How the FDA Helped Fuel the Opioid Epidemic

At an April Senate subcommittee hearing, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf blamed the pharmaceutical industry for a lack of nonaddictive nonopioid pain medications. In his telling, the FDA is waiting with open arms for any new analgesics that industry may develop: “We need to do everything we can do to push industry and make this happen.”

He’s partially right: The government should commit itself to supporting private innovation. But it is disingenuous to blame industry for a dearth of treatments. Consider the evolution of the drug Toradol—generic name ketorolac—a case study in the agency’s propensity to scuttle effective medicine.