Correcting the record – the June 2020 opioid regulation changes were NOT successful and did NOT reduce opioid overdoses
This is an open letter the University of Queensland, in relation to their recent press release. And to all the media outlets that have blindly republished their press release.
This is the press release.
This is flawed research that is twisting the data to suit their narrative, rather than allowing the data to dictate the narrative.? Something that is very common in research relating to opioids and chronic pain.
Dr Rory Verhagen from UQ’s Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences claims that changes made by the TGA led to a reduction in oxycodone prescribing, based on how much oxycodone he found in wastewater around Australia.
He analysed data from 6,999 samples from more than 50 wastewater treatment plants across Australia between April 2017 to April 2023 as part of the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring program.
But he has his facts fundamentally wrong.? Which demonstrates either the deliberate distortion of the facts, or a complete lack of fact checking.?
He is claiming that between August 2019 and December 2020 the levels of oxycodone on the wastewater fell, almost by half.? He attributes this to the TGA changes, which he states came about in 2019.
He states:
“In 2019 the Therapeutic Goods Administration moved to address prescription opioid use and misuse concerns by reducing package size, adding warnings to packaging and educating health professionals to follow best prescribing practice.”
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He seems blissfully unaware that these changes DID NOT COME INTO EFFECT UNTIL JUNE 2020.
Therefore, the bulk of this trial period was BEFORE these changes came into effect, so it’s very, very unlikely that the reduction in oxycodone use was because of these regulatory changes.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good headline.?
If Dr Verhagen were interested in the truth about the TGA regulatory changes, he would have broken up the data into BEFORE June 2020 and AFTER June 2020.? Hard to do that though, if your care factor is so low, you don’t even know when the regulatory changes were implemented.
Getting such a basic fact WRONG and currying media attention based on this wrong information does not inspire trust in Dr Rory Verhagen OR the UQ.
This is low quality science.? And nothing more than a media headline grab for publicity.? No doubt to attract more grant money.? ?This is also incredibly common in research around opioids and chronic pain.
And the facts are teh first casualty.
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In fact, we look at prescription data from the Australian Institute of Health and welfare, we can see that prescribing rates of opioids have been FALLING since 2017.? Since well before ANY opioid reforms were put in place.? The media never seems to report THAT fact.
The data very clearly shows that scripts for opioids levelled off in 2015/16 and started FALLING in 2017!? This is well before the up scheduling of codeine and before ANY changes were made to opioid prescribing guidelines or the TGAs changes to pack sizes, or indications for opioids.
After the TGA changes, scripts fell much more sharply, to the great harm of people who live with painful, progressive diseases.
June 2020 did not mark the start of a reduction in prescribing, that was already the established trend.? ?What it DID mark was the start of force tapering people off their safe and effective pain medications.? To their great harm.?
Patients who had been stable for years, and even decades, were destabilised, forced onto nsaids, anti-depressants and gabapentinoids, which were inappropriate for their pain and largely ineffective. AND caused more serious and dangerous side effects than opioids ever did!
June 2020 marked the beginning of the untreated pain crisis in Australia.
And now Dr Verhagen and the University of Queensland is trying to rewrite history to make these changes look like they were a success!
They were NOT a success.? Thousands of people have suffered, and many have now died, from intractable and untreated pain.
When these regulatory changes were introduced, it was done so poorly that most GPs had no idea they were coming, or how to manage them.? They were widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. GPs, unsure of the correct rules, decided that it was easiest to just NO LONGER prescribe pain mediation AT ALL.? And started force tapering their patients.
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Research has shown that tapering opioids, especially force tapering. Leads to overdose, suicidal ideation and death.? NO person should be force tapered. Ever.
These unnecessary regulatory changes led to the mass force tapering of thousands of pain patients.
Thousands were forced into disability and poverty, no longer able to work with unmanaged, constant, severe pain.
ALL of this is pain and disability is unnecessary. This pain can be well-managed. This pain WAS well-managed, safely and effectively, prior to June 2020.
It is time to CORRECT THE RECORD
We call for truth and accuracy in research and the media.
We call for universities and research institutions to stop trying to pervert the data and rewrite history to their own liking. ?To stop inventing a problem that does not exist. To stop creating a ?false narrative around opioids. This is rampant in opioid research.? Scientific fraud and flawed methodologies have created headlines that have nothing to do with the facts.? We will continue to expose these studies, and we call on this practice to END.
