It's too little and far too late, but the FDA appears to be acting to correct the ignorance and ineptitude that was shoved down the collective throats of America's pain patients in the form of the 2016 CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. Although neither the CDC nor its co-conspirators, Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP), possessed either the expertise or jurisdiction to set or regulate prescription drug policy, this didn't stop the ill-conceived "guidelines" from becoming ill-conceived laws. Both legitimate pain sufferers and drug abusers have suffered ever since in the form of inhumane deprivation of pain relief, and soaring overdose rates, respectively (1).
Legal authority aside, the Guideline document was both medically and scientifically flawed, since it failed to take into account even the most fundamental principles of pharmacology in establishing comparative maximum daily doses of different opioid drugs, in doing so establishing a "one size fits all" that in reality fit none.
The FDA has requested public comments in response to its Morphine Milligram Equivalents: Current Applications and Knowledge Gaps, Research Opportunities, and Future Directions; Public Workshop. I have submitted mine, which can be found here.
NOTE:
(1) There is more than sufficient evidence to show that heroin and illicit fentanyl and its analogs, both far deadlier than prescription opioids, filled the void as legal medications became harder to obtain.
Josh Bloom
Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science
Dr. Josh Bloom, the Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, comes from the world of drug discovery, where he did research for more than 20 years. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry.
