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Be sure to
listen to Prescription Addiction Radio, Sunday
night at 9pm on WGUL 860am, or live
online at
www.860am.townhall.com
Success Story from a Recent Novus Patient:
Retired:
(Alcohol)
"Everyone during my stay was extremely pleasant and accommodating from maintenance and kitchen staff, to nurses, counselors and doctor.
The kitchen staff and food was fantastic! They accommodated special requests. Also if patients were not ready to eat at specified times, their prepared meals were put in the fridge.
1) My success going forward is my responsibility.
2) Continue to utilize tools (i.e., AA meetings, sponsor, AA network, 12 step program, etc.).
3) Keep busy.
4) Reflected on past accomplishments and dry periods. I have great expectations to enjoy this good life clean for the rest of my life.
5) Make daily contact with dry and clean friends.
6) Continue to look for a better job after a period of stable dry time.
7) Continue volunteer work.
8) Any further failures are not an option."
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Opioid Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy
By Steve Hayes, Director of Novus Medical Detox Center
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Along with a dozen other members of our national coalition, Advocates For Prescription Opioid Drug Reform ("APODR"), Larry Golbom, host of the Prescription Addiction Radio Show, and I attended a meeting on February 10, 2009 that was convened by the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA"). This was an "invitation only" meeting to discuss possible actions that the federal government could take to address the misuse of prescription opioids.
Unfortunately, many of our APODR members have lost children or loved ones because of these narcotic prescription drugs that are interchangeable with heroin. Almost all of our younger patients at Novus Medical Detox Center tell us that they have numerous friends that have died from opioid overdoses. When I speak to high school classes about the dangers of prescription drugs, I often am approached by a student who tells me of a friend who died from taking one of these dangerous narcotics.
Medical doctors who are members of APODR are outraged and embarrassed by rogue medical doctors who run coupons in the paper offering to do an exam and provide a prescription for OxyContin and Xanax, all for the price of only $150.00. Our member doctors are outraged and embarrassed by doctors who don't try to address the actual cause of a patient's pain but instead make them dependent on narcotics that treat nothing but only mask the symptoms.
Most of us believe that the inaction of the FDA has created the environment in which the manufacturers of these opioids and certain medical doctors have created this deadly epidemic. Needless to say, when we arrived at the February 10th meeting we were prepared for a combative meeting with our demanding action and the FDA officials being evasive.
REMS
We were pleasantly surprised. Both Deputy Director Douglas Throckmorton and Dr. Bob Rappaport, the director of the group overseeing the opioid class of drug, were friendly and interested in listening to our views. Doug Throckmorton very proudly explained to me that the announcement on February 9, 2009 that they were going to require Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategies ("REMS") for the most common and deadly narcotic drugs.
The affected opioid drugs include brand name and generic products that are formulated with the active ingredients fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, oxycodone, and oxymorphone. Doctors wrote over 21 million prescriptions for these dangerous drugs in 2007. The FDA has authority to require a REMS under the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 ("FDAAA") which became law in September of 2007.
REMS can be required when the FDA is concerned that the risks of a drug may outweigh the benefits of the drug. Dr. Dal Pan, the Director of the Office of Surveillance & Epidemiology Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, gave a presentation at the meeting and explained some of the elements that the FDA may require.
To read on, click here.
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