poisoning by prescription drugs, Coben and his team noted that there wasn’t any single cause. But rather a number of variations such as the increase in availability of powerful prescription drugs, as well as the attitude toward the use, or abuse, of prescription drugs tends to be different than ones toward using other drugs. This is especially true among young people, who say that prescription drugs are easy to obtain and they see them as less addictive and less dangerous than street drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

However, the rate of accidental, or unintentional, poising by opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers nearly doubled during the seven year study period. With unintentional poisoning now the second-leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States.

The study, which was published in the April 2010 issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, also found that urban, middle-aged women seem especially vulnerable to prescription drug overdoses. And that hospitalizations for methadone poisoning increased more than any other drug during the seven-year period.