The nation’s top public health agency on Thursday proposed changing — and in some instances, softening — guidelines for U.S. doctors prescribing oxycodone and other opioid painkillers.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s previous guidance, issued six years ago, helped slow the kind of prescribing that ignited the worst overdose epidemic in U.S. history. But it also caused some doctors to become too quick to cut off patients taking prescription painkillers and too strict in keeping the drugs from patients who might benefit, CDC officials said. Read More from AP News.