A new report by the American Medical Association reinforces what Dr. Bloom, among others, has said for a long time. Opioid overdose deaths are not the result of the prescribing behavior of physicians.
opioid prescribing
A recent article in The Washington Post demonstrates that when opioid medications become less available to veterans, suicide rates go up. And not by a little. This only serves to further show the extent of damage done by foolish U.S. drug policies.
Drs. Jeffrey Singer and Josh Bloom just published an op-ed in the Philidelphia Inquirer about the pointless and inhumane treatment that pain patients must endure in the name of fighting the "opioid epidemic." Except it's nothing of the sort. We are having a "street drug epidemic." This is why people are dying, not from prescription analgesics.
It's time for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to withdraw this page to correct its many errors and distortions. A principal author of the 2016 CDC Guidelines on the prescription of opioids to adults with chronic pain is responsible for many of these errors. Richard Lawhern (pictured) addressed these mistakes in this open letter.
Dr. Jeffrey Singer takes issue with a Cincinnati Enquirer article touting a recent CDC report of a 30% drop in opioid prescriptions in 2016-17, compared to 2010-11. Our ACSH advisor maintains that the restriction of the drugs has no impact on their misuse, but does force pain patients to use ineffective and dangerous alternatives. In other words, prohibition.