Opiate overdoses fall after debut of abuse-resistant OxyContin

By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) – Opiate prescriptions and overdoses in the U.S. have declined since the debut of an abuse-resistant version of the painkiller OxyContin and the market withdrawal of the narcotic Darvon, a study finds. Researchers reviewed insurance claims records with data on prescriptions and hospitalizations for more than 30 million adults covered by UnitedHealthCare from 2003 to 2012. In the two years after OxyContin was reformulated and Darvon was withdrawn in 2010, prescriptions and overdoses both decreased about 20 percent. “The weight of evidence to date suggests that abuse of OxyContin decreased after the formulation change,” said lead researcher Marc Larochelle of Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, in an email.
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