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Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

acsh.org

11–20 of 78 posts

Re: Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

#11
post #2

The claim here is that opioids are not as bad as you've been led to believe. I'll let the article speak for itself, but note that ACSH has been frequently criticized for taking a pro-industry stance on issues: * In 1979, the information director of the FDA said, "Whelan just makes blanket endorsements of food additives. Her organization is a sham, an industry front." * Ralph Nader claimed: "ACSH is a consumer front o…

You didn’t address any of the assertions in the article at all.

Re: Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

#12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most drugs, opioids are easy to demonize, at least up until you or someone close to you depends on them. It's naive to assume that the industry dislikes the focus on the "opioid epidemic". It works to their advantage in a variety of ways, but one of the biggest is the formation and reinforcement of a whole new class of specialized clinicians called "pain management specialists". In Florida for example, a law wen…

> But, err, yeah, let's write off anyone who sees this as a pro-pharma shill... ACSH does not seem like “anyone” but rather a documented pro-any-paying-industry-shill...

Did you actually read the article? Did you actually look at any of the statistics it discusses?

Re: Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

#14
post #2

The claim here is that opioids are not as bad as you've been led to believe. I'll let the article speak for itself, but note that ACSH has been frequently criticized for taking a pro-industry stance on issues: * In 1979, the information director of the FDA said, "Whelan just makes blanket endorsements of food additives. Her organization is a sham, an industry front." * Ralph Nader claimed: "ACSH is a consumer front o…

There isn't really any claim in the article as far as I can tell. There is just a whole lot of smoke and mirrors in the form of definitions, charts and bait and switch. Near the end of the article the author poses the question

> Does anyone really believe that Vicodin is killing more Americans than fentanyl and carfentanil? I sure don't.

With all the data being shown, you would expect that he could actually make more of a claim than a belief based one.

It is a really confused article that seems to have no other purpose than to try to create confusion around statistics. The author would have you believe that elephants don't exist because one source is describing the trunk, another is describing the leg and a third is describing the tail.

Re: Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

#15
post #7

The whole "opioid" shit fight can be summarised as: Pharmaceutical companies needed a way to profit from developing alternatives to morphine so they developed a bunch of dangerous bullshit then convinced everyone it was safer than morphine even though it's not. Morphine is awesome and has as its only long term side effect constipation. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Prescribe morphine, including to heroin addicts w…

There's no money in making it smarter.

If ever there was evidence of the appalling effects of using the profit motive as a proxy for intelligent policy, this is it.

Re: Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

#16
post #11
post #2

The claim here is that opioids are not as bad as you've been led to believe. I'll let the article speak for itself, but note that ACSH has been frequently criticized for taking a pro-industry stance on issues: * In 1979, the information director of the FDA said, "Whelan just makes blanket endorsements of food additives. Her organization is a sham, an industry front." * Ralph Nader claimed: "ACSH is a consumer front o…

You didn’t address any of the assertions in the article at all.

[deleted]

Re: Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

#19
post #13
post #6

I wonder how many death could be prevented by legalizing and regulating opioids and other drugs and educate users on different opioids and safe use.

Opioids are not stigmatized enough. They destroy lives plain and simple.

I don't think anyone disputes that they destroy lives; what people wonder is what is the most effective way to prevent them from doing that, and what to do with cases where they are already doing that.

One can seriously question whether "stigma" is that most effective way.

Re: Who Is Telling the Truth About Prescription Opioid Deaths?

#20
This article misses several points.

When we ask people with a substance misuse disorder who use opioids what they started on we find, very often, that they started on meds prescribed by a doctor. Those meds may not have been prescribed to them - they may have been prescribed to a neighbour or family member - but they were prescribed.

This is why the massive over-prescription of opioids is a problem. It floods American homes with opioids that people keep "just in case" and that are experimented with by family members or handed out to neighbours to help out.

Opioids may be a good choice for some people with long term pain (I personaly don't think they are), but that would be in a carefully controled setting being closely monitored by a doctor. It's definitely not using opioids that your neighbour has given you for your dodgy back.

The article makes an incoherent point about what is classed as a CPD. Benzos are dangerous (especially in combination with other meds or alcohol) but far fewer people are dying from benzos than from opioids.

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