PROP Urges Members to Oppose FDA Opioid Strategy

By Pat Anson, Editor

An anti-opioid activist group has sent an “Urgent Action Request” to it members, asking them to oppose plans by the Food and Drug Administration to give new guidance to health care providers about prescribing opioid pain medication.

The initial draft of the guideline for Prescriber Education for Extended-Release and Long-Acting Opioids Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies – more simply known as REMS -- warns prescribers at length about the risk of overdose, addiction and the “epidemic of prescription opioid drug abuse.” But Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) doesn’t think the draft goes far enough.

“The current draft is seriously flawed,” wrote PROP founder and Executive Director Andrew Kolodny, MD, in an email to supporters urging them to leave a comment in the Federal Register before the public comment period on the REMS guideline ends on Monday, July 10.

“Please post a comment about the draft on the FDA federal docket. FDA is required to review the comments and tally them. If FDA receives enough critical comments, there is a good chance they'll improve the document.” 

Kolodny’s email provides a “sample comment” for PROP members to use, urging the FDA to adopt an upper dose limit on opioids, mention the “lack of evidence supporting long-term opioid use” and provide a list of pain conditions for which opioids are “inappropriate” – such as fibromyalgia and chronic headache.

Until now, the REMS draft guideline – an update to a similar guideline released in 2012 – has drawn little public attention. Less than 300 comments have been made in the Federal Register, most of them focused on whether acupuncture and chiropractic care should be included as alternative treatments to opioids. 

The 10-page guideline warns doctors repeatedly about using caution when prescribing opioids, but it stops short of setting an artificial ceiling on doses, such as those recommended last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an even tougher guideline recently adopted by the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense (VA/DOD).

“We believe the REMS curriculum should be based on the CDC guideline and the VA/DOD guideline,” wrote Kolodny and other PROP board members in a letter to FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD. “The CDC and VA/DOD guideline warn against prescribing high doses of opioids and specifically recommend against doses greater than 90mg morphine equivalents. The Blueprint omits this critical topic.”

“I don't agree that the new blueprint is inconsistent with recommendations from other government agencies. For one thing, there is a specific statement in the blueprint that HCPs (health care providers) should know about the CDC guideline and other guidelines regarding safe opioid prescribing,” said Bob Twillman, PhD, Executive Director of the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, an organization of pain management providers.

“Let me also point out that PROP's call for inclusion of ‘an upper dose limit consistent with recommendations from other federal agencies’ perpetuates the myth that the CDC guideline contains such an upper dose limit. CDC was very clear when it issued the guideline that it should be considered to contain recommendations, not limits.”

The REMS guideline not only does not endorse a specific limit on opioids, it recommends that “a comprehensive treatment plan should be developed and customized to the needs of the individual patient.”  The focus on individualized patient care is something else that PROP takes issue with.

“Since the purpose of the Blueprint is to teach more cautious prescribing the focus should be first and foremost on when to use opioids for acute and chronic pain, and secondly, on how to use opioids as safely as possible. The Blueprint does not need to teach how to make a pain diagnosis, or what alternatives there are to opioids, both of which should be considered beyond the scope of REMS,” wrote Kolodny his his letter. “Until opioids are prescribed more cautiously it will not be possible to bring the opioid addiction epidemic under control.”

But opioids are being prescribed more cautiously and have been since 2010, as we learned from a new CDC study. Yet the nation’s opioid crisis continues to worsen, fueled by heroin, illicit fentanyl, counterfeit painkillers, and failed strategies to control the crisis by denying many pain patients their only form of treatment.   

To see the FDA’s draft REMS guideline, click here. To leave your own comment on the Federal Register, click here.

Drug Maker to Stop Sales of Opana ER

By Pat Anson, Editor

Endo International has agreed to voluntarily remove Opana ER from the market, one month after the Food and Drug Administration said safety risks posed by the pain medication outweigh its benefits. Opana ER is the brand name for Endo’s extended release opioid painkiller oxymorphone.

“Endo International continues to believe in the safety, efficacy, and favorable benefit-risk profile of Opana ER when used as intended, and notes that the Company has taken significant steps over the years to combat misuse and abuse,” the company said in a statement.

“Endo reiterates that neither the FDA's withdrawal request nor Endo's decision to voluntarily remove Opana ER from the market reflect a finding that the product is not safe or effective when taken as prescribed.”

If Endo had not agreed to stop Opana sales, the FDA would have taken steps to require its removal by withdrawing approval for the drug. The company said it would work with the FDA to remove Opana “in a manner that looks to minimize treatment disruption for patients” and to give patients time to consult with doctors about other alternative painkillers.

The FDA action is the first time the agency has taken steps to stop an opioid painkiller from being sold. Opana was reformulated by Endo in 2012 to make it harder to abuse, but addicts quickly discovered they could still inject it. The FDA said Opana was linked to serious outbreaks of HIV, hepatitis C and a blood clotting disorder spread by infected needles.

Next week the FDA will meet with “external thought leaders” to review the effectiveness of other painkillers made with abuse deterrent formulas, which make medications harder for addicts to crush or liquefy for snorting and injecting.

FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, has hinted the agency could take other painkillers off the market.

“We will continue to take regulatory steps when we see situations where an opioid product’s risks outweigh its benefits, not only for its intended patient population but also in regard to its potential for misuse and abuse,” Gottlieb said last month.

“I’m hopeful that this signals a change at FDA—and that Opana might be just the first opioid that they’ll consider taking off the market. It’s too soon to tell,” Andrew Kolodny, MD, Executive Director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) told Mother Jones.

Endo said it will incur a pre-tax impairment charge of $20 million in the second quarter of 2017 to write-off the remaining book value of Opana.  Sales of Opana reached nearly $159 million in 2016.

CDC: Opioid Prescribing Peaked in 2010

By Pat Anson, Editor

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted something today that most doctors and pain patients could have told the agency several years ago: prescriptions for opioid painkillers are declining.

In its newest Vital Signs report, the CDC analyzed prescription drug data compiled by QuintilesIMS from 2006 to 2015, and found that opioid prescribing in the U.S. peaked in 2010.  More recent data indicates the downward trend continued in 2016.

The CDC's new report undermines one of the main reasons behind the agency’s 2016 opioid prescribing guidelines, which falsely claimed that “opioid prescriptions per capita increased from 2007 to 2012,” when, in fact, they actually declined (see chart below).  

“Overall, opioid prescribing in the United States is down 18 percent since 2010,” said CDC Acting Director Anne Schuchat, MD.  

