The Trump administration is developing a drug to protect against the threat of the opioid fentanyl being used in a terrorist attack.
The Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that the new drug it was working on, know as nalmefene, was intended not only to prevent the reported 40,000 deaths a year from the opioid crisis, but as a safeguard in case fentanyl is used in a terrorist attack.
“Improved opioid exposure treatments are critical to adequately address this growing threat to public health and health security,” said Rick Bright, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
Fentanyl, a chemical that is 50 times stronger than heroin, is the main kind of opioid killing people in the U.S., and has led to a national health crisis of addiction and premature deaths. It can kill in trace amounts, though the drug naloxone can be used to help reverse its effects, which otherwise cause people to first go to sleep and then stop breathing.
The types of naloxone that are currently on the market, however, do not tend to be strong enough in a single dose to reverse fentanyl overdoses. They tend to work alone against heroin or prescription painkillers, but often a person who is with someone who has overdosed has to use naloxone several times before someone awakens. People who use heroin often don’t know it has been laced with fentanyl.
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But the type the government is developing now is meant for a much different scenario, that of a mass attack in which fentanyl is used as a weapon.
Needing to administer several doses at a time would be ineffective in this type of emergency situation, the agency said.
The Trump administration has set up a one-year, $611,000-contract with the drug company Opiant, which is based in California. The new drug will be a nasal spray, and if the development goes well then Opiant will receive another $4.6 million for up to three years to finish development and receive approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Nalmefene was already approved previously by the FDA, but as an injector. It was taken off the market in 2008 because of low sales.
Currently, naloxone kits used by people at home come in the form of a nasal spray or an autoinjector that is roughly the size of a cell phone. The nasal spray is known as Narcan and the autoinjector is called Evzio and works similarly to the EpiPen, a device used for people having life-threatening allergic reactions.
Naloxone is not considered a treatment for addiction, and someone who has an addiction to opioids may need to be revived several times over several years before they seek treatment. Others may die after they are not revived in time, despite previous successful interventions.
Someone who has been injected with naloxone can wake up quietly or become violent or agitated because the drug not only takes away the feeling of high but also puts them into immediate withdrawal, at which point they face body aches, diarrhea, fever, sweating, and nausea.
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