State Attorneys General to FDA: What Were You Thinking When You
Approved Powerful New Painkiller?  | Fri Dec. 13, 2013 12:28 PM
EST  Last month, Mother Jones reported that the Food and Drug
Administration had approved a powerful new painkiller called
Zohydro over the objections of its advisory board, which voted
11-2 against approving the drug. Now Attorneys General from 28
states (and the US territory of Guam) have asked the FDA to
reconsider its approval of Zohydro. In a letter to the agency,
the AGs raise many of the same concerns that the advisory panel
did, noting that the drug lacks adequate safeguards to prevent
it from being abused and could exacerbate America's epidemic of
painkiller deaths. Here's an excerpt from the AGs letter, which
was dated December 10:  State Attorneys General do not want a
repeat of the recent past when potent prescription painkilling
drugs entered the market without abuse-deterrent qualities and
without clear guidance on how they were to be prescribed. This
created an environ