Friday, April 4, 2014

U.S. OKs portable antidote for painkiller overdoses

A view shows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) logo at its headquarters in Silver Spring By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Thursday approved a portable device to treat painkiller overdoses that people without medical training can use in emergency situations, a move to combat the rise of deaths from the abuse of opioids, including heroin. The Food and Drug Administration said making the cellphone-sized device with the recovery drug naloxone available for wider use could help save lives as opiod drug overdoses increase. The approval means emergency responders or even family members could have an easy-to-use treatment in cases of suspected overdose of opioids, which include pain drugs like oxycodone, morphine, codeine and hydrocodone as well as heroin. "It's really an effort to make this very usable," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said.








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