The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new version of the powerful pain reliever hydrocodone that should make it harder for people to abuse or misuse it.
The new product is called Hysingla ER and it contains hydrocodone bitartrate. It is an extended-release tablet, and is intended to be used to treat pain that requires round-the-clock treatment. The tablets are difficult to crush, break up, or dissolve, which should make it harder to abuse. Drug abusers crush hydrocodone or other pain relievers into a powder so that they can be snorted or dissolve them so that they can be injected.
Hydrocodone is one of the most commonly abused prescription drugs in the United States. It is an opioid drug, which means that it is chemically similar to morphine. One brand name is Vicodin, which is actually a mixture of hydrocodone and acetaminophen.
In recent years, abuse of prescription pain relievers has soared and is a public health crisis, according to Dr. Janet Woodcock, an official with the FDA. The agency has had to balance the needs for more effective pain relief medications with the growing incidence of abuse of prescription drugs, she said.
Prescription painkillers now rank only behind marijuana as a drug of abuse in the United States, according to a government report by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. About 22 million Americans have misused prescription painkillers of various kinds since 2002, the report stated.
Hyslinga ER was approved on November 20. The most common side effects reported by users included constipation, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, headaches and drowsiness. The manufacturer is Purdue Pharma. The company is also the maker of OxyContin, an extended-release version of oxycodone, a pain reliever similar to hydrocodone. OxyContin has been widely abused and was reformulated to make it harder to abuse.
