Prescription opioids (aka painkillers) like morphine, OxyContin, Percocet, and Vicodin (to name just a few) peaked in 2012, with 81.3 prescriptions per 100 persons. The rate of prescriptions has since fallen, but the United States still represents 80% of world opioid prescriptions (via 2015 data), and has high rates of opioid prescriptions among people under the age of 65 (i.e. the population that is younger and should be healthier). This problem of prescription is deeply embedded in how the United States (fails to) regulate the pharmaceutical industry:
Unlike most of the developed world, the United States puts minimal constraints on aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies, whether the target is patients, prescribers, or medical and scientific societies. U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers have been highly successful at promoting prescription opioids in this lightly regulated, profit-driven health-care environment.
Opioid abuse is rampant, and is frequently cited as one of the “gateway” drugs to heroin . Opioids are highly addictive drugs because they target parts of the brain that are susceptible to feeling pleasure. Since opioids are more intense than the natural endorphins that humans produce, users of pharmaceutical opioids or illegal opioid drugs (like heroin) feel pulled to chase the high, continue using opioids (and use in increasing amounts), and may become addicted.
Prescriptions for opioids have fallen since an all-time high in 2012, but are still above CDC recommendations. Additionally, length of prescription was found to have actually increased between 2006 and 2015, meaning patients are exposed to the affects of prescription opioids for longer periods, against CDC recommendations. Prescriptions are also doled out unevenly, and a CDC report found that “the places with the largest number of prescriptions filled tended to have more white residents and higher rates of poverty and unemployment…” See the maps below. On left, rates of opioid prescriptions by state in 2012, on the right, poverty rate by state in 2013. States with higher rates of poverty also have higher rates of opioid prescription.
Just about this time last year, Last Week Tonight did a segment on opioid prescriptions that highlighted the role of aggressive marketing from pharmaceutical companies to influence doctors’ prescriptions of opioid painkillers. [Note: There are some things I find grating in the format of Last Week Tonight but I think this does really quality work at communicating the history of opioid marketing and prescription in the US.] In sum – big pharma played fast and loose with marketing, many doctors fell for it, and now we have huge rates of opioid abuse.
It takes time to change trends in medical practices. It took time for the prescription rates to reach the 2012 highs! So it tracks that it’s going to take some time, even with increased surveillance, research, and awareness before doctors really change opinions about what pain management strategies should look like.
Most articles that I see in local news focus on the opioid epidemic in population health – through interviews with people affected by the opioid crisis and investigations into the areas where opioid addiction is most prevalent. I think many of these articles are great, but they do obscure the macro-level issue of how opioids have come to saturate the medical industry. Fortunately, now more attention is being paid to the source: big pharma.
41 States of Investigate Pharmaceutical Companies over Opioids (9.19.17 via NPR) – A coalition of state attorneys general have come together to investigate potential impropriety in pharmaceutical companies’ role in the opioid crisis.
“Our subpoenas and letters seek to uncover whether or not there was deception involved, if manufacturers misled doctors and patients about the efficacy and addictive power of these drugs,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said during his press conference announcing the investigation. “We will examine their marketing practices both to the medical community and the public.”
Are Pharmaceutical Companies to Blame for the Opioid Epidemic? (7.2.17 via The Atlantic) – “Big Tobacco” faced lawsuits in the pursuit of improved public health and has been required to make changes – this article examines the legal possibility of states attorneys general pursuing these cases.
With the tobacco-industry lawsuits, customers were using the product as instructed and got sick. With opioids it’s a different story: Customers are not using the pills as directed, and so it is harder to blame the pharmaceutical companies for the effects of that misuse, according to Lars Noah, a professor of law at the University of Florida. In addition, doctors, not consumers, were the ones targeted by the aggressive marketing campaigns undertaken by pharmaceutical companies, so it can be difficult to link consumer deaths with aggressive marketing.
Whether suits against pharmaceutical companies will be successful is to be determined – already cities and states that have been hit hard by the opioid crisis have taken steps to sue pharmaceutical companies, and it’s possible that in the next year or so we could see court decisions go one way or another. I’m definitely interested to see what happens — but hopeful that this increased attention on the issue of opioid prescriptions will ultimately result in better treatment for those facing addiction and helpful changes made in medical care to prevent exacerbating an already unfortunate epidemic.
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