Download Safety concerns raised over oxcodone misuse

Latest news for Australian Pharmacy
17TH MAY 2011
WWW.PHARMACYNEWS.COM.AU
Safety concerns raised over oxcodone misuse
KIRRILLY BURTON
Deaths involving the drug oxycodone,
dubbed ‘hillbilly heroin’, have jumped
21-fold in Victoria in the last decade,
prompting calls from the PSA for
financial incentives for pharmacists to
supervise opioid prescribing.
Speaking at a Faculty of Pain
Medicine conference, Associate Professor Pam Macintyre, director of the
Acute Pain Service at Royal Adelaide
Hospital, highlighted recent Australian
data showing oxycodone-related deaths
in Victoria had increased from four in
2000 to 97 in 2009 – a 21-fold increase
in deaths.
The study published in BMJ Injury
Prevention showed, of the 320 cases,
half (53.8 per cent) of these were due
to drug toxicity, 52.3 per cent of which
were unintentional.
Supply of oxycodone had also
increased nine-fold from 7.5 mg per
capita in 2000 to 67.5 mg per capita in
2009, the research showed.
As reported in The Age, Professor
Macintyre, said more regulation and
careful monitoring of oxycodone was
required.
“I think we need to think about better
regulatory restrictions on what we can
prescribe, and to whom,” she said.
However, Warwick Plunkett (pictured), national president of the PSA,
believed regulatory controls for opioids
were adequate, calling for the Federal
Government to put more funding into
better supervision of opioid prescrip-
tions to improve patient outcomes.
“I just don’t think there are adequate
financial drivers for greater professional
supervision by pharmacists in many of
these sorts of areas,” he said.
“It doesn’t cover ongoing supervision
or any oversight of outcomes for the
patient and pharmacists are probably
best placed to be able to do that.”
Professor Macintyre said some
patients were potentially sharing
oxycodone with family members based
on research showing around 40 per
cent of intravenous drug users sourced
morphine from family and friends.
However, at the recent PSA Offshore
Refresher conference, Professor
Andrew McLachlan from the faculty
of Pharmacy at Sydney University,
believed high use of oxycodone in older
groups could explain some of the drug’s
increasing use.
“Oxycodone is seemingly flavour of
the month... my view is that it’s probably the choice of [analgesic] medicine
in older people with co-morbidities and
also multiple medicines,” he said.
A general trend showed increased uptake of oxycodone at Concord Hospital
in the 70 plus age group, he said.
“There’s certainly high utilisation in
the older groups… which in my experience represents quality use, because this
is the [pain] drug older people should
be getting.”
TO COMMENT CLICK HERE >
AHPRA LAUNCHES ONLINE STUDENT REGISTRATION SYSTEM
KIRRILLY BURTON
The Australian Health Practitioner
Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has
introduced online registration for
thousands of final-year pharmacy
students about to graduate as health
practitioners.
The online graduate registration
service will enable students to apply
for registration as early as four to
six weeks before they complete their
course.
AHPRA is encouraging all students
who graduate in mid-2011 to go online
and follow the prompts to the registration pathway tailored to them.
“AHPRA is continuously improving its services and strengthening
its online capacity – in this case to
streamline entry to the workforce for
graduating students who need to be
registered in their health profession before they can start work,” said Martin
Fletcher, AHPRA CEO.
Ashleigh Coome, president of the
National Australian Pharmacy Students Association (NAPSA) told Pharmacy News previously that NAPSA
supported the new register.
She said it “will help to lead a
successful transition from student to
intern to registrant. If personal data is
already entered in the system when
students are studying, then hopefully
when applying for supervised practice,
it will be a matter of a simple ‘tick of
a box’.”
She did, however, express concern
that it may increase ‘red tape for
students.
The announcement comes after a
Senate enquiry was launched in March
into lengthy delays in processing
health professional’s registrations by
AHPRA.
To date, 252 submissions have been
received by the Senate’s Finance and
Public Administration References
Committee, including a number from
pharmacy organisations.
Students can register in five steps:
1. Students can apply for registration four to six weeks before completing their course at: www.ahpra.gov.au/
EDITOR [email protected] ADVERTISING [email protected]
Registration/Graduate-Applications.
aspx
2. Applicants fill out an online application (if eligible) or download an
application form. All applications require students to return some supporting documents to APHRA via mail.
