“..the fourth estate has failed america and doctors..”
XM 126/127
“..Perhaps I’ll Stop being a heinous pariah now on XM 126 Urban View Morning, and Sam the screener will no longer Block my calls.. because when the White Man says it’s true… it’s true.“
norman jesse clement, RPh, DDS, MS
republished from pain news network
NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L. CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, BELINDA BROWN-PARKER, IN THE SPIRIT OF JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., INC.T. SPIRIT OF REV. IN THE SPIRIT OF WALTER R. CLEMENT BS., MS, MBA. HARVEY JENKINS MD, PH.D., IN THE SPIRIT OF C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., MBA., IN THE SPIRIT OF THE HON. PATRICE LUMUMBA, IN THE SPIRIT OF ERLIN CLEMENT SR., EVELYN J. CLEMENT, WALTER F. WRENN III., MD., JULIE KILLINGSWORTH, RENEE BLARE, RPH, DR. TERENCE SASAKI, MD LESLY POMPY MD., CHRISTOPHER RUSSO, MD., NANCY SEEFELDT, WILLIE GUINYARD BS., JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., MBA, BEVERLY C. PRINCE MD., FACS., NEIL ARNAND, MD., RICHARD KAUL, MD., LEROY BAYLOR, JAY K. JOSHI MD., MBA, ADRIENNE EDMUNDSON, ESTER HYATT PH.D., WALTER L. SMITH BS., IN THE SPIRIT OF BRAHM FISHER ESQ., MICHELE ALEXANDER MD., CUDJOE WILDING BS, MARTIN NJOKU, BS., RPH., IN THE SPIRIT OF DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD, BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS
An Insider’s Perspective on CDC’s ‘Disastrous War on Opioids’
August 12, 2024
By Pat Anson:
“Dr. Charles LeBaron is a medical epidemiologist who worked for 28 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. LeBaron was not directly involved in developing the CDC’s 2016 opioid guideline but knew colleagues who did and largely supported their efforts to rein in opioid prescribing.
Then LeBaron developed crippling pain from a meningitis infection and learned firsthand how the CDC guideline was harming patients. While hospitalized, he screamed into his pillow at night because a nurse — following the CDC’s recommendations — gave him inadequate doses of oxycodone. The pain relief only lasted a couple of hours, and then he had to wait in misery for the next dose.
“I hadn’t experienced the pain that so many patients feel, so I hadn’t had the level of sensitivity to the issue that would have benefited me. It took full personal experience to straighten me out,” said LeBaron. “You’d rather be dead than in pain. In that bubble of pain, it is life-changing.
“Once you experience that, you tend to view things very differently through a very different lens. At least that was my experience. There was nothing like being in acute pain.”
LeBaron eventually recovered from the infection and no longer needed oxycodone. He also didn’t become addicted. That lived experience made him wonder if the CDC — his longtime employer – made mistakes in developing the guideline. He came to recognize that the CDC’s push to limit opioid doses was based on weak evidence and the false presumption that many patients quickly become addicted.
He was most shocked at how quickly the CDC guideline was adopted throughout the healthcare system. He’d never seen anything like it, in all his years at the agency.
“Most of the recommendations we come out with, that people should eat right, exercise or whatever, no one ever bothers doing. We have a tough time getting people to do things.
This recommendation? They just had remarkably fast implementation,” LeBaron told PNN.
“I’ve never seen a recommendation that got implemented that fast and that hard by so many actors. Normally, it’s like herding cats in public health, trying to get everybody involved. And for prescription medications, there are a million cats. There are pharmacies, benefit managers, physicians, insurance, etc. This thing just took off.”
“Greed to Do Good: The Untold Story of CDC’s Disastrous War on Opioids”
Now retired, LeBaron wrote a book about his experience with pain and a critique of the CDC guidelines. “Greed to Do Good: The Untold Story of CDC’s Disastrous War on Opioids” gives a rare insider’s look into how the agency works and thinks.
