A New Study Finds No Correlation Between Opioid Prescriptions and Drug-Related Deaths

[Kamaji]

A New Study Finds No Correlation Between Opioid Prescriptions and Drug-Related Deaths

The CDC, which issued disastrous pain treatment advice in 2016, is still pushing a narrative contradicted by recent data.

JACOB SULLUM
8.10.2022

Six years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines that discouraged doctors from prescribing opioids for pain and encouraged legislators to restrict the medical use of such drugs. Those guidelines, which had a disastrous impact on pain patients, were based on the assumption that overprescribing was responsible for rising drug-related deaths. But according to a new Frontiers in Pain Research study, that assumption is no longer true, if it ever was.

To support its theory that opioid prescriptions were driving drug-related deaths, independent researcher Larry Aubry and statistician B. Thomas Carr note, the CDC cited numbers that were already out of date. More recent data do not support the premise underlying the agency's pernicious advice. The CDC nevertheless included the same outdated analysis in the revised pain treatment guidelines that it published last February, which aim to ameliorate the damage done by the original version.

"It is critical that public health policy and individual patient care not be based on out-of-date or misleading information," Aubry and Carr write. They note that "the direct correlations used to justify the CDC guideline and guideline update," which "existed from 1999 to 2010," are "no longer present." The implication, they say, is that policies aimed at reducing opioid prescriptions are "unfounded and ineffective."

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Source:  https://reason.com/2022/08/10/no-correlation-between-opioid-prescriptions-and-drug-related-deaths/

[DefiantMassRINO]

The problem was that Oxy was initially marketed as "non-addictive".

Prescriptions lead to addiction.

Addiction leads to death.

Is Big Pharma trying to re-capture market share it lost to Chi-com and Mexican fentanyl?

[Kamaji]

The problem was that Oxy was initially marketed as "non-addictive".

Prescriptions lead to addiction.

Addiction leads to death.

Is Big Pharma trying to re-capture market share it lost to Chi-com and Mexican fentanyl?

The study says otherwise.

[aligncare]

My brother tells me he owes his life to prescription oxy after he was stricken at a young age with a progressive and debilitating spinal disorder, ankylosing spondylitis. It gave him the ability to bear the pain of movement involved in activities of daily living. Is he addicted? Sure, but it’s been safely, medically managed for years. But most importantly, it gave him his life back.

[Kamaji]

My brother tells me he owes his life to prescription oxy after he was stricken at a young age with a progressive and debilitating spinal disorder, ankylosing spondylitis. It gave him the ability to bear the pain of movement involved in activities of daily living. Is he addicted? Sure, but it’s been safely, medically managed for years. But most importantly, it gave him his life back.

These things can, literally, be life-savers.  Thank God your brother has a doctor who knows how to help him manage the medication properly.

[DefiantMassRINO]

What does evangelizing prescription pain killers have to do with the GOP?

Is the GOP getting into the smack business?

[jmyrlefuller]

Who funded the study?

[Kamaji]

Who funded the study?

Author BC was employed by Carr Consulting, United States.

The remaining author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Authors:  Larry Aubry and B. Thomas Carr

Source:  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpain.2022.884674/full

[GtHawk]

The problem was that Oxy was initially marketed as "non-addictive".

Prescriptions lead to addiction.

Addiction leads to death.

Is Big Pharma trying to re-capture market share it lost to Chi-com and Mexican fentanyl?

And once Coke actually had cocaine in it so what's your point, that was in the past and irrelevant to today, this bullshit war on opioids has cause untold grief to legitimate long term pain sufferers when it has done nothing to stop the biggest problem illicit and unsafe drugs including opioids adulterated with fentanyl coming across the border. God save me from idealist dogooders! Explain to me how making it so difficult, through regulations as a result of the opioid war, for someone like my 91 year mother that suffers from chronic pain to get a refill on her imitation opioid Tramadol that I have to practically do battle with Kaiser each time is saving lives? grass for everyone, peyote? why not, fentanyl flooding across the border and while not addictive because most users don't live long enough but no biggy, but opioids that millions of chronic pain sufferers depend on to get through the day? IT'S WAR BABY!!

get on the horse and battle alcohol, it kills more and ruins the lives of more that Opioids ever will. And as for the banality of prescriptions lead to addiction, where did you pull that out of? You know what leads to addiction? An addictive personality. According to you I should be a major opioid addict, seeing as Vicodin was prescribed to me for migraines and other pain for over thirty years and Tramadol for the last ten, silly me I guess I didn't get the message since I'm not addicted, when might I expect this addiction.

