A new national survey finds that almost 27 percent of girls aged 12 to 17 were involved in serious fights or attacks on other girls within the previous year.
Results from the 2006-2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health survey showed 19 % of the girls got into a serious fight at school, 4 % were part of fights invo...lving groups and 6 % attacked others with an intention to seriously hurt them. In total, 26.7 % of the girls surveyed fell into at least one of those groups!
The girls least likely to get involved in the violent behavior are:
those from families with higher incomes or
those who achieved higher grades or
those who don't use drugs or alcohol.
Substance abuse prevention reduces teen violence!
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The Responsible Parent
Parents who try to teach responsible drinking by letting their teenagers have alcohol at home may be well intentioned, but they may also be wrong, according to a new study in the January issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
In a study of 428 Dutch families, researchers found that the more teenagers were allowed to drink at home, the more they drank outside of home as well. The findings put into question the theory that parents who drink with their teenage children will teach them how to drink responsibly.
“The idea is generally based on common sense,” says Dr. Haske van der Vorst, lead researcher at Radboud University in the Netherlands. “For example, the thinking is that if parents show good behavior -- here, modest drinking -- then the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child's drinking by drinking with the child.”
But the current findings suggest that is not the case. The researchers found that, in general, the more teens drank at home, the more they tended to drink elsewhere.
Based on this and earlier studies, van der Vorst says, “I would advise parents to prohibit their child from drinking, in any setting or on any occasion.”
“If parents want to reduce the risk that their child will become a heavy drinker or problem drinker in adolescence,” van der Vorst says, “they should try to postpone the age at which their child starts drinking.”
In a study of 428 Dutch families, researchers found that the more teenagers were allowed to drink at home, the more they drank outside of home as well. The findings put into question the theory that parents who drink with their teenage children will teach them how to drink responsibly.
“The idea is generally based on common sense,” says Dr. Haske van der Vorst, lead researcher at Radboud University in the Netherlands. “For example, the thinking is that if parents show good behavior -- here, modest drinking -- then the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child's drinking by drinking with the child.”
But the current findings suggest that is not the case. The researchers found that, in general, the more teens drank at home, the more they tended to drink elsewhere.
Based on this and earlier studies, van der Vorst says, “I would advise parents to prohibit their child from drinking, in any setting or on any occasion.”
“If parents want to reduce the risk that their child will become a heavy drinker or problem drinker in adolescence,” van der Vorst says, “they should try to postpone the age at which their child starts drinking.”
Monday, December 14, 2009
Age of Onset of Drinking Increases Risk of Drug Related Car Accidents
According to a recent study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol & Drugs, the earlier a young person begins drinking, the greater risk of drug-related car accidents. The researchers surveyed over 40,000 over 18 year old drivers and found that 22% also used drugs, 10% drove under the influence of drugs and 1% had been in drug-related car accidents. Extrapolation of these proportions to the national population would mean 1 million people had been in drug-related crashes.
The research also looked at early age of drinking. They found the the greatest predictor of a drug-related car crash is early onset of drinking. Their conclusion is that the best method for prevention of drug-related car accidents is to increase alcohol abuse prevention in young people.
Age of Drinking Onset, Alcohol Dependence and their Relation to Drug Use and Dependence, Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, and Motor Vehicle Crash Involvement Because of Drugs. Volume 69, Issue 2 March 2008
The research also looked at early age of drinking. They found the the greatest predictor of a drug-related car crash is early onset of drinking. Their conclusion is that the best method for prevention of drug-related car accidents is to increase alcohol abuse prevention in young people.
Age of Drinking Onset, Alcohol Dependence and their Relation to Drug Use and Dependence, Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, and Motor Vehicle Crash Involvement Because of Drugs. Volume 69, Issue 2 March 2008
Thursday, October 8, 2009
MA Among States with Higher Drug Death Rate than Car Accident Deaths
A new report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) concluded that in more than 16 states, more people were killed by drugs than by auto accidents. The study, which was reported by the Associated Press, found that the majority of drug-related deaths were caused by the abuse of painkillers.
