CDC's Plan to Harm People with Pain
Janice Reynolds
I am sure of how many are familiar with what occurred last week, but as advocates for people with pain (and human beings), it is important to keep on top of the outrageous attempts to hurt people with persistent pain. September 16 in an unusual online “webinar” held by the CDC, the agency unveiled a dozen draft guidelines for physicians to follow when prescribing opioids. The CDC’s guidelines were not publicly available before the webinar and there was little advance notice about it (the day before). “A spokesman for the FDA who handles opioid issues told the Pain New Network he was unaware the CDC was drafting its own opioid guidelines.” The following article lists the proposed guidelines. As someone who is a pain management nurse I am appalled by these guidelines. As someone who needs opioids for any quality of life I am terrified by them.
Ab additional article the next day further clarified things;
http://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2015/9/18/cdc-maintains-secrecy-over-opioid-guidelines. You will notice the ASPMS is not included in the stakeholders as is PROMPT (while PROP is). I did see Bob Twillman quoted here by the article not the CDC.
One very trouble some aspect is the CDC’s involvement with PROP. Of the Core Expert Group (related to the guidelines only one is a pain physician and that is Jane Ballantyne a member of PROP. Also available on the CDC’s website is PROP’s guidelines http://www.supportprop.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/PROP_OpioidPrescribing.pdf. There has been some question by myself and others whether PROP is using the CDC to get around the FDA
I have some grave concerns about the CDC when it comes to people with pain as well. This is the comment I made one the second article’s comment section:
The CDC is so far out of line on this that it is almost obscene. Hopefully members of the Stakeholders group will stand up to them (at least the ones who care about people with pain). Here in is the biggest problem, the CDC doesn't care about people with pain. They are concerned about their "epidemic" of addiction, the "epidemic" of obesity and the occasional communicable disease however with 100 million people in the United States having pain, much of it severe, why is this not an epidemic? Why have they not put any effort into finding out what is best for people with pain. Even separating Cancer and Non cancer pain is degrading to people with persistent pain-without cancer your pain is not real or you are not deserving? Unfortunately this is PROP's attitude as well. They have never looked at how many commit suicide because they can't live with the pain; how many who have no quality of life, Those who are on stable doses of opioids which gives them back their lives (even if it is "different" from before) fear losing their opioids. Saying the interventions should be non-pharmaceutical (#1)-what if the pain is not helped by many of the available interventions or who is going to pay for it (most insurance companies do not pay for non-pharmaceutical interventions or only at an amount which is not helpful). There are so many different pain syndromes; many types of back pain, different types of headaches, persistent post-operative pain, persistent post traumatic syndrome EDS, CRPS, post stoke pain, arachnoiditis, interstitial cystitis, Trigeminal Neuralgia, TJD, Fibromyalgia, several arthritises, Vulvodynia, Bursitis’s, Sickle Cell Anemia, Lupus, Alkylating Spondylosis, and so many more we could fill a whole page as well some having more than one syndrome. What makes anyone think it can be all put under a label of "Chronic Non-cancer Pain” and then dismissed as not important or not "real pain" (no evidence supports its use is false also)? The fact that the CDC ignores those who have pain and is concerned only about addicts says a lot about the ethics of this organization doesn't it? To make addiction the main concern is malfeasance at the least.
The CDC did not keep public response open long enough for me to add mine.
I hope you are as disturbed as I am.
Janice
Janice Reynolds RN, BC, CHPN
Retired
Brunswick, ME
Dionetta Hudzinski
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