But even with that downward trend in prescribing, the CDC maintains opioid doses are still too high and contributing to the nation’s overdose crisis.

“Despite these overall declines, the bottom line remains we still have too many people getting opioid prescriptions for too many days at too high a dose,” said Schuchat. “In addition, the dramatic increase we’ve been seeing in heroin overdose is another tragic consequence of exposing too many people to prescription opioids, since most people who use heroin started off with misusing prescription opioids.”

Schuchat did not explain how her theory could account for the fact that heroin overdoses were increasing at a time when opioid prescriptions were declining. The association between heroin use and prescription painkillers is a common misconception at best, and a misleading half-truth at worst.

While many heroin users start out with painkillers (as well as tobacco, marijuana, alcohol and other drugs), most obtain their opioids illegally through friends, relatives and the black market. Heroin use by patients who are legally prescribed painkillers is actually quite rare, although the CDC's acting director makes it sound like one of the leading causes of overdoses.

"We're now experiencing the highest overdose drug death rates ever recorded in the United States, driven by prescription opioids and illicit opioids like heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl," Schuchat said.

Contrary to its own prescribing guideline, the CDC found that the average per capita daily morphine equivalent dose (MME) has been in decline for nearly a decade, from 59.7 MME per capita in 2006 to 48.1 MME in 2015.

The latter dose is well below the highest recommended limit of 90 MME in the CDC guidelines.

AVERAGE DAILY PER CAPITA MORPHINE EQUIVELANT DOSE (MME)

Source: CDC/QuintilesIMS

The CDC also found a wide variation in prescribing practices around the country, with six times more opioids per resident dispensed in the highest-prescribing counties than in the lowest-prescribing ones.

Many of the high-prescribing counties are in rural, economically depressed areas such as Appalachia, where there are high rates of disability, suicide and unemployment; suggesting that the so-called "opioid epidemic" is actually more of an epidemic of despair. Other factors associated with high rates of opioid prescribing are a high percentage of white residents, high rates of uninsured or Medicaid recipients, and high rates of patients with diabetes and arthritis.

Gabapentin Boosts High For Opioid Abusers

By Carmen Heredia Rodriguez, Kaiser Health News

ATHENS, Ohio — On April 5, Ciera Smith sat in a car parked on the gravel driveway of the Rural Women’s Recovery Program here with a choice to make: go to jail or enter treatment for her addiction.

Smith, 22, started abusing drugs when she was 18, enticed by the “good time” she and her friends found in smoking marijuana.

She later turned to addictive painkillers, then anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax and eventually Suboxone, a narcotic often used to replace opioids when treating addiction.

Before stepping out of the car, she decided she needed one more high before treatment. She reached into her purse and then swallowed a handful of gabapentin pills.

CIERA SMITH (KAISER HEALTH NEWS)

Last December, Ohio’s Board of Pharmacy began reporting sales of gabapentin prescriptions in its regular monitoring of controlled substances. The drug, which is not an opioid nor designated a controlled substance by federal authorities, is used to treat nerve pain. But the board found that it was the most prescribed medication on its list that month, surpassing oxycodone by more than 9 million doses. In February, the Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network issued an alert regarding increasing misuse across the state.

And it’s not just in Ohio. Gabapentin’s ability to tackle multiple ailments has helped make it one of the most popular medications in the U.S. In May, it was the fifth-most prescribed drug in the nation, according to GoodRx.

Gabapentin is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat epilepsy and pain related to nerve damage, called neuropathy. Also known by its brand name, Neurontin, the drug acts as a sedative. It is widely considered non-addictive and touted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an alternative intervention to opiates for chronic pain. Generally, doctors prescribe no more than 1,800 to 2,400 milligrams of gabapentin per day, according to information on the Mayo Clinic’s website.

Gabapentin does not carry the same risk of lethal overdoses as opioids, but drug experts say the effects of using gabapentin for long periods of time or in very high quantities, particularly among sensitive populations like pregnant women, are not well-known.

As providers dole out the drug in mass quantities for conditions such as restless legs syndrome and alcoholism, it is being subverted to a drug of abuse. Gabapentin can enhance the euphoria caused by an opioid and stave off drug withdrawals. In addition, it can bypass the blocking effects of medications used for addiction treatment, enabling patients to get high while in recovery.

Athens, home to Ohio University, lies in the southeastern corner of the state, which has been ravaged by the opioid epidemic. Despite experience in combating illicit drug use, law enforcement officials and drug counselors say the addition of gabapentin adds a new obstacle.

“I don’t know if we have a clear picture of the risk,” said Joe Gay, executive director of Health Recovery Services, a network of substance abuse recovery centers headquartered in Athens.

‘Available To Be Abused’

A literature review published in 2016 in the journal Addiction found about a fifth of those who abuse opiates misuse gabapentin. A separate 2015 study of adults in Appalachian Kentucky who abused opiates found 15 percent of participants also misused gabapentin in the past six months “to get high.”

In the same year, the drug was involved in 109 overdose deaths in West Virginia, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.

Rachel Quivey, an Athens pharmacist, said she noticed signs of gabapentin misuse half a decade ago when patients began picking up the drug several days before their prescription ran out.

“Gabapentin is so readily available,” she said. “That, in my opinion, is where a lot of that danger is. It’s available to be abused.”

In May, Quivey’s pharmacy filled roughly 33 prescriptions of gabapentin per week, dispensing 90 to 120 pills for each client.

For customers who arrive with scripts demanding a high dosage of the drug, Quivey sometimes calls the doctor to discuss her concerns. But many of them aren’t aware of gabapentin misuse, she said.

Even as gabapentin gets restocked regularly on Quivey’s shelves, the drug’s presence is increasing on the streets of Athens. A 300-milligram pill sells for as little as 75 cents.

(kAISER HEALTH NEWS)

Yet, according to Chuck Haegele, field supervisor for the Major Crimes Unit at the Athens City Police Department, law enforcement can do little to stop its spread. That’s because gabapentin is not categorized as a controlled substance. That designation places restrictions on who can possess and dispense the drug.

“There’s really not much we can do at this point,” he said. “If it’s not controlled … it’s not illegal for somebody that’s not prescribed it to possess it.”

Haegele said he heard about the drug less than three months ago when an officer accidentally received a text message from someone offering to sell it. The police force, he said, is still trying to assess the threat of gabapentin.

Little Testing

Nearly anyone arrested and found to struggle with addiction in Athens is given the option to go through a drug court program to get treatment. But officials said that some exploit the absence of routine exams for gabapentin to get high while testing clean.

