Doctors' prescribing practices can play a pivotal role in halting the use of painkillers that has driven the dramatic increase in opioid overdose deaths, said U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D. at a forum on addiction, reports The Hill.
"If we change prescribing practices, we can change the face of the epidemic," Murthy said this week at the Washington Post forum. In his remarks, the surgeon general noted that most of the opioids feeding Americans' addiction come from prescriptions that are written by doctors, according to the article.
Murthy focused on the importance of "tools" the federal government should provide doctors--and patient education--to stop the abuse of OxyContin and similar opioid-based painkillers, according to The Hill.
The issue at hand is whether doctors should be required to undergo training in order to prescribe opioids for pain relief, according to the news outlet. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supports such training, while the American Medical Association and health insurance companies contend that this training requirement should depend on a doctor's specialty.
Opioid addiction is clearly touching the lives of many Americans, finds a recent Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Four in 10 people in this country know someone who has been addicted to prescription drugs or heroin--and one in five say a family member has been addicted to such drugs.
But the poll shows that some people differentiate between addiction to prescription painkillers and heroin. The poll reveals that 66 percent of Americans say the federal government isn't doing enough to help people who are addicted to prescription painkillers, while 62 percent believe Washington isn't doing enough to support those addicted to heroin.
To learn more:
- read the article
- check out the poll