Author of The Painful Truth
“Babies Born Addicted,” “Addicted Babies,” “Babies with Addiction,” and similar headlines appear nearly daily in the media. This is because babies exhibit horrible withdrawal symptoms if they are born physically dependent on opioids, and it pulls at our heartstrings to see them suffer. But it misleads media consumers, policymakers, and family members into believing the newborns are addicted. They confuse signs of withdrawal with opioid addiction.
A study by the Center on Young Adult Health and Development, University of Maryland School of Public Health, Department of Behavioral and Community Health, found a correlation between energy drink consumption and subsequent drug use during young adulthood.
Published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, the research showed, “The typical pattern of ED [Energy Drink] consumption among this sample was sustained use throughout young adulthood. Such individuals appear to be at high risk for adverse substance use outcomes, and results suggest possible specificity regarding cocaine use and NPS [nonmedical use of prescription stimulants}, and AUD [alcohol use disorder] risk.”
The headline of a story on the social network site, LinkedIn, reads, “The opioid crisis is creating a fresh hell for America’s employers.” The story talks about how deeply prescription and illicit painkillers, including fentanyl, have affected the workplace.
At an Ohio-based pottery company, the owner no longer requires applicants to take a drug test. “Now,” according to the article, “he skips the tests and finds it more efficient to flat-out ask applicants: ‘What are you on?’ ” At a dishware manufacturing company in West Virginia, more than half of the applicants fail drug tests or refuse to submit to them. The opioid epidemic is “having a devastating effect on companies — large and small — and their ability to stay competitive.”
I grew up in Nebraska where participation in sports was at the core of a young person’s social, educational, and physical development. It was how we learned important lessons about winning, losing, and being part of a team. Football was a big part of our culture, but it was even more. Our identity was intertwined with the successes, or struggles, of our team. I still enjoy watching football games just as millions of Americans do. But recent reports about its health effect on most of the players gives me pause.
It’s easy to become jaded. As a physician, I have spent decades dealing with sickness. I have cared for people with intractable pain and addiction. I have witnessed their pain, and I have seen them suffer stigma, judgment, and rejection because of their disease. I’ve watched policymakers motivated by political concerns make things even more difficult for patients and the doctors who treat them. I have wondered how I could help.
Sometimes, it’s a challenge to stay optimistic, because there is unkindness and a lack of empathy in this world. There is selfishness and greed. Wars don’t occur because of benevolence.
When we think of the segments of the population who have been most affected by the opioid epidemic, we tend to think of poor, unemployed people who live in rural areas. In September of 2016, I published a blog called “Tough Times Feed America’s Opioid Epidemic: What You Need To Know.” In it, I described how the disease of addiction and overdoses can infest an economically-challenged community. I referenced a CNN article written by Wayne Drash and Max Blau, “In America’s drug death capital: How heroin is scarring the next generation,” that tells the story of how addiction, poverty, and social issues together have opened the door to increased opioid use and deaths in America’s heartland. Additionally, I mentioned a book titled Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, in which author Sam Quinones ties the opioid epidemic to the same risk factors: poverty, hopelessness, and unemployment.
Many wonderful videos turn up on Facebook. Here is a video clip I found the other day. It features one of our country’s real heroes and inspirations, Fred Rogers.
This is a video of Fred Rogers testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications in 1969 to save funding for public television stations. It was a masterful display of generosity and humanity.
He had 6 minutes to convince the subcommittee members that public television was worth saving. As you’ll see in the video, Fred Rogers faced an unfriendly, brusque, and cynical group of politicians … and easily won them over to achieve his goal of saving government funding for public television.
Mother Jones reports, “On a listening tour about the opioid epidemic in West Virginia on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price stressed the urgency of tackling the staggering overdose problem, saying ‘we’re losing people every single day across the nation, so we don’t have time to wait.’ ”
Secretary Price was right about that. However, “when it came time to discuss solutions, Price contradicted guidance from his own agency by asserting that medications to treat opioid addiction are ‘just substituting one opioid for another.'” As NPR says, his remarks were “unscientific and damaging.”
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 some Rust Belt states.”
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 downplayed the role of pharma’s contribution to the opioid problem. It didn’t, nor did it advocate for the use of any drugs, including opioids, because that was not the purpose of the film. Rather, it focused on the lack of compassion and treatment for people in pain, and it shed light on the largest public health problem in America: chronic pain.