“VA medical centers defied some agency policies on supplying opiates to veterans in 2012, including simultaneously prescribing thousands of ex-troops with narcotic painkillers and psychoactive drugs -– a combination that’s been linked to lethal overdoses, a new audit shows. The review, conducted by the independent Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (OIG), found that 92.6 percent of veterans who are chronically prescribed opioid drugs (such as Oxycodone) also were prescribed benzodiazepines (such as Xanax and Valium) -– a mix “strongly associated with death from opioid overdose.”
The audit, which collected data from a population of about a half million veterans, was first reported on by the Center for Investigative Reporting. In addition, about one third of the veterans prescribed opioids “were on take-home opioids for more than 90 days,” the audit showed. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ own clinical practice guidelines already urge, the auditors note, “more careful monitoring of opioid patients treated with benzodiazepines as co-administration of these products may result in adverse drug interactions.”
Among the VA’s “take-home opioid patients,” 7,426 died in fiscal year 2012, states the report, which did not breakdown the causes of those deaths. The audit –- requested by the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs –- also found that while VA rules mandate veterans prescribed opiates undergo urine pre-tests to block addiction, only 7.6 percent of new veteran patients were given a urine drug test within 30 days prior to initiating their opioid therapy.”
Read more at: http://web9blog.com/article?id=577103
Source: Web9Blog.com – January 24, 2015