The report, which analyzed data from the National Vital Statistics System Mortality File, found that in 2006, more than 90 percent of poisoning deaths involved drugs. In fact, from 1999 to 2006 drug-related poisonings accounted for the largest portion of poisoning deaths overall.
Opioid analgesics, which are usually prescribed to treat pain, were involved in almost 40 percent of all poisoning deaths in 2006, up from about 20 percent in 1999. According to the AP story, for decades traffic accidents have been the biggest cause of injury-related death in the U.S. While they are still number one nationally, drug overdoses are pulling ahead in one state after another.
The number of states in which drug-related deaths have overtaken traffic fatalities has gone from eight in 2003 to 12 in 2005, and 16 in 2006. They are: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
CDC’s data also show that among opioid analgesic-related deaths, those involving methadone increased the most during the period 1999-2006. Methadone is a long-acting opioid used to help people addicted to painkillers and other opioid-based drugs, and in some cases as a painkiller.
"People see a car accident as something that might happen to them," said Margaret Warner, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the AP article. But as for death from a drug overdose, "maybe they see it as something that's not going happen to them."
CDC researchers counted more than 45,000 U.S. deaths nationwide from traffic accidents in 2006, and about 39,000 from drug-induced causes. Nationally, the death rate from traffic accidents fell by about 6.5 percent from 1999 through 2006 - from 15.3 deaths per 100,000 people to 14.3 per 100,000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The report, which analyzed data from the National Vital Statistics System Mortality File, found that in 2006, more than 90 percent of poisoning deaths involved drugs. In fact, from 1999 to 2006 drug-related poisonings accounted for the largest portion of poisoning deaths overall.
Opioid analgesics, which are usually prescribed to treat pain, were involved in almost 40 percent of all poisoning deaths in 2006, up from about 20 percent in 1999. According to the AP story, for decades traffic accidents have been the biggest cause of injury-related death in the U.S. While they are still number one nationally, drug overdoses are pulling ahead in one state after another.
The number of states in which drug-related deaths have overtaken traffic fatalities has gone from eight in 2003 to 12 in 2005, and 16 in 2006. They are: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
CDC’s data also show that among opioid analgesic-related deaths, those involving methadone increased the most during the period 1999-2006. Methadone is a long-acting opioid used to help people addicted to painkillers and other opioid-based drugs, and in some cases as a painkiller.
"People see a car accident as something that might happen to them," said Margaret Warner, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the AP article. But as for death from a drug overdose, "maybe they see it as something that's not going happen to them."
CDC researchers counted more than 45,000 U.S. deaths nationwide from traffic accidents in 2006, and about 39,000 from drug-induced causes. Nationally, the death rate from traffic accidents fell by about 6.5 percent from 1999 through 2006 - from 15.3 deaths per 100,000 people to 14.3 per 100,000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Banning Straight DXM
March 12, 2009
Dextromethorphan Distribution Act Introduced in Congress
A bill that would help prevent over-the-counter (OTC) cough medicine abuse was was introduced in Congress last week. H.R. 1259, the Dextromethorphan Distribution Act, was introduced by Representatives Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.).
The bill, which passed by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last Wednesday, seeks to limit the sale of raw dextromethorphan, an active ingredient commonly found in its finished form in OTC cough medicines, only to legitimate entities registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or state agencies. This bill comes after a number of instances of teenagers purchasing the potent raw ingredient online and abusing it with tragic consequences.
Dextromethorphan is a common cough medication ingredient that is widely abused by teens. In high doses it give you the feeling of being drunk with hallunications effects. If youth do not have access to alcohol, they will use the cough medications in our medicine cabinets to get a similar high.
DXM causes permanent scarring of the brain, liver damage, uncontrolled bleeding and coma.
Since the other active ingredients in these often "multi-symptom" medications also can cause serious problems but do not contribute to the high, people separate the DXM from the other ingredients. This clearly demonstrates intention of abuse, therefore it has been banned by the state of Illinois.