Brice Johnson, a probation officer at Athens County Municipal Court, said participants in the municipal court’s Substance Abuse Mentally Ill Program undergo gabapentin testing only when abuse is suspected. Screenings are not regularly done on every client because abuse has not been a concern and the testing adds expense, he said.

The rehab program run through the county prosecutor’s office, called Fresh Start, does test for gabapentin. Its latest round of screenings detected the drug in five of its roughly 238 active participants, prosecutor Keller Blackburn said.

Linda Holley, a clinical supervisor at an Athens outpatient program run by the Health Recovery Services, said she suspects at least half of her clients on Suboxone treatment abuse gabapentin. But the center can’t afford to regularly test every participant.

Holley said she sees clients who are prescribed gabapentin but, due to health privacy laws, she can’t share their status as a person in recovery to an outside provider without written consent. The restrictions give clients in recovery an opportunity to get high using drugs they legally obtained and still pass a drug test.

“With the gabapentin, I wish there were more we could do, but our hands are tied,” she said. “We can’t do anything but educate the client and discourage” them from using such medications.

A stone painted with the phrase “Perfect Imperfection” is among the inspirational messages along the sidewalk leading to the main entrance of the Rural Women’s Recovery Program. (Carmen Heredia Rodriguez/KHN)

Smith visited two separate doctors to secure a prescription. As she rotated through drug court, Narcotics Anonymous meetings, jail for relapsing on cocaine and house arrest enforced with an ankle bracelet, she said her gabapentin abuse wasn’t detected until she arrived at the residential recovery center.

Today, Smith sticks to the recovery process. Expecting a baby in early July, her successful completion of the program not only means sobriety but the opportunity to restore custody of her eldest daughter and raise her children.

She intends to relocate her family away from friends and routines that helped lead her to addiction and said she will help guide her daughter away from making similar mistakes.

“All I can do is be there and give her the knowledge that I can about addiction,” Smith said, “and hope that she chooses to go on the right path.”

Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom whose stories appear in news outlets nationwide, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

‘Catastrophizing’ Doesn’t Mean Pain Is All in Your Head

(Editor’s Note: Last month we published a story about pain “catastrophizing,” and how a new study showed that women who have negative or emotional responses to pain are more likely than men to be prescribed opioid medication. Several readers were offended by the study, as well as our story, feeling they belittled women and their ability to handle pain.

The two co-authors of the study, which was published in the journal Anesthesiology, kindly agreed to address some of these concerns and further explain their research.)

By Yasamin Sharifzadeh and Beth Darnall, PhD, Guest Columnists

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and ideas about our recently published paper on opioid prescription and pain catastrophizing. We would like to address a few concerns brought up and to clarify some of the statements made in our publication.

First and foremost, our study analyzed pain catastrophizing, which has a different and more nuanced definition than terms such as complaining or worrying, that are commonly used to describe it.

Pain catastrophizing is measured via a 13 question survey, with specific subsets used to assess varying aspects of the way we emotionally approach pain. This term is not meant to downplay or discredit pain or its associated emotions. In fact, we use it to better understand the many manifestations of pain.

But for some people, the term “catastrophizing” is offensive. We hear those negative responses, but in clinic, when the term is described, many patients will say:  “I do that!  That is totally me.”  So while not everyone is offended by the term, some people are. It’s important to know that catastrophizing does not mean that pain is all in your head, or your fault, or that you did anything wrong.

Our nervous systems are hardwired to respond to pain with alarm. It is actually an acquired skill to learn to disengage one’s attention to pain and develop strategies that counteract this agitation in the nervous system. Otherwise, it can set us up to have greater distress and pain. This is true for everyone, but for some people the alarm in the nervous system rings louder. 

We sometimes use “negative mindset” as a way to describe difficulties in disengaging from attention to pain or focusing on worsening pain or worst-case scenarios. The science is clear on how our thoughts, attention, and emotions impact pain and pain treatment response.

Whatever the term used to describe this specific form of pain-related distress, it is highly predictive of response to various pain treatments. For this reason, it is important that we identify it and treat it. Not addressing these issues would be neglectful, given the degree to which one’s mindset can undermine treatment response and contribute to suffering.

Men and Women Catastrophize

We also wish to clarify some of the findings of the study. We found that men and women, in a general sample of chronic pain patients, had similar levels of pain catastrophizing. In other words, men and women do not significantly differ in their pain-related emotions. Also, consistent with previous peer-reviewed work, we found that women reported higher than average pain levels.

We took our robust analysis a few steps further to show that in women, pain-related emotions played a bigger role in the likelihood of having an opioid prescription than it did in men. Again, this is not saying that pain catastrophizing played no role in opioid prescribing for men -- just that it had a higher effect in women despite equal levels of pain catastrophizing between the sexes.

Overall, we view our study as a stepping-stone towards an improved understanding of both the physical and emotional manifestations of pain.

Pain catastrophizing is a unique term that describes just one of many ways that we can look at pain-related emotional distress, and it is not meant to discount pain in any way. Rather, it validates the importance of treating pain comprehensively in order to attain better results.

We hope that this study helps people with pain look at pain from many angles and work with their physician to find the solution that works best for them.

Yasamin Sharifzadeh is lead author of the study. She is a second year medical student at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Beth Darnall, PhD, is senior author of the study.  She is a clinical associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and author of 3 books:    "Less Pain, Fewer Pills," "The Opioid-Free Pain Relief Kit," and a forthcoming book entitled “Psychological Treatment for Chronic Pain.”

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represents the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

What It’s Like to Get a Lidocaine Infusion

By Crystal Lindell, Columnist

So I’m kind of annoyed at the wellness people out there for making the word “infusion” sound like something vitamin-related that rich people get at the spa right before a couple’s massage and a facial.

That is not what an infusion is. At least, that’s not what a lidocaine infusion is. It’s also not a shot. That seems to come up at lot. Everyone thinks I went into the hospital, got a quick shot in the arm, and then went to Chipotle. Again, that is incorrect.

I recently got my first lidocaine infusion at the recommendation of my pain specialist and my primary care doctor. They were hoping it would help me with the daily pain I have on my right side from what they think is intercostal neuralgia —  basically I always feel like I have a broken rib.

I was really apprehensive about trying it though, and the only reason I agreed to do it was because my primary care doctor strongly encouraged me to try it and I trust him. We’ve been through some stuff together and he has always seemed to have my best interest at heart.

