FDA warning on combined use of opioid medicines and benzodiazepines.

The FDA announced that it requires class wide changes to drug labelling to inform patients and health care providers of the serious risks associated with the combined use of certain opioid medicines and benzodiazepines. The FDA requires boxed warnings for prescription opioid analgesics, opioid containing cough products and benzodiazepines which cover nearly 400 products. Risks include extreme sleepiness, respiratory depression, coma and death. This action is part of the FDA Opioids Action Plan.

Drugs affected are oxycodone, morphine,fentanyl and hydrocodone. FDA data has shown that physicians have increasingly been prescribing opioids and benzodiazepines together which has resulted in adverse outcomes. Between 2004 and 2011 the number of patients who were prescribed an opioid and a benzodiazepine increased by 41 percent,according to the FDA, an increase of more than 2.5 million in opioid pain patients also receiving benzodiazepines.