This is the third time the Dextromethorphan Distribution Act has been introduced in the U.S. Congress. It passed the U.S. House of Representatives twice, but failed to move forward before the close of both the 109th and 110th Congresses. CADCA has supported the bill each time and will continue to monitor its progress.
Dextromethorphan Distribution Act Introduced in Congress
A bill that would help prevent over-the-counter (OTC) cough medicine abuse was was introduced in Congress last week. H.R. 1259, the Dextromethorphan Distribution Act, was introduced by Representatives Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.).
The bill, which passed by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last Wednesday, seeks to limit the sale of raw dextromethorphan, an active ingredient commonly found in its finished form in OTC cough medicines, only to legitimate entities registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or state agencies. This bill comes after a number of instances of teenagers purchasing the potent raw ingredient online and abusing it with tragic consequences.
Dextromethorphan is a common cough medication ingredient that is widely abused by teens. In high doses it give you the feeling of being drunk with hallunications effects. If youth do not have access to alcohol, they will use the cough medications in our medicine cabinets to get a similar high.
DXM causes permanent scarring of the brain, liver damage, uncontrolled bleeding and coma.
Since the other active ingredients in these often "multi-symptom" medications also can cause serious problems but do not contribute to the high, people separate the DXM from the other ingredients. This clearly demonstrates intention of abuse, therefore it has been banned by the state of Illinois.
This is the third time the Dextromethorphan Distribution Act has been introduced in the U.S. Congress. It passed the U.S. House of Representatives twice, but failed to move forward before the close of both the 109th and 110th Congresses. CADCA has supported the bill each time and will continue to monitor its progress.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Teen Drinking Parties in MA
Two deaths, 1 close call stir fears of teen parties
Keith O'Brien, Boston Globe
2/22/2009
On New Year's Eve, with winds howling, snow swirling, and temperatures hovering near zero, a 16-year-old high school student, drunk on rum, left an unsupervised party at a friend's house, wandered out into the night, and went missing in Marblehead.
Friends initially lied about the events that preceded Ben Barber's disappearance, according to the police report, and Barber himself later admitted that he hid from searchers' lights, not wanting to get in trouble. Those decisions - along with the excessive drinking - nearly killed him. When firefighters finally found the teenager near a snowdrift behind a house more than six hours after his friends last saw him, Barber was missing a shoe and a sock, and was unre sponsive. He was suffering from frostbite and severe hypothermia, and his core temperature had fallen to 88 degrees.
But Barber was alive.
"How he survived that, I have no idea," said the boy's father, Dave Barber, who did not know that night his son was drinking. "I can't stop saying how lucky we are that he's here."
The recent deaths of two Massachusetts teenagers - 17-year-old Taylor Meyer last October in Norfolk and 16-year-old Elizabeth Mun last weekend in Andover, who each wandered away from unsupervised parties and died in cold, shallow bodies of water - have shocked parents and teenagers alike. But Ben Barber's story, hauntingly similar to the two girls' deaths in many ways, reveals an unsettling truth: that these episodes, while rare, are perhaps not as unlikely as parents and children would like to believe, especially when teenagers are left to supervise other teenagers.
Between 2001 and 2005, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 125 people, age 16 to 20, drowned annually in cases involving alcohol. An estimated 37 young people died per year in alcohol-related falls, according to the data, and another 41 died per year in fires.
Those are small figures, at least in comparison with the number of young drivers who drank, got behind the wheel and died in car crashes in 2007 - nearly 1,000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's why most parents tell their children not to drink and drive - a simple message, easily delivered, on a serious issue. But as recent events in Massachusetts have shown, the messages parents need to be delivering are a lot more complicated than that.
"Parents may feel safe with their children being in the safety of their own home or someone else's home - and not on the road," said Toben Nelson, assistant director of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, which examines the impact of drinking on young people. "But I think that's a false sense of security. When someone's intoxicated, particularly someone underage, they're very vulnerable to a range of bad consequences."
