For more than a decade, policymakers and public health officials have incorrectly blamed the worsening overdose crisis on doctors prescribing opioids to their patients in pain. During this time physicians have been pressured to reduce opioid prescribing, only to see the overdose rate more than double since 2010 — even as opioid prescribing was cut nearly in half.
In early August, a study showed that tapering chronic pain patients off opioids led to a dramatic increase in mental health crises, suicide attempts and overdoses. It is not surprising, then, that we now learn this anti-opioid policy has had a devastating effect on America’s veterans.
Indeed, a recent study investigated the results of the Opioid Safety Initiative (OSI), a poorly conceived plan implemented in 2013 by the Veterans Health Administration to discourage opioid prescribing and dependence. OSI “succeeded” in that it caused opioid prescribing to drop 41% between from 2012 to 2017, and 64% by 2020. But, as with chronic pain patients in the general population, the curtailment had a big impact on veterans’ mental health, especially rural veterans who are more likely to get health care through the VA.
#Reprinted with permission. The entire op-ed can be read here.
Josh Bloom
Dr. Jonathan (Josh) Bloom, ACSH's Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. During his 20-plus years in drug discovery at Wyeth, his research group discovered the antibiotic Tygacil®, approved in 2005. He holds 25 issued patents and has authored 35 academic papers. Since joining ACSH in 2010, he has written more than 2,000 articles and dozens of op-eds for major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune.
