The Food and Drug Administration will change the way it deals with prescription pain medications in the face of a drug abuse epidemic in the U.S., a move that may also help get the administration’s nominee to lead the agency through the Senate.
Opiod addiction has become a major issue in the presidential race, at the White House and in Congress, where Robert Califf, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the FDA, has been held up in the Senate because of concerns about how the epidemic is being handled.
“We heard what Congress had to say,” Califf said on a conference call Thursday announcing the changes. “That kind of pressure, when it’s put on for general policy issues, helps us think. So we stepped back and thought about it.”
Califf, a renowned cardiologist from Duke University, is currently serving as the agency’s deputy commissioner.
The agency and other parts of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have been working on the topic for months, Califf said. Obama plans to ask Congress for $1.1 billion in his next budget to take on the epidemic in the U.S., where 28,648 people died of caused linked to opioid drugs in 2014.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in Minneapolis at mcortezbloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17bloomberg.net Cecile Daurat