3. Education providers advise
AHPRA when applicants are eligible
to graduate.
4. AHPRA finalises assessment,
confirms registration, publishes new
graduates’ names on the Register of
Practitioners and sends out registration
certificates.
5. New graduates are registered and
eligible to start working as soon as
their name is published on the Register
of Practitioners.
For registration enquiries phone:
1300 419 495 or +61 3 8708 9001 for
overseas callers.
TO COMMENT CLICK HERE >
Latest news for Australian Pharmacy
WWW.PHARMACYNEWS.COM.AU
Tobacco giant threatens to strike back
NICK O’DONOGHUE
would fight “tooth and nail” to protect
its brands and demand billions of dollars in compensation if the Government proceeds with the plan.
Responding to the threats today
in an interview on 5AA Adelaide,
Nicola Roxon, Minister for Health and
Ageing, said the response of tobacco
companies showed how effective the
proposal could be.
“I think the louder and louder that
the big tobacco companies yell and
scream, the clearer it is that this measure is actually likely to work,” she said.
Despite the plans to slash prices, Ms
Roxon said the Government did not
intend to fight back with tax and excise
hikes on tobacco products.
We don’t have any current plans to
increase excise… we’re in an extraordinary position that the companies are
arguing about protecting their product
and protecting their profits, and then
saying they’re going to voluntarily
slash their profits so that they can get
people hooked,” she said.
Australia faces a flood of cheap
tobacco as cigarette producers plan
to combat the introduction of generic
packaging.
Threatening to slash prices by up
to 50 per cent, David Crow, chief
executive of British American Tobacco,
warned the Federal Government’s plan
to push plain packaging would backfire, despite efforts to reduce smoking, with the introduction of nicotine
replacement patches on the PBS.
Mr Crow warned the Government
was forcing the tobacco industry to
compete with black-market imports
on price.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph,
Mr Crow said, “when you look at the
four Ps (price, packaging, promotion
and place), pricing’s the big one and
that’s the only one we have left…
[which] basically means more people
will smoke, more kids will smoke.
“It’s going to backfire, go bad and
lead to more people smoking, which is
just mad if you’re sitting at a government desk.”
Mr Crow also warned the industry
TO COMMENT CLICK HERE >
COMPOUNDING REVIEW
The Pharmacy Board of Australia’s
Compounding Working Party will
commence a review of legislation,
standards and relevant information as part of the initial stages of a
project to develop new guidelines.
The working party met last month
to discuss the proposal of developing
a guideline for compounding.
REGISTRATION
IMPROVEMENTS
The Pharmacy Board of Australia
chair, Stephen Marty has met with
executive staff at the Australian
Health Practitioner Regulation
Agency (AHPRA) to discuss plans
to streamline the registration process.
Mr Marty said, “the meeting provided an opportunity to address issues and to identify possible ways of
improving the registration process.
“These will be further developed
over coming months for possible
implementation and include proposals for graduates seeking provisional
registration, interns seeking initial
general registration and renewal of
registration.”
TO COMMENT CLICK HERE >
OsteVit-D Liquid
NOW AVAILABLE
Contains 250,000 IU
of Vitamin D3 in a
50mL bottle
1000 IU Vitamin D3 per 0.2mL
Many elderl
Man
M
elderly
ld l patients
atients
ti t and
d children
hild
hha
havee diffi
diffic
difficulty
lt sswallowing
allo
ll iin ttablets
tablets.
bl t
Now you can recommend OsteVit-D in a convenient liquid form.
OsteVit-D Liquid contains 250,000 IU of Vitamin D3 in a 50mL bottle.
Only 0.2mL will provide a 1000 IU dose.
Have you considered your patient’s budget
when you recommend Vitamin D?
OsteVit-D tablets (1000 IU Vitamin D3) are easy to swallow,
can be crushed and are less expensive than Ostelin ®
Product
OsteVit-D
Ostelin
®
Crushable Tablet
Gelatin Capsule
RRP # for
250 tablets
Cost per 1000
IU*
$34.95*
$0.14
$49.99*
$0.20
Supporting
Pack sizes available:
90 tablets
150 tablets
250 tablets
READ MORE AT KEYPHARM.COM.AU
#
Recommended Retail Price. *Based on the manufacturers RRP. Ostelin® is a registered trademark of Sanofi Aventis.
EDITOR [email protected] ADVERTISING [email protected]