The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has issued a new rule to reclassify hydrocodone, the most prescribed opioid painkiller drug, because “it has also contributed significantly to the very serious problem of opioid misuse and abuse in the United States,” writes Dr. Douglas C. Throckmorton, the deputy center director for regulatory programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
The FDA recommended the DEA reclassify hydrocodone. The agency estimates that there were 137 million prescriptions for hydrocodone in 2013. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of people who died from taking an opioid analgesic like hydrocodone more than quadrupled from 1999 to 2010 from 4,030 deaths to 16,651 deaths.
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