5 ms·

The claim here is that opioids are not as bad as you've been led to believe. I'll let the article speak for itself, but note that ACSH has been frequently criti

by freyir 8y ago

The claim here is that opioids are not as bad as you've been led to believe. I'll let the article speak for itself, but note that ACSH has been frequently criticized for taking a pro-industry stance on issues: * In 1979, the information director of the FDA said, "Whelan just makes blanket endorsements of food additives. Her organization is a sham, an industry front." * Ralph Nader claimed: "ACSH is a consumer front organization for its business backers. It has seized the language and style of the existing consumer organizations, but its real purpose, you might say, is to glove the hand that feeds it." * The Center for Science in the Public Interest stated: "ACSH seems to arrive at conclusions before conducting studies. Through voodoo or alchemy, bodies of scientific knowledge are transmogrified into industry-oriented position statements. They previously sought funding from Philip Morris. Recent donors include Chevron, Coca-Cola, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Bayer Cropscience, Procter & Gamble, Syngenta, 3M, McDonald's and Altria.

cookiecaper 8y ago
Like most drugs, opioids are easy to demonize, at least up until you or someone close to you depends on them. It's naive to assume that the industry dislikes the focus on the "opioid epidemic". It works to their advantage in a variety of ways, but one of the biggest is the formation and reinforcement of a whole new class of specialized clinicians called "pain management specialists". In Florida for example, a law went into effect this past July that effectively barred any non-pain-management specialists from issuing an opioid Rx that exceeds a 72 hour supply. Even before this law went into effect, the sentiment it conveyed directly impacted the willingness of ordinary docs and medical facilities to reasonably treat pain in persons without a chronic condition that would be handled by a pain management specialist, like postpartum women. My wife was left with only lightweight OTC pain relievers because the hospital said it was too risky to write anything stronger unless there were clear complications. The outcome of the campaign against the "opioid epidemic"? There is now a specialized clique of doctors for the pharmaceutical sales reps to focus their attention on, there are more flurries of codes to bill for, and there is a niche for enterprising doctors to exploit desperate people to make literal millions for themselves while setting their own hours, just like psychiatrists. In fact, the industry is trying to reshape pain management to be the spitting image of psychiatry, which, especially over the last 5 years or so, has become astronomically lucrative for the industry all around. The long and short of it is that restrictive regulation for this type of drug is bad news only for the sick people who depend on their medication to function. It will be much harder and much more expensive to get and keep a steady stream of the drugs that allow them to work and live a semblance of a normal life, all so the incumbent political dynasty has a talking point in the next election cycle. But, err, yeah, let's write off anyone who sees this as a pro-pharma shill...
- biehl 8y ago
  > But, err, yeah, let's write off anyone who sees this as a pro-pharma shill... ACSH does not seem like “anyone” but rather a documented pro-any-paying-industry-shill...
  - tomcam 8y ago
    Did you actually read the article? Did you actually look at any of the statistics it discusses?
    - biehl 8y ago
      Yes. And even if it was sensible article with a solid purpose (it is not), that does not change the basic reputation of ACSH.
    - devwastaken 8y ago
      Information and 'data' can be found to support nearly anything aslong as one lacks the integrity and honesty of due diligence. If there is a history of manipulating information, you now have to completely check and verify all resources. Doing this takes a good deal of knowledge in that field to properly work with, and those that do know what they're doing aren't going to be heard. Given that I know the resource manipulates information, and that I am not privey to the information presented, but that there's plenty of resources that don't manipulate information that are contrary to this article, yes, I'm going to believe those until there's good reason not to.
    - DanBC 8y ago
      This gish gallop is a well known technique of disinformation designed to give the air of authenticity. All of those graphs look truthy, and it would take someone a couple of hours to go through all of them (especially because the submitted article doesn't bother to link to many of the sources) and discover the truth. Look at some of the sources - the Herald Dispatch? And look at the dishonest way it's rpesenting some of the data. There's a graph titled "Drugs involved in US Overdose Deaths, 1999 to 2017" and the article says this graph is trying to tell us that pills prescribed by doctors are the real problem and that the graph is hiding fentanyl. But look at the source: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... That graph has this text (missed out by the article) "Drugs Involved in U.S. Overdose Deaths* - Among the more than 72,000 drug overdose deaths estimated in 2017*, the sharpest increase occurred among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic opioids) with nearly 30,000 overdose deaths. Source: CDC WONDER " That's not hiding the fentanyl deaths.
tomcam 8y ago
You didn’t address any of the assertions in the article at all.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- freyir 8y ago
  The author doesn't make any coherent assertions. He misinterprets some statistics, sets up straw man arguments, and draws invalid conclusions from graphs. What specifically would you like me to address?
BlackFly 8y ago
There isn't really any claim in the article as far as I can tell. There is just a whole lot of smoke and mirrors in the form of definitions, charts and bait and switch. Near the end of the article the author poses the question > Does anyone really believe that Vicodin is killing more Americans than fentanyl and carfentanil? I sure don't. With all the data being shown, you would expect that he could actually make more of a claim than a belief based one. It is a really confused article that seems to have no other purpose than to try to create confusion around statistics. The author would have you believe that elephants don't exist because one source is describing the trunk, another is describing the leg and a third is describing the tail.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
The beginning also links to another article they did on the subject, "The Opioid Epidemic In 6 Charts Designed To Deceive You." Trick 4, oddly containing no chart, is "blaming the drug companies." This is part of what they say, edited for length, >Purdue, the makers of OxyContin was fined $653 million for its former actions. Other companies are now being investigated. But this is now irrelevant. Assigning blame may score some points with the readers, and provide fodder for trial attorneys, but does absolutely nothing to keep a single OD victim alive. Whatever certain companies did two decades ago is partly responsible for starting today's fentanyl OD epidemic, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with keeping it going. That is absurd. "Yes I poisoned the water supply, but blaming me won't fix anything. It's not like I could do it again with all the poison I still have." https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/10/12/opioid-epidemic-6-charts-designed-deceive-you-11935 https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/10/12/opioid-epidemic-6-chart...