He said of the like five people he knew who tried it, all had found success with it. I’m pretty sure he also is hoping to get me off opioids because it’s a huge hassle for him to write a hydrocodone script these days — all sorts of government regulatory boards are involved and he has to check a drug database every time to make sure I’m not coming up with a red flags. But I get that — I don’t actually love being high all the time either.

The way the lidocaine infusion was explained to me was not super encouraging though. Basically, they give you an IV at the hospital infusion center, and you have to sit there for an hour while they slowly pump the medication into your system. Then, at least for the first visit, you have to sit there for another hour after that and get a saline solution to keep the line open. Then they do a blood test and send you home. Also, you have to bring someone with you the first time, in case you can’t drive home afterward.

If it works, you have to go in every month and do it again.

The doctors told me that they don’t even really know why lidocaine infusions work because the effects seem to last longer than the drug should even be in your system. But they think it somehow blocks pain signals in your body.

On a personal note, I was apprehensive because I spend most days dreaming of living in Paris, and I didn’t want to be dependent on something that I’d have to do monthly and that might not even be available in France. In fact, Paris is why I want to get off the hydrocodone in the first place. It’s harder to get opioids over there.

But, like I said, my PCP was all about this infusion, so I decided to do it. They told me I could expect things like numbness and tingling in my fingers, toes and my mouth, a metallic taste, lightheaded, and a feeling of cotton in my mouth.

And, depending on how it went, I also might get nauseous and dizzy. But, they made it sound like all the side effects would go away as soon as they stopped the infusion, and that I should be fine as soon as it was over.

They did not tell me I would feel like I had been drugged.

I mean, I guess, looking back, feeling lightheaded is kind of along those lines, but the feeling is way more intense than that. At least it was for me.

I brought my mom and sister with me, and thank God I did, because the whole thing ended up being a lot more traumatic than I was expecting.

When they started the infusion I was actually FaceTiming my best friend, who said she could literally see the effects of the lidocaine on me in the span of one sentence. My speech got slower, my head got heavy and I could not think clearly.

“I... don’t... think... I.... can..... talk....... anymore,” I told her. 

“Yeah, I know,” she said before wishing me luck and hanging up the phone. 

I don’t know why I was not expecting such an intense reaction, but I wasn’t. About 10 minutes in, I literally started crying for no reason. And the reason I know I had no reason to cry is that I remember telling everyone around me that I didn’t know why I was crying. 

When I started getting really nauseous, they did stop the infusion and give me some graham crackers, which helped. But as soon as they started again the drugged feeling came back. 

The nurse at the infusion center said a lot patients describe it as having too many cocktails. So it’s past that fun one-or-two-glasses-of-wine stage, but just shy of the blackout-drunk stage. Add in that it all feels like it’s happening against your will, and it’s not exactly a fun two hours.

Also, my legs turned to jelly, and I couldn’t think clearly at all. I was literally so naïve going in that I honestly thought I might be able to get some work done while they were doing the infusion. I was not. All I could manage was lying on my back, asking everyone around me if my lips were swollen, and closing my eyes. 

Overall, it was a lot more like going into the hospital for a small procedure than I was expecting it to be — traumatic, time consuming and hard on my body.

When they finished everything, they just let me get up and walk out of the hospital, but I should have had a wheelchair. My legs did not seem to work at all and my brain was in a fog. I felt like how people in action movies look when they’ve been drugged and kidnapped against their will. 

I was hoping to go home and sleep it off, but I woke up the next day still feeling pretty drunk. All told, it took about 15 hours after the infusion before I felt like I had my brain back. 

Did It Work?

Of course, none of this really matters. What really matters is whether or not this thing worked. And I have to tell you it did — for about six days. 

Then, on day seven I woke up at 1 a.m. feeling like someone was stabbing my ribs and I remembered how much chronic pain sucks. I spent the whole day on hydrocodone trying to get my pain under control. 

Those first six days were glorious though.  I would literally wake up pain free. Healthy even. And I got so much done around the house. I did the dishes, I vacuumed. I went for walks without any pain at all. My body felt like it did before I ever had intercostal neuralgia. It was incredible.

Today is day eight, and I haven’t taken any hydrocodone yet, but it’s early and who knows how I will feel later. 

Maybe day seven was just a fluke. Maybe it was the weather related, or maybe it was because I ate too much sugar and it spiked my inflammation. I don’t know. I’m seeing my pain specialist again in a couple weeks, and we’ll decide at that time if another infusion makes sense for me. I hoping she will tell me that the more infusions you get the longer they last, but I have no idea if that’s the case. 

Whether or not it makes sense for you is another matter altogether. It depends on what type of pain you have, what types of drugs you are already on, and what your feelings are on being drugged.

I will leave you with this though. The nurse at the infusion center said they are getting way more patients for lidocaine infusions for chronic pain and she thought it was directly related to the push to get people off opioids.  The nurse also admitted that the lidocaine doesn't work for everyone, and she was seeing lots of patients who had been managing their pain with things like hydrocodone for decades suddenly being forced to get off them. She said it was hard to watch patients suddenly lose access to drugs that had been helping them. 

But, she also said that for some patients the lidocaine infusions were life changing and a miracle. 

Pain is complicated and how we treat it has to be complicated as well if it’s going to be effective. Maybe lidocaine can help some people, but maybe opioids are the only thing that help others. And maybe, as most of us already know, everyone is different. 

Crystal Lindell is a journalist who lives in Illinois. She loves Taco Bell, watching "Burn Notice" episodes on Netflix and Snicker's Bites. She has had intercostal neuralgia since February 2013.

Crystal writes about it on her blog, “The Only Certainty is Bad Grammar.”

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represent the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

Patient Shoots Two at Las Vegas Pain Clinic

By Pat Anson, Editor

A gunman who shot and wounded two people at a Las Vegas pain clinic before taking his own life has been identified as 50-year old Chad Broderick of Las Vegas.

Police say Broderick walked into the Center for Wellness and Pain Care of Las Vegas Thursday afternoon and asked for an unscheduled appointment to see a doctor. When it was refused, he pulled out a gun and started shooting in the lobby. About a dozen people were inside the clinic at the time.

“When I heard the first gunshot, I thought it was a bottle or something on the floor, like something just popped,” a patient told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“When I started hearing that ‘pop, pop, pop,’ I was so scared.”

“One of the most frightening experiences ever!” Neville Campbell, MD, the pain clinic’s medical director, wrote on his Facebook page soon after the shooting.

