addiction
Why Fentanyl Is So Deadly
According to Martha Bebinger of WBUR, “About 75 percent of the state’s men and women who died after an unintentional overdose last year had fentanyl in their system, up from 57 percent in 2015 (PDF). It’s a pattern cities and towns are seeing across the state [of Massachusetts] and country, particularly in New England and…
Read MoreResponse to Stat News Article
Open Letter to Stat News In Stat News, David Armstrong’s article on March 24, “TV documentary on pain treatment funded by doctor with industry ties,” misrepresented the purpose of the film, “The Painful Truth“; ignored several of my detailed answers to his questions; and unfairly criticized my professional associations. Armstrong suggested that the TV documentary…
Read MoreThe Survey Says…the CDC Opioid Guideline Needs to Be Honestly Assessed
One-Year Anniversary of the CDC Opioid Prescribing Guideline On the one-year anniversary of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) opioid prescribing guideline, an online survey of patients, doctors, and healthcare providers conducted by Pain News Network and the International Pain Foundation (iPain) found that the guideline has “harmed pain patients, reduced access to…
Read MoreAn Epiphany
Myra Christopher is the PAINS Director and someone I’m proud to call a friend. She has given me permission to re-post her blog, An Epiphany, here. It was first published at PainsProject.org. This morning I was a guest on Central Standard, a program which airs on the local Kansas City NPR station. The program’s focus…
Read MoreWhat Happens When Pain Changes a Cop’s Perspective?
A cop who arrested addicts is now experiencing life as a pain patient and has a much different perspective. You can read Nick Selby’s first-person account of “what happens when pain meets bad health policy and bad drug laws” in the Washington Post. He tells his story well, and it’s one that’s familiar to…
Read MorePresident Obama, Overprescribing Isn’t the Only Reason for the Opioid Epidemic
President Barack Obama wrote in the January issue of the Harvard Law Review, “As their [prescription opioids] use has increased, so has their misuse.” This is true, but blaming only overprescribing of opioids for the current opioid crisis demonstrates a lack of understanding about the complexity of the problem. The putative argument President Obama…
Read MoreMisguided Repeal to Cure Opioid Crisis Ignores Patients’ Pain
Once again, I read the Intractable Pain Act (along with the section of it known as the “Pain Patient’s Bill of Rights”) which was passed by the Tennessee House and Senate in 2001 and repealed in 2015. I did not see anything in the legislation that supports the statement made by Knox News columnist Frank…
Read MoreThis is How Food Manufacturers and Drug Developers Evaluate Products: What You Need To Know
A recent CNN article written by Lisa Drayer describes the techniques that food manufacturers use to develop foods that will be more desirable and, thus, more marketable. There’s a wonderful book on the topic called Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss. Both Drayer and Moss agree that the…
Read MoreEmotional Trauma Affects Boys and Girls Differently: What You Need To Know
Emotional Trauma Affects Boys and Girls Differently More than a decade ago, I published an article proposing a tool that providers could use to help assess the risk of someone’s developing opioid aberrant drug-related behaviors if prescribed an opioid. The instrument is commonly called the opioid risk tool, and it is still commonly used today.…
Read MoreSolving the Opioid Crisis Won’t Be “Cheap, Quick, or Easy”
“Last Week Tonight” is a late-night television show that satirizes the news. Therefore, you probably wouldn’t expect the show’s host, John Oliver, to make the news. Yet he did (see Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, Slate, and more) when he did a segment about the opioid crisis. Using Humor to Discuss the Opioid Crisis Oliver tackled…
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