Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended Tuesday that labels on prescription opioids urge doctors to simultaneously prescribe the overdose antidote naloxone for at least some of their patients.
Several members of two advisory committees, which met jointly, described their 12-to-11 vote as a message to the government that the fast-acting antidote must be made more widely available, at lower cost and with fewer barriers to obtaining it.
The FDA is not required to follow the recommendations, but the expert panels are influential in crafting policy.
Naloxone, which can be injected or sprayed into the noses of overdose victims, has been available for decades has and saved countless lives during the opioid epidemic.