by freyir 8y ago

cookiecaper 8y ago

Like most drugs, opioids are easy to demonize, at least up until you or someone close to you depends on them. It's naive to assume that the industry dislikes the focus on the "opioid epidemic". It works to their advantage in a variety of ways, but one of the biggest is the formation and reinforcement of a whole new class of specialized clinicians called "pain management specialists". In Florida for example, a law went into effect this past July that effectively barred any non-pain-management specialists from issuing an opioid Rx that exceeds a 72 hour supply. Even before this law went into effect, the sentiment it conveyed directly impacted the willingness of ordinary docs and medical facilities to reasonably treat pain in persons without a chronic condition that would be handled by a pain management specialist, like postpartum women. My wife was left with only lightweight OTC pain relievers because the hospital said it was too risky to write anything stronger unless there were clear complications. The outcome of the campaign against the "opioid epidemic"? There is now a specialized clique of doctors for the pharmaceutical sales reps to focus their attention on, there are more flurries of codes to bill for, and there is a niche for enterprising doctors to exploit desperate people to make literal millions for themselves while setting their own hours, just like psychiatrists. In fact, the industry is trying to reshape pain management to be the spitting image of psychiatry, which, especially over the last 5 years or so, has become astronomically lucrative for the industry all around. The long and short of it is that restrictive regulation for this type of drug is bad news only for the sick people who depend on their medication to function. It will be much harder and much more expensive to get and keep a steady stream of the drugs that allow them to work and live a semblance of a normal life, all so the incumbent political dynasty has a talking point in the next election cycle. But, err, yeah, let's write off anyone who sees this as a pro-pharma shill...

biehl 8y ago
> But, err, yeah, let's write off anyone who sees this as a pro-pharma shill... ACSH does not seem like “anyone” but rather a documented pro-any-paying-industry-shill...
- tomcam 8y ago
  Did you actually read the article? Did you actually look at any of the statistics it discusses?
  - biehl 8y ago
    Yes. And even if it was sensible article with a solid purpose (it is not), that does not change the basic reputation of ACSH.
  - devwastaken 8y ago
    Information and 'data' can be found to support nearly anything aslong as one lacks the integrity and honesty of due diligence. If there is a history of manipulating information, you now have to completely check and verify all resources. Doing this takes a good deal of knowledge in that field to properly work with, and those that do know what they're doing aren't going to be heard. Given that I know the resource manipulates information, and that I am not privey to the information presented, but that there's plenty of resources that don't manipulate information that are contrary to this article, yes, I'm going to believe those until there's good reason not to.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    This gish gallop is a well known technique of disinformation designed to give the air of authenticity. All of those graphs look truthy, and it would take someone a couple of hours to go through all of them (especially because the submitted article doesn't bother to link to many of the sources) and discover the truth. Look at some of the sources - the Herald Dispatch? And look at the dishonest way it's rpesenting some of the data. There's a graph titled "Drugs involved in US Overdose Deaths, 1999 to 2017" and the article says this graph is trying to tell us that pills prescribed by doctors are the real problem and that the graph is hiding fentanyl. But look at the source: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... That graph has this text (missed out by the article) "Drugs Involved in U.S. Overdose Deaths* - Among the more than 72,000 drug overdose deaths estimated in 2017*, the sharpest increase occurred among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic opioids) with nearly 30,000 overdose deaths. Source: CDC WONDER " That's not hiding the fentanyl deaths.

tomcam 8y ago

You didn’t address any of the assertions in the article at all.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
freyir 8y ago
The author doesn't make any coherent assertions. He misinterprets some statistics, sets up straw man arguments, and draws invalid conclusions from graphs. What specifically would you like me to address?

BlackFly 8y ago

There isn't really any claim in the article as far as I can tell. There is just a whole lot of smoke and mirrors in the form of definitions, charts and bait and switch. Near the end of the article the author poses the question > Does anyone really believe that Vicodin is killing more Americans than fentanyl and carfentanil? I sure don't. With all the data being shown, you would expect that he could actually make more of a claim than a belief based one. It is a really confused article that seems to have no other purpose than to try to create confusion around statistics. The author would have you believe that elephants don't exist because one source is describing the trunk, another is describing the leg and a third is describing the tail.

boomboomsubban 8y ago

The beginning also links to another article they did on the subject, "The Opioid Epidemic In 6 Charts Designed To Deceive You." Trick 4, oddly containing no chart, is "blaming the drug companies." This is part of what they say, edited for length, >Purdue, the makers of OxyContin was fined $653 million for its former actions. Other companies are now being investigated. But this is now irrelevant. Assigning blame may score some points with the readers, and provide fodder for trial attorneys, but does absolutely nothing to keep a single OD victim alive. Whatever certain companies did two decades ago is partly responsible for starting today's fentanyl OD epidemic, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with keeping it going. That is absurd. "Yes I poisoned the water supply, but blaming me won't fix anything. It's not like I could do it again with all the poison I still have." https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/10/12/opioid-epidemic-6-charts-designed-deceive-you-11935 https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/10/12/opioid-epidemic-6-chart...