Policy and Law
Are Increasing Opioid Analgesic Deaths Caused by Pain Management?
March 1, 2007
In a recent article in Pharmacopidemiology and Drug Safety1, researchers from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, report on the tragic increase in drug poisoning deaths involving opioid analgesics. The authors link the rising opioid mortality with increasing medical use of opioids analgesics for "more aggressive pain management" (p. 618)
In an adjoining commentary2, David Joranson and Aaron Gilson call attention to the risks of using correlations to make causal statements that implicate pain management; they review significant evidence of non-medical sources of diversion of opioid analgesics, including millions of doses of prescription opioid analgesics that have been stolen from pharmacies before being prescribed3. Recommendations are offered for a public health examination that can inform effective interventions.
1. Paulozzi LJ, Budnitz DS, Xi Y. Increasing deaths from opioid analgesics in the United States. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety 2006;15:618-627. (Accessed through http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/commentary.htm)
2. Joranson DE, Gilson AM. Wanted: A public health approach to prescription opioid abuse and diversion (Editorial). Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety 2006;15:632-634. (Accessed through http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/commentary.htm)
3. Joranson DE, Gilson AM. Drug crime is a source of abused pain medications in the United States [letter]. J Pain Symptom Manage 2005;30:299-301. (Available at http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/publicat/05jpsm/05jpsm.pdf)
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