Opioid painkillers that have led to thousandsof deaths and new drug addicts should be the highest priority ofthe U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Scott Gottlieb,President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency.
“The opioid epidemic in this country has staggeringhuman consequences,” Gottlieb said Wednesday in a hearingbefore the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor andPensions. “I think this is the biggest crisis facing theagency.”
Likening the widespread abuse of opioids to the outbreak ofEbola virus that ran rampant in West Africa, Gottlieb said that theagency would have to pursue a number of paths, such as working withdrugmakers seeking approval for alternatives and abuse-deterrentversions of the drugs. More than 33,000 people died from opioidoverdoses in 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention.
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