NEVILLE CAMPBELL/FACEBOOK

Campbell said there were “piercing screams” as people ran to escape the gunfire.

“As we barricaded ourself (with 5 others ) with a wooden desk behind the door in small office , the question of life, meaning and purpose overwhelmed my mind,” said Campbell. “But God is Good. He will never desert his own. Thank you for protecting my staff members.”

The two people who were hit by gunfire are expected to survive. Two others suffered minor injuries while trying to escape. Broderick died at the scene after shooting himself.

CHAD BRODERICK/FACEBOOK

Broderick’s neighbors told the Review Journal that he was a husband and father of two, who mostly kept to himself but had a friendly wave. One neighbor called Broderick a “really nice gentleman” who complained of back pain.

“He used to talk about taking pain pills,” said Welborn Williams. “He couldn’t get any sleep at night.”

Broderick’s Facebook page reveals a man who loved fishing and was a gun enthusiast. Ironically, in 2012 Broderick recommended without comment on his page a story about an employee at a Las Vegas medical clinic who was shot during an armed robbery.

The Review Journal reported that Broderick had a concealed weapons permit and five firearms. Williams said Broderick had offered to teach him about firearms.

“I hate to see anyone in pain like that,” Williams said. “But there should have been another way for him.”

In a statement on its Facebook page, the clinic thanked “all our patients and friends for your kind words and well wishes. We are grateful that everyone is ok.”

The clinic's website says its mission is to "foster an environment of healing" through interventional pain treatments such as epidural steroid injections, as well as massage, acupuncture, aromatherapy and prayer.

The Facebook statement said the clinic would probably remain closed until July 10. Its patients are being referred to another clinic in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb.

Insurer Reports Soaring Rates of Opioid Addiction

By Pat Anson, Editor

The number of Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) customers diagnosed with opioid addiction has soared by nearly 500 percent in recent years, according to a new report that found only about a third of the addicted patients were getting medication assisted treatment.

The Health of America Report analyzed prescription data for over 30 million BCBS customers from 2010 to 2016. The report focused mainly on patients who use legally prescribed painkillers, while virtually ignoring addicts who use heroin, illicit fentanyl and other illegal opioids, who are now the driving force behind the nation’s opioid crisis.

"Opioid use disorder is a complex issue, and there is no single approach to solving it," said Trent Haywood, MD, senior vice president and chief medical officer for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, which represents 36 independent insurers that provide health coverage to over 100 million Americans.

“Opioid use disorder” is a broad and somewhat misleading term that includes illegal drug addicts, as well as chronic pain patients who take opioids responsibly, and develop a tolerance or dependence on them.

The BCBS report found that patients who filled prescriptions for high doses of opioids had much higher rates of opioid use disorder than those on lower doses. Women aged 45 and older had higher rates of the disorder than men. Women of all ages were also more likely to fill an opioid prescription.

The BCBS report found that patients who filled prescriptions for high doses of opioids had much higher rates of opioid use disorder. Women aged 45 and older had higher rates of the disorder than men. Women of all ages were also more likely to fill an opioid prescription.

Less than one percent of BCBC customers (0.83%) were diagnosed with opioid use disorder in 2016, a rate much higher than in 2010 (0.14%). The rise was attributed to “an increased awareness of the disorder,” suggesting that doctors were simply more likely to diagnose opioid addiction then they were in 2010.    

While the diagnosis of opioid use disorder rose by 493 percent during the study period, there was only a 65 percent increase in the number of BCBS customers who were prescribed addiction treatment drugs such as Suboxone (buprenorphine).

BCBS customers in the South were more likely to be diagnosed with opioid use disorder. Alabama led the nation with a diagnosis rate of over 1.6 percent, twice the national average.

The report noted that New England leads the nation in the use of medication-assisted treatments, even though the region has lower levels of opioid use disorder than other parts of the country. In Massachusetts, 84% of BCBS customers diagnosed with addiction were getting treatment with medication.

That prompted Blue Cross Blue Shield Association of Massachusetts to issue a press release claiming the state was “ahead of the nation when it comes to combating the opioid epidemic.” The insurer was one of the first in the country to take steps to significantly reduce access to opioids by its customers. As a result, only 2% of Blue Cross Blue Shield members in Massachusetts are receiving high doses of opioids, far less than the national average of 8.3 percent.

However, restricting access to pain medication has failed to stop a surge in opioid overdoses in Massachusetts, most of which are now caused by illicit fentanyl.  Over 2,000 people died of opioid overdoses in Massachusetts last year, almost three times the number of deaths in 2012, when Blue Cross Blue Shield began restricting access to painkillers.

MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Prescription opioids were involved in only 9% of the overdose deaths in Massachusetts at the end of 2016. In addition, the most recent report from the state's prescription drug monitoring program identified only 264 of the 288,519 people receiving Schedule II opioids as having “activity of concern” that could indicate they were misusing the drugs. That minuscule rate of 0.0915% hardly suggests that legitimate pain patients are the source of Massachusetts’s drug problem.

This week the largest health insurer in the Philadelphia area, Independence Blue Cross, announced plans to limit the prescribing of opioids in its network to just five days for acute pain -- making it one of the first insurers in the country to adopt such a strict limit.

The Wrong Opioid War

By Roger Chriss, Columnist

The opioid crisis continues to worsen, with rising rates of addiction and overdose deaths. The 2016 CDC opioid prescribing guidelines and earlier state guidelines in Washington and Oregon have not helped. Government interventions, from increased physician surveillance to reduced opioid manufacturing quotas by the DEA, are not working.

And the reason is simple: they are fighting the wrong opioid war.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) reports that opioid addiction rates have doubled in the past decade to the current estimate of 2 million opioid addicts and another 500,000 heroin addicts.

It’s a myth that prescription painkillers are the leading cause of addiction. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), “use of most drugs other than marijuana has stabilized over the past decade or has declined."

As can be seen in the chart below, overall prescription drug abuse was virtually flat between 2002 and 2013, the most recent year data is available. Significant increases were seen for marijuana, starting in 2007 with state-level legalization, and for illicit drugs like heroin.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DRUG ABUSE

“Although heroin use in the general population is rather low, the numbers of people starting to use heroin have been steadily rising since 2007. This may be due in part to a shift from abuse of prescription pain relievers to heroin as a readily available, cheaper alternative,” says NIDA Director Nora Volkow, MD.

If opioid addiction were starting with medical opioids prescribed to adults for acute pain or persistent pain disorders, we’d be seeing a rise in prescription drug abuse and addiction, with a high percentage of addicts found among people on opioid therapy. But in fact this is not happening.