It's not known if Mun, whose funeral was held yesterday, or her friends were drinking alcohol prior to her death. Investigators aren't saying. But Essex County authorities have confirmed that there were no parents home the night of the party when Mun wandered off, just as there were no parents around last fall when Meyer, celebrating homecoming, attended a drinking party in a wooded section of Norfolk. The two episodes, taken together, offer a window into the teenage party culture, where parents are often oblivious, or gone for the night, binge drinking is prevalent, and tragedies like these are all too likely, unfolding many times right in someone's living room or basement.
"I often encourage parents not to allow kids to have sleepovers," said Jim McCauley, director of youth and family services at Riverside Community Care, a Needham-based nonprofit that provides substance abuse counseling among other services. "Teenagers don't need to have sleepovers. Sleepover is just another way of saying they're going to go someplace and drink."
Even though Massachusetts' rates of underage drinking have fallen in recent years, the state still has one of the highest rates of underage binge drinking in the country, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
In 2006, more than 11 percent of Massachusetts youths ages 12 to 17 reported binge drinking - defined as consuming five or more drinks in one sitting - during the prior month, according to the survey. For drinkers age 12 to 20, the rate was more than double: 23 percent. And the number of high school students reporting any drinking in the previous month, according to 2007 state data, is even higher: 46 percent.
Inevitably, said Steve Wing, SAMHSA's associate administrator for alcohol policy, such behavior is going to lead to tragedies. Teenagers who have been drinking will die in car accidents, he said, in drownings, and in alcohol-fueled violence.
"And from time to time," Wing said, "one of them will have too much alcohol on board, wander off and die of alcohol poisoning. It is a rare event on the spectrum," he added, noting that there are no numbers tracking these deaths.
Well aware of that now, given the recent incidents, parents scrambled last week to remind their children of the dangers of underage drinking. In Wellesley, Janet Forte sat down with her 13-year-old daughter, Anna, to talk about the recent deaths. In Andover, not far from where Mun died, Andrea Zaimes had a similar discussion with her 15-year-old son. And in Needham, Susan Ishige, who's strict with her two teenaged boys and proud of it, said the deaths reminded her why she doesn't allow her boys to be at houses when parents are not home.
"They're good kids," she said. "But good kids make mistakes."
It is a lesson that Leslie Walker said she learned recently with her 14-year-old son in Belmont when he went over to a friend's house on New Year's Eve. "The father was there. Adults were there. Everyone knew about it. They got dropped off by parents. Everything you're supposed to do with a 14-year-old," Walker said. And still, there were problems, she said, when one friend, who had been drinking beforehand, began to vomit in the basement and the children did not tell the parents upstairs about it.
"There are dozens of these incidents in every town that don't make it to the level of a death," Walker said. But they're scary nonetheless. "This kid is vomiting, passed out. They take his vomit-laden clothes off. But they don't tell anybody."
On the same night, up in Marblehead, Ben Barber's friends used similar tactics to keep parents from knowing the truth, according to the police report documenting the search for the 16-year-old. After Barber's parents called police around 3 a.m., concerned about his whereabouts, the youngsters initially told officers "several versions of the night's events," attempting to conceal the party they had held while Barber's friend's parents were having dinner at an Italian restaurant.
The lies impeded the search, police said, forcing them to chase down false leads in the middle of the cold, blustery night, where winds in town reached gusts of 52 miles per hour. But ultimately, with the help of thermal imaging devices, firefighters found Barber in the snow. "It was a close call. No question about it," said his father, Dave Barber. And for the Barber family, the ordeal still isn't over. Last week, Dave Barber said, doctors were forced to amputate half of his son's big toe due to frostbite damage. It was traumatic for his son, Barber said. "For any kid," he said, "it would be upsetting." But Dave Barber knows that it could have been so much worse.
"Our hearts go out to the parents who weren't so lucky," he said. "You just wish that kids will learn from these things, and maybe they will."
Keith O'Brien, Boston Globe
2/22/2009
On New Year's Eve, with winds howling, snow swirling, and temperatures hovering near zero, a 16-year-old high school student, drunk on rum, left an unsupervised party at a friend's house, wandered out into the night, and went missing in Marblehead.
