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Recipe for disaster? CDC SOFTENS rules for prescribing opioids because ‘patients are struggling to access them’
- US health chiefs have dropped advice to limit opioid prescriptions to three days
- They will also say patients on strong doses should not have them abruptly cut
- Campaigners had slammed the previous guidance as ‘problematic’
Stringent rules limiting opioid prescriptions were relaxed today in what appears to be a major U-turn.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines to curb unnecessary and ‘dangerous’ prescriptions in 2016.
But many doctors say they caused ‘significant harm’ to patients, leaving them unable to access pain medication.
After a review the agency relaxed its guidelines today, saying they were not meant to be applied as ‘absolute limits’.
Campaigners applauded the move, saying it would help curb the ‘unintended consequences’ of the previous guidance.
About 40million American adults, or 17.6 per cent, suffer from severe pain every year, estimates suggest.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the rules to curb unnecessary and ‘dangerous’ prescriptions in 2016
Alaska is predicted the biggest increase in overdose deaths, at 43.82 per cent (burgundy). It was the only US state to have an increase of 40 per cent or more. Eight states have predicted decreases between April 2021 and April 2022
The above graph shows the CDC estimates for the number of deaths triggered by drug overdoses every year across the United States. It reveals figures have now reached a record high, and are surging on the last three years
Opioid painkillers can be addictive — even when used under doctors’ orders — and were identified as a major driver of the US opioid epidemic in the 2000s.
But over recent years they have been overtaken by illicit substances like fentanyl, while drug fatalities have surged to a record high.
At the same time opioid prescriptions dropped from 225million a year in 2012 to 142million eight years later.
CDC officials today said their new guidelines ensured ‘compassionate’ and ‘safe’ care for people suffering from pain.
They overturn advice limiting opioid prescriptions for acute pain to three days,.
And they say patients on higher doses should not have their course ‘abruptly halted’ by doctors, but rather gradually tapered off.
They also dropped a limit recommending doctors avoid raising opioid doses to a level equivalent to 90 milligrams of morphine per day.
Previously these limits had led to patients not being offered the prescriptions, or pharmacists refusing to fulfil those from doctors.
The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) welcomed the relaxed CDC guidelines today.
A spokesman said in a statement: ‘APhA applauds CDC for creating a comprehensive pain management guideline and for including pharmacists as important team members in pain care.
‘Most notably, CDC has made clear not just how these guidelines should be used but also how they should not be used.
‘This should go a long way toward curbing the unintended consequences of the past.’
They released a draft of the updated guidance this February, and received more than 5,500 comments from both patients and medics.
Last year the American Medical Association urged the agency to scrap its 2016 guidelines.