While we wish the statements from the CDC and FDA had come earlier, they required courage at a time of collective tragedy due in part to excess prescribing and are a critical first step. Indeed, the April 10 letter from the CDC director responded to efforts organized by one of us and his colleagues. We have raised these concerns in published articles in STAT and elsewhere, as well as with policymakers and, by letter and in-person meeting, with the CDC itself. Others who were once able to work or care for children are now bound to bed or home and unable to support their families because the opioids that had kept their chronic pain at bay were withdrawn. The other is a civil rights attorney who publicly described her own past experience with opioids and severe pain and who now receives daily emails and phone calls from desperate patients. One of us is a physician-researcher in primary care and addiction who has reported on patients’ fears, medical deterioration, and sometimes even death after opioid reduction. Strict limits on opioid prescribing risk the ‘inhumane treatment’ of pain patientsįor us, the declarations are a welcome first step toward ending the trauma that we have observed and advocated against. Roger Chou from Oregon Health and Science University, noted that ranges given in the guidelines related to opioid dosages and the number of days for which an opioid should be prescribed were often translated to “inflexible” limits that have been pushed, mandated and incentivized by countless insurers, state agencies, and regulators in ways that exceed or even contravene the guidelines. Deborah Dowell and Tamara Haegerich from the CDC and Dr. Writing in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, the authors of the guidelines admitted that they have been misapplied by those seeking “shortcuts” to safer prescribing. Although these guidelines have been useful for many clinicians, they have been misapplied by individual prescribers, institutions, and agencies, too often causing the kind of pain they were meant to address. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines for prescribing opioids for chronic pain. These declarations come not a moment too soon for those who have been abandoned by their health care providers or denied appropriate treatment and are suffering in real time. Exclusive analysis of biotech, pharma, and the life sciences Learn Moreĭeclarations from two federal agencies offer hope - and possible action - for people in pain who have lost access to prescribed opioids.
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