So the question becomes: When does opioid addiction start?

At a very young age, usually. There were over 2.8 million new users of illicit drugs in 2013, according to NIDA, or about 7,800 new users per day. Over half (54%) of these new users were under 18 years of age.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reports that 90% of all drug addiction starts in the teens. Other studies tell us that opioid medications are rarely the first drug young people misuse, and that early signs of addiction start with alcohol, marijuana and tobacco use.

Further, Pain Medicine News reports that research at Boston Children’s Hospital found that “if a patient reaches the age of 25 years without misuse, the odds of that patient ever becoming an opioid misuser are much lower.” Thus, opioid abuse almost always starts during adolescence, a time when medical treatment with opioids is rare.

According to NIDA, 6.5 million Americans aged 12 or older used prescription drugs non-medically in 2013. The source of these drugs is usually not a doctor or a drug seeking patient.  Doctor shopping is rare, occurring in about 1 out of 143 patients. And according to ASAM, “most adolescents who misuse prescription pain relievers are given them for free by a friend or relative.”

The medical use of opioid drugs for persistent pain disorders is conspicuous by its absence. That is because pain patients are a statistically insignificant part of the opioid crisis. As Maia Szalavitz reported in Scientific American, “regulatory efforts will fail unless we acknowledge that the problem is actually driven by illicit—not medical—drug use.”

Federal agencies and state governments by and large have not recognized this. And we are witnessing the consequences. The CDC reports that overdose deaths for heroin and illicit fentanyl have been rising rapidly since 2010, while overdose deaths involving commonly prescribed opioids have been almost flat.

Moreover, a significant percentage of the overdose deaths are suicides. The CDC classified 10% of the overdose deaths in 2015 as suicides. Florida’s Medical Examiners Commission came up with even more startling numbers, classifying 20% of the state’s oxycodone deaths and 31% of its hydrocodone deaths as suicides.  

"Hidden behind the terrible epidemic of opioid overdose deaths looms the fact that many of these deaths are far from accidental. They are suicides," says Dr. Maria Oquendo, President of the American Psychiatric Association.  

The opioid crisis is about illicit drug use. Policies that fail to recognize that fact will end up fighting the wrong war, with consequences that are becoming all too common.

Roger Chriss lives with Ehlers Danlos syndrome and is a proud member of the Ehlers-Danlos Society.

Roger is a technical consultant in Washington state, where he specializes in mathematics and research.

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represents the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

Health Insurer to Adopt 5 Day Limit on Opioids

By Pat Anson, Editor

The largest health insurer in the Philadelphia area, Independence Blue Cross, has announced plans to limit the prescribing of opioids in its network to just five days for acute pain.

New Jersey and several others states have implemented or are considering laws to limit the number of days opioids can be prescribed for acute, short-term pain. But Independence is one of the first insurance companies to adopt such a measure as policy. The insurer provides health coverage to more than 2.5 million people in southeast Pennsylvania, and through its affiliates to another 8.5 million people in 25 states and Washington, DC.

Independence already limits the quantity of opioids that physicians can prescribe. The company claims that policy has reduced "inappropriate" opioid use by its members by nearly 30 percent since 2014.

"Beginning in July 2017, we will further restrict prescriptions to no more than five days for initial low dose opioids. We will continue to cover longer lengths of opioid prescription use for members suffering from cancer related pain and hospice patients," the company said in a statement.

"This safeguard prevents multiple opioid prescriptions from being filled at different pharmacies and reduces the risk for addiction while addressing legitimate pain treatment. It also reduces the risk of unused medication being diverted into the hands of unintended users."

The company said it regularly promotes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's opioid prescribing guidelines, however those guidelines are voluntary and only intended for primary care physicians who are treating chronic pain. They do not recommend limiting opioids for acute pain.

"Most people may not require more than 5 days of an opioid for minor operations like skin biopsies or dental procedures.  However, there are many people who will require more than 7 days due to the type of operation and the person's response to pain," said Lynn Webster, MD, past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. "This shows how uninformed the (insurance) payers are with limiting days of treatment.

"A 5-day limit of opioids will increase the insurance company’s profits by paying for fewer pills, but there will be people who will needlessly suffer." 

Independence's parent company reported record revenue of $16.7 billion in 2016, an increase of 21 percent from the previous year. The company ended 2016 with a surplus of $2.4 billion.

Last year, 907 people died of drug overdoses in Philadelphia. Heroin and illicit fentanyl were involved in about half of the opioid overdoses. The city is currently on track to reach 1,200 fatal overdoses in 2017.

Deaths from prescription opioids like oxycodone and hydrocodone have been declining in Philadelphia since 2013, according to the city's Department of Public Health, a year before Independence started limiting access to painkillers.

VA Study Could Lead to More Cuts in Opioid Prescribing

By Pat Anson, Editor

A new study by a prominent think tank could give further ammunition to the Department of Veterans Affairs to reduce access to opioid pain medication in its healthcare system.

Researchers at the RAND Corporation studied data from nearly 32,500 patients who were treated at VA facilities in 2007 and were identified as having an opioid use disorder. The goal was to identify “quality measures” that could help reduce the death rate of addicted patients.

The researchers found that deaths were much lower among patients who were not prescribed opioids or anxiety medications, those who received counseling, and patients who had regular visits with a VA physician. They estimate the number of deaths could be reduced by a third if all three quality measures were adopted. 

"This is a very large drop in mortality and we need to conduct more research to see if these findings hold up in other patient care settings," said Dr. Katherine Watkins, a physician scientist at RAND and lead author of the study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

"But our initial findings suggest that these quality measures could go a long way toward improving patient outcomes among those who suffer from opioid addiction."

The findings suggest that a key to reducing mortality is to minimize the prescribing of opioid medication and benzodiazepines to veterans with opioid addiction. Benzodiazepines are a class of psychiatric medication used to treat anxiety disorders.

Because lower death rates were also associated with counseling and quarterly visits with a VA physician, researchers concluded that addicted patients benefit from making a connection with a caregiver, who can identify changes in their behavior and potential for relapse.

Surprisingly, patients in the study who were prescribed addiction treatment drugs such as Suboxone (buprenorphine) did not have lower death rates.

"We know from other research that medication-assisted therapy can help people stay off drugs, get jobs and lead more-productive lives," Watkins said. "But in this study, the treatment strategy was not associated with lower mortality."