I do not judge anyone else's pain because pain is a very personal thing and what I can or cannot tolerate is not the same for anyone else and along with that I don't get up on some high horse and spout about what should or shouldn't be prescribed for someone. There is an old saying about walking a mile in someone else's shoes you may want to consider.

You make think I have been a bit harsh but I have been reading and hearing this non sense about pain meds for far longer than I want to think about.

[libertybele]

And once Coke actually had cocaine in it so what's your point, that was in the past and irrelevant to today, this bullshit war on opioids has cause untold grief to legitimate long term pain sufferers when it has done nothing to stop the biggest problem illicit and unsafe drugs including opioids adulterated with fentanyl coming across the border. God save me from idealist dogooders! Explain to me how making it so difficult, through regulations as a result of the opioid war, for someone like my 91 year mother that suffers from chronic pain to get a refill on her imitation opioid Tramadol that I have to practically do battle with Kaiser each time is saving lives? grass for everyone, peyote? why not, fentanyl flooding across the border and while not addictive because most users don't live long enough but no biggy, but opioids that millions of chronic pain sufferers depend on to get through the day? IT'S WAR BABY!!

@GtHawk You make a very valid point.  Fighting to get a prescription filled on an opioid is ridiculous.  If you haven't been on an opioid medication in the past 6 months, you are only allowed so many capsules even if the doctor prescribes it for 30 days.  Chronic pain sufferers are the ones who the regulations are affecting.  I doubt it has little affect on those selling and buying opioids illegally.

[GtHawk]

@GtHawk You make a very valid point.  Fighting to get a prescription filled on an opioid is ridiculous.  If you haven't been on an opioid medication in the past 6 months, you are only allowed so many capsules even if the doctor prescribes it for 30 days.  Chronic pain sufferers are the ones who the regulations are affecting.  I doubt it has little affect on those selling and buying opioids illegally.

@libertybele
You missed some of my rant Actually I am quite fortunate having the insurance I have and pain management doctor I have, also probably because I am now on Tramadol I am given five refills, while my 91 year old mother has Kaiser, may they rot in hell, and I have to fight every single time to get her a single refill. What are they afraid of that she will get addicted, so what? I shouldn't be surprised because that is exactly what they told me when I had to fight for my 89 year old fathers pain meds and he was dying so the addiction excuse was quite bizarre.

[libertybele]

@libertybele
You missed some of my rant Actually I am quite fortunate having the insurance I have and pain management doctor I have, also probably because I am now on Tramadol I am given five refills, while my 91 year old mother has Kaiser, may they rot in hell, and I have to fight every single time to get her a single refill. What are they afraid of that she will get addicted, so what? I shouldn't be surprised because that is exactly what they told me when I had to fight for my 89 year old fathers pain meds and he was dying so the addiction excuse was quite bizarre.

Gottcha -- even with our insurance outside of Medicare it's ridiculous.  Yes having a pain management doctor is different...they refill quite easily.

91 years old and they're afraid of addiction.  Seriously?  They should be keeping her as comfortable as possible!

[GtHawk]

Gottcha -- even with our insurance outside of Medicare it's ridiculous.  Yes having a pain management doctor is different...they refill quite easily.

91 years old and they're afraid of addiction.  Seriously?  They should be keeping her as comfortable as possible!

You'd be surprised at her, like the energizer bunny she just keeps pushing herself, I would get her out of Kaiser but at this point it would just be too hard on her and I refuse to make decisions for her I only give her options and she decides. I hate Kaiser because I had them for years and when I would go in with debilitating pain they would pretty much say take some tylenol and it will pass in a week or two, they really said that the last time just before I had to go on Medi-Cal. Amazingly after going on MediCal and getting sent to a pain management doctor who was aghast when the MRI report came back, Kaiser refused to give me an MRI. Bottom line is that in six months I had two major spine surgeries, so much for Kaiser who only cares about the money and not the patient. All this is why I have no patience for people that have not a single clue as to what long term debilitating pain is.