Painkiller-abuse proposal divides healthcare community

Doctors at top health centers including the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals want the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to toughen rules for prescribing powerful painkillers like OxyContin and similar opioids, saying this could curb addiction and drug abuse. Yet there is pushback—from, among others, medical professionals at some of the same hospitals, including the Cleveland Clinic, public records and interviews show. These doctors and clinicians say they, too, want to halt addiction and deaths from the over-consumption and abuse of opioid painkillers, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control calls an epidemic.