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The Food and Drug Administration on Monday announced a shift in the way it evaluates drugs to treat opioid addiction that the agency says will give it more flexibility to approve new treatments.

Now, rather than merely examining whether a potential treatment reduces opioid use, the agency will consider factors like whether a drug could reduce overdose rates or the transmission of infectious diseases.

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“We must consider new ways to gauge success beyond simply whether a patient in recovery has stopped using opioids, such as reducing relapse overdoses and infectious disease transmission,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.

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  • Three cheers for John and Jon and the myth of opioid replacement treatment. Yes indeed time.limited treatment focused treatment w medication is appropriate and humane. After that we are supporting a repeat of the purdue pharma debacle

    • Comments like this are why people don’t believe Recovery Matters supports MAT. I know that at least half of the providers mostly ones with leadership in 12 step Recovery themselves have a hard time supporting MAT because they know that 12 step recovery saved their lives and i am sure you just want the Same for your patients; I have am happy that they got well and would never say you should only go to meetings for 5 years and then tapper down to 1 if 7 mettiings a week is what you need Forever that’s better than dying. We need to find some common ground and save lives,

    • Their is no chance at Recovery when you do not have a pulse. John I hope you have meaningful relationships and love and that’s really all I want too. I take 8mg of suboxone each day and it has given me another chance to be myself again. I really tried going to meetings and stopping medication but I was not successful. I have 8 years now and maybe I will try to come off medication again: I have a sponsor who also has helped me. I even found a meeting that I get a lot of support from older AA fellowship.

  • Working at a county rehab in Wyoming, I saw Saboxone and Neltrxone prescribed to most clients, Mostly because of the government subsidies and the cash benefit to the doctors and facility for having clients on the medication.

    Even when the clients were trying to stop taking the meds the doctor advised against it. It is better to find the “Why” the client started and deal with the root of the problem and not the symptom of the hurt. In my opinion.

  • Good Grief!
    They must have removed that testimonial that was peddling herbs for herpes. These health related sites have become a magnet for Multi Level Marketers. We don’t see any of these Health Related Sites , challenging the Pseudo Science, in Fact many have embraced it. In the absence of Facts people just create their own! The FDA chose not to enforce the Laws, allowing this stuff to spread like Herpes! The FTC has till not cracked down on peddling false healthcare claims. This Public Relations Release from the FDA, is just one more example. Wanna bet those new “Guidelines” are profitable, they don’t have to be effective.

  • Who knows, in Post Science America, this might seem reasonable, but there is always a catch. The FDA has opened the door to all kinds of nonsense, and industry profiteering. They have been allowing Pharma to peddle dangerous, alternatives for years. The Administration would like to see more prayers, and Alternate Medicine promoted, because it is profitable. after all the complimentary medicine industry has been peddling their useless treatments for a while now. Anything is better than opioid addiction is a good marketing ploy. They are still lying about the death rates, and extent of this epidemic.

  • Flash! NIDA has been researching in all those directions for years. This seems like more Trump initiatives that were really initiated in prior administrations. FDA wasn’t always this political.

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