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The Federal Drug Administration has been very busy lately.

For the past five years, I received e-mails from MEDWatch, the FDA Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program, which serves both health care professionals and the medical product-using public.

MEDWatch provides important and timely clinical information about safety issues involving medical products - including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, biologics, medical and radiation-emitting devices, and special nutritional products.

It's a weekly and time-sensitive publication delivered via an e-mail list-serv. The public and health care professionals can alert the FDA about issues with medical products using a variety of forms. Joining the e-mail list-serv is free.

Recently the FDA released this bulletin about the well-known painkiller Oxycontin. The FDA "informed health care professionals of criminal charges and civil liabilities brought against Purdue Frederick in connection with several illegal schemes to promote, market and sell Oxycontin, a powerful prescription pain reliever that the company produces.

"The manufacturer's sales force was trained to make false claims about the product to health care professionals, thereby, misbranding Oxycontin by illegally promoting the drug as being less addictive, less subject to abuse, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdrawal than other pain medications."

When Oxycontin came along, it was a magic pill not only for pain patients but doctors, too. Prescribing opiates for pain is a tricky business due to the addiction factor, liver complications and the painfully intense withdrawal.

Oxycontin was supposed to be the answer to the pain management problem. Instead, it became a nightmare.

Oxycontin usage is at the top of the heap for fraudulent prescription investigations. Oxycontin has become the drug of choice for illegal opiate addicts who get an instantaneous high when it's crushed and snorted. Drug pushers are robbing drug stores daily because Oxycontin is powerful, easy to steal, and gives repeat business.

Physicians rely on a drug sales rep to tell them the truth about a new medication. Doctors are swamped with too many patients, too much paperwork and long hours. When a new drug comes along that is touted to give enormous help in relieving a condition - and has few side effects - it is hailed as a godsend to doctors dealing with these conditions.

Now, thousands of physicians are dealing with patients who must go through unnecessary and dangerous withdrawals, being watched by the government and sometimes denying deserving patients the benefits of Oxycontin when all other treatments and medications have failed.

I couldn't be happier about this announcement. Purdue Frederick has made millions and should reimburse that money to the doctors and patients for the pain and suffering they have caused.