US doctors overprescribed deadly drug fentanyl to patients

Fentanyl, a highly dangerous painkiller at the heart of the US opioid epidemic, has been overprescribed by doctors, according to a report Tuesday that accused medical authorities and producers of being too lax in their oversight.

The drug is a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more powerful than morphine and which is largely sold on the black market.

But it is prescribed in certain rare cases of cancer under what are supposed to be very tight restrictions, in the form of pills, lozenges or sprays under the tongue. It is supposed to be used only on cancer patients for whom other opioid painkillers have been insufficent.

The report in Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, said that this was not the case, however.

The investigation, carried out by experts from Johns Hopkins University, said that of the thousands of patients who had been prescribed fentanyl, between a third and half of them should never have received the drug.

One doctor in five did not know that fentanyl ..