FDA launches app competition to fight opioid overdoses; avoids real issues associated with Big Pharma

Wednesday, September 28, 2016 by: Daniel Barker
Tags: opioid overdose, app competition, naloxone

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(NaturalNews) The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that it is sponsoring a competition between web developers to design an app to fight opioid overdoses.

But is it just a scheme designed to distract attention from the real problem: that Big Pharma – with the assistance of government agencies such as the FDA – is flooding the U.S. with dangerous opioid prescription drugs that are killing people by the tens of thousands each year?

The concept behind the 2016 Naloxone App Competition is to encourage the creation of an app that will help locate nearby sources of naloxone – a drug which can counteract the effects of opiates in someone who has overdosed.

From CNN:

"The FDA envisions an app that will connect anyone experiencing an opioid overdose with the closest supply of naloxone, a reversal drug.

"Naloxone counteracts the effects of heroin, some addictive painkillers and the synthetic opioid fentanyl and is available at pharmacies with a prescription. It is often carried by medical and law enforcement first responders in most states as well as at-risk opioid users and family members. The app is intended to alert these antidote carriers when someone overdoses."

The FDA will award $40,000 to the winners of the competition to continue developing their app.

The competition is an apparent ploy to make the agency look as if it is actually doing something about the opioid abuse epidemic in America, which is now fueled mostly by prescription drug abuse and less and less by illicitly-produced drugs like heroin.

Who are the real drug pushers?

More than half of all drug overdoses in the U.S. are now caused by prescription opioid drugs, the sales of which have quadrupled since 1999, along with a corresponding quadrupling of opioid overdose deaths.

Drug overdose deaths are now the leading cause of death by injury in the U.S., surpassing motor vehicle-related fatalities and gun-related deaths, which take second and third place, respectively.

And a not-so-well known fact is that many of those currently using illicit opioids like heroin actually made the transition to street drugs only after first becoming addicted to prescription opioids.

Prescription opioids are big business for Big Pharma, particularly in the U.S.

From Medicine.News:

"[Americans] account for 99 percent of the world's hydrocodone (Vicodin) consumption, 80 percent of the world's oxycodone (Percocet and Oxycontin) consumption and 65 percent of the world's hydromorphone (Dilaudid) consumption, according to Drug Watch."

Even if this is not part of a depopulation scheme, as many would understandably speculate, it most certainly is a huge profit-making scheme on the part of Big Pharma, which obviously cares little about the cost in human lives.

A case in point: OxyContin

And the FDA aids the drug manufacturers by approving dangerous opioid drugs like OxyContin, which first appeared on the scene in 1996, following approval by the FDA in 1995 for use in treating chronic pain.

In its first year on the market, OxyContin raked in $45 million for its makers, Purdue Pharma. By 2000, sales were at $1.1 billion, and by 2010 had reached $3.1 billion.

OxyContin is comparable to heroin in its effects and strength, and it began replacing heroin on the streets because it was so easy to acquire and could be sniffed or injected – just like heroin – once the pills were crushed.

And OxyContin is just one of the many prescription opioids flooding America and turning a sizable portion of the population into addicts.

Meanwhile, marijuana, which has been proven to be an effective and much safer natural painkiller – and has even helped opioid addicts to kick their habit – is still classified as a Schedule I drug by the DEA. That means it is considered to be just as dangerous by the federal government as heroin or cocaine.

Taking all these facts into consideration, it's impossible not to see the FDA's naloxone app competition as anything other than a smokescreen to draw attention away from the real issue – namely that the agency is simply running interference for America's biggest and most dangerous drug pushers: Big Pharma.

Sources::

Edition.CNN.com

CDC.gov

NaturalNews.com

Medicine.news

TheWeek.com

Science.NaturalNews.com