Doctors petition FDA for 'black box' warning on combining painkillers, tranquilizers

Monday Feb 22nd, 2016

Public health directors from around the nation demanded the FDA label prescription painkillers and sedatives with its strongest warning in a petition delivered to the federal agency Monday.

Thirty city and state health directors from across the USA are seeking a "black box" warning on the drugs, which can cause fatal overdoses when combined.  The demand comes states and cities wrestle with growing painkiller abuse, which the Centers for Disease Control has called an epidemic.

Local and state health directors "are on the front lines of the opioid epidemic," saidLeana Wen, the Baltimore health commissioner. "All of us have seen the toll of overdose deaths."

Read more at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/22/doctors-call-black-box-war...

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