Friends initially lied about the events that preceded Ben Barber's disappearance, according to the police report, and Barber himself later admitted that he hid from searchers' lights, not wanting to get in trouble. Those decisions - along with the excessive drinking - nearly killed him. When firefighters finally found the teenager near a snowdrift behind a house more than six hours after his friends last saw him, Barber was missing a shoe and a sock, and was unre sponsive. He was suffering from frostbite and severe hypothermia, and his core temperature had fallen to 88 degrees.
But Barber was alive.
"How he survived that, I have no idea," said the boy's father, Dave Barber, who did not know that night his son was drinking. "I can't stop saying how lucky we are that he's here."
The recent deaths of two Massachusetts teenagers - 17-year-old Taylor Meyer last October in Norfolk and 16-year-old Elizabeth Mun last weekend in Andover, who each wandered away from unsupervised parties and died in cold, shallow bodies of water - have shocked parents and teenagers alike. But Ben Barber's story, hauntingly similar to the two girls' deaths in many ways, reveals an unsettling truth: that these episodes, while rare, are perhaps not as unlikely as parents and children would like to believe, especially when teenagers are left to supervise other teenagers.
Between 2001 and 2005, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 125 people, age 16 to 20, drowned annually in cases involving alcohol. An estimated 37 young people died per year in alcohol-related falls, according to the data, and another 41 died per year in fires.
Those are small figures, at least in comparison with the number of young drivers who drank, got behind the wheel and died in car crashes in 2007 - nearly 1,000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's why most parents tell their children not to drink and drive - a simple message, easily delivered, on a serious issue. But as recent events in Massachusetts have shown, the messages parents need to be delivering are a lot more complicated than that.
"Parents may feel safe with their children being in the safety of their own home or someone else's home - and not on the road," said Toben Nelson, assistant director of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, which examines the impact of drinking on young people. "But I think that's a false sense of security. When someone's intoxicated, particularly someone underage, they're very vulnerable to a range of bad consequences."
It's not known if Mun, whose funeral was held yesterday, or her friends were drinking alcohol prior to her death. Investigators aren't saying. But Essex County authorities have confirmed that there were no parents home the night of the party when Mun wandered off, just as there were no parents around last fall when Meyer, celebrating homecoming, attended a drinking party in a wooded section of Norfolk. The two episodes, taken together, offer a window into the teenage party culture, where parents are often oblivious, or gone for the night, binge drinking is prevalent, and tragedies like these are all too likely, unfolding many times right in someone's living room or basement.
"I often encourage parents not to allow kids to have sleepovers," said Jim McCauley, director of youth and family services at Riverside Community Care, a Needham-based nonprofit that provides substance abuse counseling among other services. "Teenagers don't need to have sleepovers. Sleepover is just another way of saying they're going to go someplace and drink."
Even though Massachusetts' rates of underage drinking have fallen in recent years, the state still has one of the highest rates of underage binge drinking in the country, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
In 2006, more than 11 percent of Massachusetts youths ages 12 to 17 reported binge drinking - defined as consuming five or more drinks in one sitting - during the prior month, according to the survey. For drinkers age 12 to 20, the rate was more than double: 23 percent. And the number of high school students reporting any drinking in the previous month, according to 2007 state data, is even higher: 46 percent.
Inevitably, said Steve Wing, SAMHSA's associate administrator for alcohol policy, such behavior is going to lead to tragedies. Teenagers who have been drinking will die in car accidents, he said, in drownings, and in alcohol-fueled violence.
"And from time to time," Wing said, "one of them will have too much alcohol on board, wander off and die of alcohol poisoning. It is a rare event on the spectrum," he added, noting that there are no numbers tracking these deaths.
Well aware of that now, given the recent incidents, parents scrambled last week to remind their children of the dangers of underage drinking. In Wellesley, Janet Forte sat down with her 13-year-old daughter, Anna, to talk about the recent deaths. In Andover, not far from where Mun died, Andrea Zaimes had a similar discussion with her 15-year-old son. And in Needham, Susan Ishige, who's strict with her two teenaged boys and proud of it, said the deaths reminded her why she doesn't allow her boys to be at houses when parents are not home.
"They're good kids," she said. "But good kids make mistakes."
It is a lesson that Leslie Walker said she learned recently with her 14-year-old son in Belmont when he went over to a friend's house on New Year's Eve. "The father was there. Adults were there. Everyone knew about it. They got dropped off by parents. Everything you're supposed to do with a 14-year-old," Walker said. And still, there were problems, she said, when one friend, who had been drinking beforehand, began to vomit in the basement and the children did not tell the parents upstairs about it.
"There are dozens of these incidents in every town that don't make it to the level of a death," Walker said. But they're scary nonetheless. "This kid is vomiting, passed out. They take his vomit-laden clothes off. But they don't tell anybody."
On the same night, up in Marblehead, Ben Barber's friends used similar tactics to keep parents from knowing the truth, according to the police report documenting the search for the 16-year-old. After Barber's parents called police around 3 a.m., concerned about his whereabouts, the youngsters initially told officers "several versions of the night's events," attempting to conceal the party they had held while Barber's friend's parents were having dinner at an Italian restaurant.
The lies impeded the search, police said, forcing them to chase down false leads in the middle of the cold, blustery night, where winds in town reached gusts of 52 miles per hour. But ultimately, with the help of thermal imaging devices, firefighters found Barber in the snow. "It was a close call. No question about it," said his father, Dave Barber. And for the Barber family, the ordeal still isn't over. Last week, Dave Barber said, doctors were forced to amputate half of his son's big toe due to frostbite damage. It was traumatic for his son, Barber said. "For any kid," he said, "it would be upsetting." But Dave Barber knows that it could have been so much worse.
"Our hearts go out to the parents who weren't so lucky," he said. "You just wish that kids will learn from these things, and maybe they will."
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Docs Lose Ability to Prescribe Certain Narcotics
New FDA Rules Could Cut Narcotics Prescriptions
February 10, 2009
New restrictions will be placed on prescription of two dozen powerful Schedule II narcotic drugs including OxyContin, methadone and morphine, the New York Times reported Feb. 10.
The new rules could lead to many doctors losing their prescribing rights of extended-release opioids that are addictive and have high potential for overdose and death if misused.
"What we're talking about is putting in place a program to try to ensure that physicians prescribing these products are properly trained in their safe use, and that only those physicians are prescribing those products," said John K. Jenkins, director of the drug center at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "This is going to be a massive program."
Jenkins said current FDA regulations have failed to prevent inappropriate prescriptions, overaggressive marketing, and drug misuse that have led to deaths and overdoses. On the other hand, Jenkins noted that the drugs are highly effective in reducing pain. Federal officials will meet with drug makers, consumer advocates and others in March to discuss policy changes.
The announcement may signal a more assertive role in regulating physician prescribing by the FDA, which traditionally has issued warnings but left control over the practice of medicine to state medical boards.
February 10, 2009
New restrictions will be placed on prescription of two dozen powerful Schedule II narcotic drugs including OxyContin, methadone and morphine, the New York Times reported Feb. 10.
The new rules could lead to many doctors losing their prescribing rights of extended-release opioids that are addictive and have high potential for overdose and death if misused.
"What we're talking about is putting in place a program to try to ensure that physicians prescribing these products are properly trained in their safe use, and that only those physicians are prescribing those products," said John K. Jenkins, director of the drug center at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "This is going to be a massive program."
Jenkins said current FDA regulations have failed to prevent inappropriate prescriptions, overaggressive marketing, and drug misuse that have led to deaths and overdoses. On the other hand, Jenkins noted that the drugs are highly effective in reducing pain. Federal officials will meet with drug makers, consumer advocates and others in March to discuss policy changes.
The announcement may signal a more assertive role in regulating physician prescribing by the FDA, which traditionally has issued warnings but left control over the practice of medicine to state medical boards.
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