Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jan 2017
Source: Herald News (West Paterson, NJ)
Copyright: 2017 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.northjersey.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2911
Author: Eugen Tarnow

OPIOID EPIDEMIC TOUGH TO UNDERSTAND

The opioid epidemic may have cost as many lives as have been recently lost
in Syria. Yet understanding it is difficult.

I saw an Associated Press article that showed that pharmaceutical
companies are focusing on lobbying state legislatures. There is a strong
relationship between Medicare prescriptions and state income. The poorer
the state, the more opioid prescriptions, presumably showing that
legislators are particularly vulnerable to Big Pharma if their
constituents don't have much money. There is a correlation also with a
state's Republican leadership suggesting that less regulation leads to
more Medicare opioid prescriptions.

However, that is not the full story. There is, surprisingly, no
correlation between state overdoses and Medicare opioid prescription
rates, at least from recent data I have seen.

The federal government does not release data beyond Medicare
prescriptions, and even for such data, the brands are kept secret.

The president of the American Medical Association also has suggested that
forcing doctors to ask about pain, which began around 2000, is another
likely culprit. This could be easily fixed on the federal level.

Eugen Tarnow

Fair Lawn
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