Pubdate: Sun, 27 Mar 2016
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2016 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Cyril H. Wecht
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n162/a06.html

OPIOID USE AND ABUSE

Patients and Doctors Discuss the Management of Drugs That Can Be 
Helpful or Harmful.

To the Editor: The number of deaths directly attributable to opioids 
far exceeds the incidence of fatalities associated with several other 
epidemics that we have experienced in this country in past years.

More than a half of 460 autopsies I performed last year for coroners 
in southwest Pennsylvania were drug related, and a substantial 
percentage were people who got started on powerful analgesics 
prescribed by their physicians.

The recently promulgated guidelines from the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention for physicians regarding excessive, repeated 
opioid prescriptions are long overdue and need to be followed up in 
more stringent fashion with pharmacists as well as physicians.

CYRIL H. WECHT

Pittsburgh

The writer is a forensic pathologist.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom