Pain Medicine During an Opioid Epidemic Needs More Transparency, Not Less

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Notes

¹ All of the data in this paragraph come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most recently reported in Seth et al. (2018).

2 Analysis of this cultural narrative is found in many sources. A clinical insider’s perspective is provided throughout Lembke (2016), and especially in chapter 10.

3 An up-to-date analysis of these and other non-opioid therapies—and their relationship to placebo analgesia—can be found in NASEM (2017, chap. 2).

4 This general model of counseling and expectation setting is the one endorsed in Scarlet et al. (2017) and then put into practice by the Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (OPEN) in its Counseling Recommendation for Opioid Prescribing. Full OPEN guidelines are available at https://opioidprescribing.info.