The VA has already taken a number of measures to reduce opioid prescribing, including a new guideline that strongly recommends against prescribing opioids for chronic pain. VA physicians are also being urged not to prescribe opioids long-term to anyone under the age of 30. The guideline recommends exercise and psychological therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy as treatments for chronic pain, along with non-opioid drugs such as gabapentin.

“We’ve been working on this now for seven years and we’ve seen a 33 percent reduction in use of opioids among veterans, but we have a lot more to do. We have a lot we can learn,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin told a White House opioid commission earlier this month. "At the VA, my top priority is to reduce veteran suicides. And when we look at the overlap with substance abuse and opioid abuse, it’s really clear.”

According to a recent VA study, an average of 20 veterans die each day from suicide, a rate that is 21 percent higher than the civilian population.  Veterans also suffer from high rates of chronic pain, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Acetaminophen May Harm Male Fetuses

By Pat Anson, Editor

The pain reliever acetaminophen may inhibit the sexual development of male babies whose mothers take the over-the-counter drug while pregnant, according to a new study by Danish researchers. The study only involved laboratory rodents, but one researcher called the findings “very worrying” and said pregnant women should think carefully before using the painkiller.

Acetaminophen – which is more commonly known as paracetamol outside the U.S. -- is used by over half the pregnant women in the United States and European Union. It is the active ingredient in Tylenol, Excedrin, and hundreds of pain medications.

Previous research has already indicated that acetaminophen can suppress the development testosterone in male fetuses. It has also been linked to autism and attention deficit problems in young children.

The new study, published in the journal Reproduction, involved mouse fetuses that were exposed to acetaminophen at varying doses. The dose that produced the most effect was three times higher than the maximum recommended daily dose in humans.

Researchers evaluated the male rodents' behavior after their birth, studying their aggressiveness toward other male mice, their ability to mark their territory, and their ability to mate. They were found wanting in all three areas.

The abnormal behavior was apparently caused by lower levels of testosterone, the male sex hormone that fuels the development and programming of the male body and brain. Testosterone also controls sex drive and the production of sperm.

"We have demonstrated that a reduced level of testosterone means that male characteristics do not develop as they should. This also affects sex drive," said Dr. David Møbjerg Kristensen of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen. "Mice exposed to paracetamol at the fetal stage were simply unable to copulate in the same way as our control animals. Male programming had not been properly established during their fetal development, and this could be seen long afterwards in their adult life. It is very worrying."

When the brains of the mice exposed to acetaminophen were analyzed, researchers found significantly fewer neurons in the brain region that controls sex drive.

“These findings add to the growing body of evidence suggesting the need to limit the widespread exposure and use of APAP (acetaminophen) by pregnant women,” said Kristensen.

A study published last year in JAMA Pediatrics  linked prenatal use of acetaminophen to a higher risk of behavior problems, hyperactivity and emotional problems in children. The pain reliever has also long been associated with liver injury and allergic reactions such as skin rash.

The FDA label for products containing acetaminophen warns about the risk of liver damage and other side effects, but does not specifically warn pregnant women about using the pain reliever. The agency said in 2015 that the evidence was “too limited” to justify such a warning.  

In its 2016 opioid prescribing guidelines, the CDC recommends acetaminophen as an alternative to opioid pain medication. The guideline only briefly mentions that acetaminophen was involved in nearly 900 overdose deaths in 2010 and can cause liver problems. The guideline does warn pregnant women -- at length -- that opioids can cause birth defects, poor fetal growth, still births and neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome.

Do Depression and Back Pain Lead to More Opioids?

By Pat Anson, Editor

Depressed patients with low back pain were twice as likely to be prescribed an opioid medication and to receive higher doses, according to the results of a new study that looked at data from a decade ago.

Lower back pain is the world’s leading cause of disability and the most common condition for which opioids are prescribed. Nearly a quarter of the opioid prescriptions written in the U.S. are for low back pain.

"Our findings show that these drugs are more often prescribed to low back pain patients who also have symptoms of depression and there is strong evidence that depressed patients are at greater risk for misuse and overdose of opioids," said John Markman, MD, director of the Department of Neurosurgery's Translational Pain Research Program at the University of Rochester Medical Center and senior author of the study published in the journal PAIN Reports.

The researchers found that patients who screened positive for depression were more than twice as likely to be prescribed an opioid, and they received twice the cumulative dose of opioids per year.

This not only suggests that doctors were more likely to prescribe opioids to a patient suffering both physically and psychologically, but it also implies that analgesics are less effective in pain patients who are depressed.

One obvious weakness of the study is that it relied on prescription data from 2004 to 2009 that was compiled by the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, a federal survey of patients, their families, healthcare providers and employers. That time frame coincides with a steep rise in opioidprescribing, but does not represent the current environment in which opioid medication is harder to obtain.

The researchers believe, however, that understanding prescribing patterns from a decade ago may help improve the effectiveness of clinical trials. Low back pain is the condition most often studied to approve new pain medications, and depressed patients are often excluded from trials because of incentives to get positive findings about a new analgesic.

“Because several pivotal clinical trials for opioid treatment of LBP (low back pain) have systematically excluded the most depressed patients, it is probable that clinicians and patients alike are drawing conclusions from a study group that may differ in important ways from likely opioid recipients. These clinical trial populations may underrepresent the patients most likely to receive opioids, especially those who are mostly likely to receive higher dosages for longer durations,” Markman said.

Lower back pain may be the world’s leading cause of disability, but there is surprisingly little evidence about the best ways to treat it.

A recent review of 20 clinical studies involving nearly 7,300 patients found that opioids provide only “modest” short-term relief from lower back pain. Opioids were also no more effective than non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). About half of the patients involved in the studies dropped out because they didn’t like the side-effects of opioids or because they found them to be ineffective.

CDC Guidelines Making Opioid Problem Worse

By Gary Nations, Guest Columnist

I’m a medically retired police officer with over 22 years of service. I have been in chronic pain management for many years now and my condition will never get better.

Throughout my time dealing with workers compensation and the public employee retirement system in Mississippi, I have been examined by no less than five medical doctors. Unfortunately for me, the conclusion is my condition is progressive and will only get worse.

I’ve had four neck surgeries and one lower back surgery due to on-the-job injuries. For the past few years I have found a pain management regimen that allows me to have somewhat of a normal life, although I still experience pain 24/7. I would love to see a substance that relieved pain without the problems caused by opioid medication.

The recent upswing in deaths from opioid abuse is tragic. However, the guidelines developed by the CDC for doctors to reduce opioid dosages for pain patients like me will cause more problems than it solves.

