FDA reconsiders training requirements for painkillers

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration is reconsidering whether doctors who prescribe painkillers such as OxyContin should be required to take safety training courses, according to federal documents released Friday.

A panel of FDA advisers meets this week to review risk-management plans put in place nearly four years ago to reduce misuse and abuse of long-acting painkillers, powerful opioid drugs at the center of a national wave of abuse and death.

Under the current risk-management programs, drugmakers fund voluntary training for physicians on how to safely prescribe their medications. However, many experts -- including a previous panel of FDA advisers -- said physician training should be mandatory.

The FDA will present its findings over a two-day meeting beginning Tuesday, then ask its panel of outside safety experts what changes should be made to improve the plans.

In the last year, government authorities have launched a number of steps intended to reduce painkiller deaths, including new federal prescribing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state measures that restrict and track opioid prescribing.

Prescription opioid overdoses have been rising steadily for well over a decade, reaching nearly 19,000 in 2014 -- the highest number on record. Total opioid overdoses exceeded 28,600 that year when combined with heroin, which many abusers switch to after becoming hooked on painkillers.

The FDA first proposed its risk-management plan in 2010, before the CDC had formally identified opioid overdoses as a national epidemic.

In its briefing book Friday, the FDA noted it actually supports requiring doctors to take training courses before renewing their prescribing registration with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Only physicians registered with the DEA can prescribe opioids.