WE call on the media to fact check and stop blindly publishing these wrong data.? The media is complicit in increasing stigma around opioid pain medicines and people who live with severe chronic secondary pain from progressive, incurable disease and injury. ?People who are amongst the most vulnerable in our communities.? People who are already in significant pain, with a very low quality of life, now made worse by headlines based on disinformation.
Most of all we call for the immediate retraction of this study with its flawed conclusion.? It is based on flawed data and has drawn erroneous conclusions, either deliberately or carelessly, that contribute to the harms and stigma experienced by people living with painful, progressive, incurable, disease and injury. ?And contributes to the ongoing prohibition of opioid pain medications, and the under treatment of severe pain and painful diseases.
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SHAME on you, University on Queensland!
SHAME on you, Dr Rory Verhagen.
SHAME on every media outlet that has blindly republished the press release, without a moments fact checking or analysis.
Australia does not now, nor has it ever had, an opioid crisis. This is a manufactured ‘crisis’, for political reasons. And it seems that doctors, researchers, and our advocacy organizations have all been duped.? Or rather, no one bothered to actually analyse the data, and find out the truth.? Instead, accepting fraudulent studies like this one, to create a narrative of addiction and crisis.
The truth is that addiction and overdose are very rare in the chronic pain community, less than 1%.? That’s what recent, large-scale studies show.
But the media does NOT print those. Somehow a headline screaming “OPIOIDS SAFE AND EFFECIVE FOR CHRONIC PAIN” is not as appealing.? But it is the truth.
This is the data. Please publish it accurately.
This information has been widely republished by Australian news media, all over the country and by national broadcasters.
We call for a correction.
It is time to CORRECT THE RECORD ON OPIOIDS.
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This is a journal that pharmacists read, now spreading misinformation and increasing the stigma against people who need oxycodone to manage chronic secondary pain.
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These stories are FULL of misinformation and lies and I will be addressing each of them separately.
For more information, please go to Pain Patient Advocacy Australia, the voice for people who live with chronic pain in Australia .
This story first published on ArthriticChick Substack. Please go there to learn more about the misinformation and fraudulent science that has been used to harm people who live with consant, severe, pathological, chronic secondary pain who rely on long term opioid therapy.
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2 个月I believe that's true because 2017 is when the DEA came after my doctor, considered by many to be the nation's authority on opiates as they werevreferred as then. And it began as a failure by the Democratic Party in California failing when they tried to come after him, and every other opiate prescribing doctor in the State, using the Department of Health and Human Services. That was one of the first things Jerry Brown Jr did as California Attorney General and it only got worse when he was Governor again after that. He always had a reputation as a corrupt career politician son of Jerry Brown Sr. Both trashed California as Governors. Ronald Reagan was the best Governor California had in my lifetime. You just can't trust Democrats.
Chronic Pain Patient Advocate & Writer - Volunteer Aged Care Community Worker at Medically Retired
2 个月Absolutely correct, & not only is the time period stated by the learned Dr woefully incorrect, but imagine thinking 50 wastewater plants are representative of the whole National demographic? And furthermore, though these so-called stats are twisted to fit the narrative & "rewrite history" etc, there is no scientific way possible via this method to determine whether said "prescription" opioids were used by legitimate pain patients, stolen or diverted. A blatant misrepresentation of the truth, & as you correctly highlight, 100% political in nature.
Retired RN at LCCE, Lincoln, Nebraska. Pain patient and advocate for compassionate treatment of people in pain.
2 个月This is my second time addressing the opioid crisis. Previously, it was designated as a narcotic crisis, and most medical people were on our side. When the WEF changed the name of the crisis— they decided doctors should go to prison for not immediately following their made-up narrative. The truth in science will continue to get lost more often if we lose our country!
England & NW Europe+Sweden & Denmark+Scotland+Ireland+Basque+Germanic Europe+Wales = American ?????????
2 个月I know that years of advocates advocating for pain care precedes me. But at this point I feel we have absolutely nothing left to lose but our voices which must be used to speak to directly to the US Congress. Congress, following the CDC 2016 guidelines held a hearing in 2017 that was damaging to patients. Congress needs to repair the damage Senator Alexander warned against and they need to interview us. I’m suing due to a broken jaw when mine hit the floor. ?? https://www.youtube.com/live/eljMgErJUZ8?si=02MXITcxZ5--FB8p