I believe some of the actions taken so far have created a vacuum and worsened the epidemic, which I believe is about to get much bigger.  Some people are going to abuse some type of substance no matter what. That’s an unfortunate fact that cannot be stopped.

Cutting the dose of medication for people in my position who need it will force them to violate the law to maintain their level of pain management and quality of life.

GARY NATIONS

This could prove a disaster, as we know many street drugs contain powerful opioids such as fentanyl, which the DEA has been very unsuccessful in stopping. Some of these street drugs are counterfeit. They appear to be a medication that a doctor would prescribe, yet they contain other drugs that cause people to overdose and die. From what I read and understand, this is what happened to the entertainer Prince. Some patients may also tire of the constant pain and commit suicide with street drugs.

The Declaration of Independence endows each citizen the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I believe the CDC’s attempt to curb the opioid overdose and death rate is very noble. However, I also believe in the long run it will violate citizens’ rights, do much more harm than good and end up in the civil courts. As I’m sure you are aware, in some cases large sums of money are paid out each year in legal cases for “pain and suffering.”

There is no way the CDC can tell what medication and how much medication I or anyone else needs to attempt to maintain their current level of activity, quality of life and pursuit of happiness.  Only a qualified physician with medical training, medical records and medical images can understand what a patient may or may not need. The CDC needs to remember there are many people with very legitimate needs for these controlled substances. 

Last year was the first time in over ten years I could enjoy hunting and fishing again. I became active enough that I went from 255 pounds down to 215 pounds. I started feeling better and asked my doctor to drop my “breakthrough” pain meds from 120 to 90 per month. I’ve since realized I really need about 100 per month, but I get by.

The key here is I volunteered to stop taking 30 pills per month. Yes, my doctor was surprised.  However, because of rule changes, I can’t get my pain meds from that doctor anymore. I have to drive one hour each way to a pain management doctor to get my meds now. The long drive is very painful and the cost is higher.

Cutting my current pain management regimen will result in me being in more pain than I am now. It will cause me to be unable to exercise my right to hunt and fish. It will cause me to be unable to do yard work, such as mowing the lawn. Not being able to mow the lawn will result in an additional expense of $80 to $100 per month during the warm weather months.

It will cause me to once again be unable to travel and engage in some aspects of the only hobby I can currently enjoy, amateur radio. In other words, much of my liberty will be taken and my quality of life heavily impacted. My only income is Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System disability payments. Some citizens that are currently able to work with proper pain management may also have to seek disability if their doses are cut.

As I stated, I believe the effort to stop drug abuse and addiction is very noble. However, the route to solving this opioid problem should not include violating the rights of our disabled citizens or cause some patients to become criminals while trying to maintain what little normalcy and quality of life they have now.

I’m seeking your help to stop the CDC from punishing citizens that need to be on long term pain management and to get the CDC to reevaluate how it is handling a very important problem. I believe it’s time for someone to help us by filing for an injunction or a class action lawsuit to stop this craziness.

Gary Nations lives in Mississippi.

Pain News Network invites other readers to share their stories with us.  Send them to:  editor@PainNewsNetwork.org. 

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represent the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

Addiction Treatment Initial Focus of Opioid Commission

By Pat Anson, Editor

President Trump’s commission on drug addiction and the opioid crisis held its first public meeting today, a two-hour session focused largely on expanding access to addiction treatment.

Chaired by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the commission is expected to make interim recommendations to the president in the next few weeks on how to combat drug abuse, addiction and the overdose epidemic, which is blamed for the deaths of nearly 60,000 Americans last year. A final report from the commission is due by October 1.

It is not clear yet how much of a role opioid prescribing and pain medication will play in the commission’s work. Most of its five members have publicly blamed overprescribing for causing the opioid epidemic.

“No offense, but that is where this came from,” said Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a commission member.

“The opioid crisis is ruining lots of people’s lives and lots of families across America," David Shulkin, Secretary of Veterans Affairs told the commission. "At the VA, my top priority is to reduce veteran suicides. And when we look at the overlap between substance abuse and opioid abuse, it’s really clear.

“We’ve been working on this for seven years and we’ve seen a 33 percent reduction in use of opioids among veterans, but we have a lot more to do.”

Shulkin did not mention that veteran suicides have soared during that period, and are now estimated at 20 veterans each day.

“We also need to look at pharmaceutical companies making generic drugs more tamper resistant and looking at making drugs that do not cause addiction,” said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a commission member.

Commission member Patrick Kennedy, a former congressman who has battled substance abuse himself, said there has been a “historic discrimination” against mental health and addiction treatment.

“I’m excited by the chance to kind of push for ways that we can hold insurance companies more accountable, so that the public sector doesn’t have to pick up the tab. Because its taxpayers that are picking up the tab when insurance companies continue to push folks with these illnesses off into the public system,” Kennedy said. “This is a cost shift that is a windfall for insurance companies if they can get rid of people who have mental health or addiction issues.”

Limits on Opioid Medication Not Working

“Let me be blunt. Today there is not nearly enough drug treatment capacity in America to help most of the victims of the epidemic,” said Mitchell Rosenthal, MD, who founded Phoenix House, a nationwide chain of addiction treatment centers.

“Most terrifying is the reality that nothing we are doing today has been able to halt the spread of opioid addiction. Controlling prescription opioid medication has not done so. Prescription monitoring programs, strict limits on the number of pills physicians can prescribe, and the CDC pain management guidelines seem to have capped usage of prescribed opioid medications. But overdose deaths from heroin and highly potent synthetics like fentanyl have gone through the roof.”

One activist called for wider adoption of the CDC opioid guidelines and rigid enforcement if doctors don’t follow them. Gary Mendell, the CEO and founder of Shatterproof, a non-profit focused on preventing addiction, said each state should be held accountable and federal funding reduced to states if their prescribing exceeds a certain level.

“If every primary care doctor in this country followed the CDC guideline, you would cut by more than half, instantly, the number of new people becoming addicted,” said Mendell, whose son committed suicide after years of struggle with addiction. “We need a goal for the country. Divide it up by 50 states, a proper goal developed by the CDC, and then we need to publicize it and hold people accountable. Just like you would do in any business.”

Patrick Kennedy is a member of Shatterproof's board of advisors, and Andrew Kolodny, MD, founder and Executive Director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) is a member of its "opioid overdose advisory board."

No pain patients or pain management experts testified before the commission or were appointed to the panel.

Watch below for a replay of today's meeting: