http://goo.gl/SIYf8v
As I have written before as a physician who saw too many dire results of intravenous drug abuse, I was amazed how narcotics were pushed as the treatment of choice for chronic pain in the 1990s, with the result that the US was once again engulfed in an epidemic of narcotic abuse and its effects. In mid-December, 2015, as reported in the Washington Post,
I repeat, the evidence that narcotics are effective for chronic pain other than that due to terminal cancer is very weak. The evidence that opioids have multiple side effects, some fatal, and can cause addiction, which has more side effects, and bad societal consequences, is strong. So the evidence that narcotics have benefits that are worth their harms, both to individuals and society, in this setting is essentially non-existent. So why did these guidelines go too far? Why invoke low quality evidence, when the evidence that is low quality is about the benefits of the drugs? Who should be sued? Furthermore, why did the CDC cave in so readily to these critics?