Archives for December 2017

Gaslighting the Public

To Push a Political Agenda

It’s troubling to think that our thought leaders and government officials could intentionally mislead the public. But I was reminded this week after watching “The Post,” a film about the massive coverup that spanned three decades of secrets and lies about the Vietnam conflict, that our government has indeed intentionally deceived and lied to the American public.

Burying information is one way to further a political agenda. Limiting acceptable words and, as the National Review points out, choosing language specifically to distort the truth is another. You might be far more willing to ingest a meat additive, for example, if detractors hadn’t labeled it as “pink slime.”

Unintended Consequences of Limiting Prescribed Opioids

Arbitrarily Reducing Opioids

Payers, legislators, and healthcare systems are implementing limits on how many pills may be dispensed to people with pain in an effort to curb the opioid crisis.

CVS announced this past September they would limit the number of pills new patients with acute pain can obtain to a seven-day supply.

Last July, Maine passed legislation limiting new prescriptions for opioids to 100 morphine milligram equivalents per day for most patients.

The giant prescription benefits manager, Express Scripts, began a program last September limiting people with new opioid prescriptions to a seven-day supply, not to exceed 200 mg per day.

Please Send the FDA Your Comments

New Opioid Policy Steering Committee

On September 29 of this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a notice — Opioid Policy Steering Committee; Establishment of a Public Docket; Request for Comments — in the Federal Register, The Daily Journal of the United States Government.

The FDA is seeking comments from members of the public, including chronic pain patients and their families, healthcare professionals, academic institutions, and industry relative to the FDA’s new Opioid Policy Steering Committee (OPSC).

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. has expressed his commitment to confronting the opioid crisis and reducing the possibility of opioid addiction. He established the OPSC, and charged the committee with seeking input from the public.

The Tribune was wrong. Medicine often involves a risk to the patient.

Please note: This version of the blog originally appeared as an op-ed in the Salt Lake City Tribune on December 10, 2017.

The Tribune was wrong. Medicine often involves a risk to the patient.

The Salt Lake Tribune published an editorial on Sunday Nov 12, 2017, “Medical professionals need to play a role in opioid crisis.” The first line reads, “First do no harm.” According to the editorial, physicians who prescribe opioids to treat pain patients may be violating the Hippocratic Oath, because “a doctor’s first concern is to not do anything to make things worse.”

What Is a Human Life Worth?

President’s Council of Economic Advisers Calculate the Value of a Human Life

President Trump has declared the opioid crisis to be a national health emergency and appears to be developing the rationale for funding interventions to combat the program. The first step is to update the cost of the opioid crisis.

The President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) recently published a report estimating the cost of the opioid crisis in 2015 to be $504 billion.

For that calculation, the CEA estimated the value of a life to be about $10.1 million.