Among the many way to combat a drug epidemic , an app competition is well the strange .
Abuse of illegal and prescription opiate likewise is a massive job in the United States . Since 1999 , deaths due to these substances has tripled . Overdoses can be reversed by administrate Naloxone , but availableness of the life - save drug is scratchy — some land have find ways trade it “ over the counter ” ; others take a firm stand on a prescription medicine . The FDA hassupported greater accessand is reviewing labelling that would make it truly OTC in every state .
Availability is steadily increasing among first - responders and others probable to encounter an overdose victim , but today the FDA announced an strange enterprise : theNaloxone App Competition . It ’s open to the populace and registration does n’t open until September 23 , so details on what such an app would take care like and what it would do are thin . The FDA ’s stated end is to “ plug in those see an overdose with the potentially life - save counterpoison . ”
Making Narcan available to those who postulate it is , of course of instruction , admirable . And in recent years it been put into the hand of community system and friends and folk members of opioid drug user for that reasons . But an app for the general world raise a stack of questions about putting such a service into recitation . Do most people know what an opioid overdose look like , or have any idea how to distribute Naloxone ? What kind of adoption rates are necessary for such an app to be degraded or more effective than just squall 911 ? If administered improperly or to someone overdosing on some other substance , who is at fault ? FDA did not have proficient answers to these question , and it ’s unconvincing they ’ll be satisfactorily serve over the course of action of a two day codification - a - thon .
The FDA ’s hypothetical use showcase take two neighbors — one a Naloxone carrier and other get an overdose — being connected by this app and preventing an unnecessary demise . Though that scenario presumes a lot about proximity , reactivity , app adoption , and training that suggest it might be safer and more beneficial to simply call 911 .
The announcement coincides withPrescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Weekand comes less than a calendar month after the DEAclassified kratom — a legally contentious plant addicts have been usingto pull away from opiate dependency — as a agenda 1 drug .
The Naloxone App Competition is not the first competition the FDA has run . A similar initiative , target at observe salmonella , make placein 2014 . The winner ’s submission , according to an FDA voice , is still in the unconscious process of being undulate out .
discipline : An earliest draft stated the registration opened on October 7 . Gizmodo regrets the error .
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