On the recordJune 23, 2016
If the Senator will yield further for a question, through the Chair, in the year 2014, the Drug Enforcement Agency of the United States approved the production of 14 billion opioid tablets in the United States--2014, 14 billion--enough opioid pills for every adult in America to have a 1-month prescription. So I asked a doctor in DuPage County in Illinois why. Why would doctors prescribe, as the Senator said, a 30-day prescription for a patient who may only need 2 or 3 days, and it could be renewed if they needed more? He said: Some of them are not trained well enough and some of them don't want to get a phone call on a weekend. Now, that was a pretty grim analysis by another doctor. But it really calls into question, first, pharma's producing 14 billion--14 billion-- opioid pills for America, and doctors handing to patients a 30-day prescription when, in good conscience, a few days would have been more than enough. The question is this: How do we at the Federal level--and I am asking the Senator because he is a moderate-to-conservative Democrat, and I know he is not looking for the big hand of government to solve all our problems--deal with pharma overproduction and how do we deal with doctors overprescribing?
