Author: Site Mods

Why does everyone insist on calling it the “OPIOID CRISIS”? If we continue to refer to the heroin/fentanyl problem as the “OPIOID CRISIS” we will NEVER properly address and correct the problem! You can’t fix a problem you haven’t defined properly! It’s that simple! To continue to refer to the heroin/fentanyl problem as the opioid crisis would be just as wrong as referring to an common injury specific to football as the “sports crisis”. Heroin and fentanyl do NOT represent all opioid medications, just as football does NOT represent all of sports.

There is a “heroin/fentanyl crisis” NOT an “opioid crisis”! But the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) would love nothing more than for the citizens of the United States to continue believing this, because for them to show progress in addressing the problem, all they need to do is go after the low hanging fruit: chronic pain patients! Ya, let’s go after those guys! We can identify them easily because they aren’t hiding! We can harass doctors who treat these patients to the point they won’t prescribe opioid pain medications any longer! And if these doctors don’t scare easily and continue treating these patients, we’ll charge and arrest them! By doing this, we can easily quantify how many opioid pain prescriptions we’ve eliminated by month and year. Reporting on these reductions will then be easy. We’ll be heroes!

Meanwhile, Chronic Pain Patients are those who have come to learn, after years of searching for effective treatments – both under the guidance of their physicians and on their own – that the only option left for them to help with maintaining some level of quality of life, is long term opioid pain treatment. This treatment is accomplished while the patient and his or her primary care physician carefully monitor both their pain and medication usage. Well, this used to be the case. But of course the CDC has decided they know the patient and the health of the patient better than the patient and their primary care physician does.

The CDC now has legislators, law enforcement, insurance companies, pharmacies, and the public at large believing that ALL doctors are pill pushers, and pain management centers are pill mills. And after having harassed, accused, arrested, charged and even prosecuted law abiding doctors, most physicians themselves are so afraid to prescribe a pill to address an issue of pain that they are simply refusing to write ANY prescriptions for ANY pain medications whatsoever! Even in Emergency Rooms the message is clear, if you broke your ankle and have accompanying acute pain, we’ll set your ankle for you, but all you’ll get out of us for the pain is either Tylenol or Ibuprofen. Because guess what? US Attorney General Jeff Sessions says, “… take an aspirin, toughen up, and learn to live with the pain!”

So just what has the CDC accomplished by forcing their very broad, generic, widespread restrictions on the prescribing of opioid pain medications on primary care physicians, pain management centers and patients? Let’s take a look. In 2016 the number of opioid overdose deaths reached 63,600 – a 21% INCREASE over the previous year of 2015. The number of opioid prescriptions dispensed in 2016 however was the LOWEST it had been in MORE THAN TEN YEARS!

A few key points to be highlighted:

1) This data, reported by the CDC, lumps together ANY and ALL overdose deaths that involved any sort of opioid, while not explaining how many deaths were the result of the use of an ILLEGAL OPIOID (heroin, cocaine, crack), or an illegal opioid COMBINED WITH OTHER DRUGS (benzodiazepines, fentanyl, alcohol), or an opioid PRESCRIBED TO SOMEONE OTHER THAN THE USER.

2) The number of deaths by opioid overdose INCREASED by 21% in 2016 over the previous year, yet the CDC’s mandated reduction in prescription use by legitimate and legal chronic pain patients was the lowest it had been in OVER TEN YEARS!

3) Using the CDC’s own data, it is clear to see that their focus is in the WRONG place! The blatant and widespread reductions of opioid pain medication being forced upon chronic pain patients who have a documented (by x-rays, ct-scans, MRIs, years of doctors evaluations) and legitimate need clearly would have demonstrated improved statistics had they been the true problem. Likewise, the data clearly proves that not only is the focus on chronic pain patients wasting time, people and funding, it is resulting in an increased number of deaths – deaths which might have otherwise been avoided.

Think about how grossly out of whack society has become solely because of the hysteria created by the CDC’s rush to judgment. A veterinarian will not hesitate to prescribe pain medication for your pet when the pet clearly demonstrates signs of pain, but we now require that human beings “take an aspirin and tough it out”. In addition, chronic pain patients have literally been charged with encouraging an increase in heroin addiction because the CDC has everyone believing that a young person who takes one Percocet and becomes addicted, does so in large part because doctors are accustomed to prescribing meds to their chronic pain patients.

Here are some facts.

– A very small percentage of chronic pain patients EVER overdose on their medications. This fact has been proven in study after study, no matter who conducts said study.
– Chronic Pain Patients DO NOT turn to “street drugs” in times when level heads prevail and appropriate pain treatment is maintained.
– The proper treatment of chronic pain patients is not only humane, but it is cost effective and keeps people productive. Providing a chronic pain patient with the appropriate amount of medication, in many cases, allows that person to continue providing for their family, so the need to rely on disability benefits and other forms of assistance is no longer needed, or at the very least, is not relied upon as the sole form of support.
– The number of people in this country who die from use of prescribed opioid medication or even heroin overdoses is almost non-existent when compared to the number of people who die from alcohol abuse – yet the CDC, DEA and other government agencies continue to insist on focusing their efforts on the WRONG PEOPLE!
– The treatment of chronic pain patients with opioid pain medication WORKS!

The paper published by CDC researchers in April 2018
documents how the 2016 guidelines were based on falsified data.