The word “greed” may suggest financial motives behind the CDC guideline, but LeBaron says it’s more a matter of pride and hubris that borders on institutionalized arrogance.
The agency was so caught up in its reputation as the “world’s premier public health agency”—one that defeated polio, smallpox, HIV, and other infectious disease outbreaks—that it developed an outsized belief that it could do no wrong.
ACCORDING TO LEBARON, IN THE MINDSET OF TOM FRIEDEN
According to LeBaron, that was Dr. Tom Frieden’s mindset when he was named CDC Director during the Obama administration. While serving as New York City’s health commissioner, Frieden led ambitious campaigns to stamp out tuberculosis, ban smoking in public places, and limit unhealthy trans fats served in the city’s restaurants.
At CDC, LeBaron says Frieden became “the driving force” behind a campaign to limit opioid prescriptions as a way to reduce rising rates of opioid overdoses.
“I would not attribute vicious and evil impulses to the people who were involved,” says LeBaron. “I think they were gravely mistaken, but not driven by the desire to harm. They conceived of themselves as wanting to do good in a very emphatic fashion.
“The problem here was not the motivation, the notion that if you can reduce prescription opioids, maybe you’ll reduce subsequent addiction. The problem was not looking at the thing sufficiently quantitatively and then not checking the consequences or responding to them when they’re brought to your attention.”
People working in public health are normally careful about tracking the outcomes of their policies. But before and after the CDC guideline, the agency turned a deaf ear to a chorus of complaints that it was forcing millions of patients on long-term opioids into rapid tapers that resulted in uncontrolled pain, withdrawal, and even suicide.
the fourth estate has failed america and doctors
Worst of all, the number of fatal opioid overdoses doubled to over 80,000 annually after the guideline’s release, an outcome that demonstrated CDC had gone after the wrong target at the wrong time and with the wrong solution.
“The typical person who’s having an overdose is a 30-year-old male taking illicit medication. The most typical person who’s getting chronic opioids for pain would be a 60-year-old woman with a variety of rheumatological conditions. So you’re aiming at a completely off-center target,” LeBaron explained.
“Then subsequently the data started coming in that, in effect, you are worsening the situation. If you take people who really need pain control off their meds, in a sense, it normalizes illegal acquisition.
“If somebody is really in terrible pain, needs opioid medication and can’t get it through the legal system, pain is a remarkable motivator. Very few motivators are as strong as pain. And ultimately, somebody will come up to you and say, ‘I know a guy.’ And sure enough, then you end up with completely uncontrolled, unregulated stuff.”
Not until 2022 did the CDC revise its original guideline and give doctors more flexibility in prescribing opioids. By then, its 2016 recommendations were so ingrained in the U.S. healthcare system that the revisions had little, if any, impact.
Frieden left the CDC in 2017. LeBaron says Frieden’s two immediate successors did little to address the overdose crisis and the harms created by the guideline. But he does have hope for the agency’s current director, Dr. Mandy Cohen because she has experience in public health and a better understanding of the primary role played by illicit fentanyl and other street drugs in the overdose crisis.
“…and despite all your accomplishments and goals…it all means nothing if you don’t stand for something..”
When asked if the CDC guideline should be scrapped or withdrawn completely, LeBaron is circumspect. He thinks a review of the guideline is in order, as is a return to public health policies that are checked and double-checked to ensure they have outcomes that actually work.
“The difficulty here, in my opinion, is many of the same problems continue to exist, even though the personalities are completely different, and there are still significant restrictions on people in chronic pain for no apparent benefit. There continues to be a very high rate of overdoses,” LeBaron said.
“I’m a diehard public health guy. I want to see whether anything good happens. Nothing good happened. Time to reconsider.”
Frederick Douglas:
“..If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its mighty waters..”
FOR NOW, YOU ARE WITHIN
THE NORMS
references:
THE MEDIA WHO LISTENED
