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HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) – Analysis by a crew of Hattiesburg medical doctors and residents helped go a Mississippi Home invoice that categorized tianeptine, a.okay.a. “gasoline station heroin,” as a Schedule III drug.

Forrest Well being’s Household Drugs Residency Clinic (FRMC) residency director Dr. Rambod Rouhbakhsh mentioned these merchandise had been marketed for varied functions just like the self-treatment of hysteria, despair, bronchial asthma and irritable bowel syndrome.

After FRMC physicians noticed a number of sufferers exhibiting opioid withdrawal signs whereas consuming excessive every day doses of tianeptine-based merchandise, Rouhbakhsh determined to supervise a analysis crew to be taught extra in regards to the results of the drug.

The crew included Dr. Joseph Nosser, Dr. Robert “Bob” Brahan, Dr. John Lloyd Martin and Dr. Adam Purvis. (Martin and Purvis had been residents when the analysis was carried out.) Their analysis was pivotal within the passage of Home Invoice 4 – an act to amend Part 41-29-117, Mississippi Code of 1972, to incorporate tianeptine as a Schedule III drug.

A bunch of physicians from the Forrest Normal Hospital Household Drugs Residency Middle co-authored a paper entitled “Tianeptine Withdrawal: A Trigger for Public Well being Concern in Mississippi” after encountering sufferers with regarding and harmful unwanted effects from tianeptine use. (Forrest Normal Hospital)

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed the invoice into regulation on March 23.

“It makes us really feel helpful to our group that we had been capable of establish a public well being menace, educate our colleagues about it after which assist eradicate it by laws,” mentioned Rouhbakhsh. “And all comparatively shortly, as properly.”

Nosser agreed.

“We knew working with Forrest Normal and Hattiesburg Clinic that they had the affect to get this info in entrance of the suitable folks to advocate for what we had seen out on the entrance traces – native residents seeing the consequences of tianeptine,” he mentioned. “It’s been very fascinating to see this grassroots effort come into play over a time frame.

“We had two resident physicians seeing sufferers who introduced with these similar signs, so we labored along with the crew to develop a research and report back to the state what we discovered. From there, it began constructing momentum and getting in entrance of the suitable folks. Our purpose was to get this harmful substance off the road.”

The next is a timeline of the FMRC crew’s analysis:

January 2022: FMRC physicians observe a number of instances of tianeptine withdrawal.

March-Could 2022: Rouhbakhsh oversees a case sequence research outlining discovering from tianeptine-withdrawal instances.

June-September 2022: Knowledge is compiled right into a manuscript titled “Tianeptine Withdrawal: A Trigger for Public Well being Concern in Mississippi” that undergoes a peer assessment course of by the Mississippi State Medical Affiliation.

September 2022: The crew’s findings are revealed within the Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Affiliation.

The crew additionally introduced their analysis to the Meals and Drug Administration.

Nosser mentioned it’s beginning to come to mild that tianeptine is an issue, and individuals are discussing it.

Some comfort shops promoting tianeptine at the moment are pulling the product from their cabinets. Nonetheless, others are ready till the day earlier than the invoice goes into impact – June 30, 2023.

“We might even see extra sufferers between every now and then till the product is not accessible,” Nosser mentioned.

The principal authors and co-authors of Home Invoice 4 had been Rep. Lee Yancey of District 74 and Rep. Dana McLean of District 39.

Mississippi turns into the seventh state to ban the tianeptine formulation, behind Alabama, Michigan, Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana and Ohio.

For extra info, go to www.forresthealth.org or www.fda.gov.

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