CDC Officially Begins Issuing Corrections to Opioid “Guidelines”
Guideline Corrections Issued Three Years after Catastrophic Damage Wrought on Chronic Disease Community
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released an official statement to the mainstream media on Wednesday, April 24, 2019, with “clarification” regarding their 2016 Guidelines for Opioid Prescribing for Treatment of Chronic Non Cancer Pain.
To wit, they caution against forced tapers, discontinuing opioid therapy in patients who have been on opioid therapy long term, and against lowering doses to low levels that cause patient harms.
In perusing the linked page to the 2016 guidelines, which this author has visited several times a week for well over a year, it must be noted that the page has undergone an overhaul in the new year. It is much more “friendly” than previously, with kinder language, explanations contained on the landing page and site links that were not there before. One can use the Internet archive to look back and see the changes from previous.
CDC has announced they are in line with FDA regarding forced tapering of opioid medication in long time opioid therapy patients. This should not come as a surprise to anyone. What is a surprise is that any announcement is being made at all in this fashion by the CDC.
FDA is the authority in the Unites States regarding all prescribed medication and rules governing medication.
FDA issues the rules all other agencies must follow. No agency outranks FDA.
Astonishingly, the CDC guidelines have been adhered to across the board without a single document or rubber stamp from FDA.
This is a grave matter to consider. One that all Americans should really think about.
The regulatory agency that issues all rules regarding medications never once issued any official permissions from their agency for the wholesale application of the CDC guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain.
Yet, the United States has across the board clinically applied these harmful guidelines. What does this say about authority?
To include over 30 states basing erroneous and extremely harmful legislation upon these guidelines. What does this mean? We need to really think about this.
It appears that some of the stakeholders ignored the hierarchy of government agency structure in their zeal to throttle opioids — even in the face of all that data we showed them time and again proving that what we were saying was true, that painful disease patients were not causing their “opioid crisis”.
They completely ignored the authority of the FDA.
It appears that those in the know counted on “Everyday Joe American” not understanding the rules around prescribed medication policy.
What is worse, the American public has passively allowed some to practice medicine via legislation in over half of our 50 states… all based on these guidelines issued by the CDC, which were never officially endorsed by the regulatory body FDA.
When advocates pointed out medicine was being practiced without a license, that FDA had never officially adopted the CDC guidelines as policy; they were demonized, ridiculed, and discredited.
What do we have left today?
A situation where an agency that has no business issuing policy statements on any drugs walking back a massively misapplied guideline that was blanket enforced across the United States without approval by the very government agency created to keep citizens from harm due to thoughtless policy such as this.
We must be serious and thoughtful about this going forward.
Why was this patently ignored by all involved?
Why were stakeholders encouraged to practice medicine without a license based on these guidelines, not based on thoughtful guidance from the actual rule making and regulatory agency on drugs — FDA?
It makes little sense, unless you view it through the lens of the population based study discovered by CIAAG and confirmed in DC on April 8, 2019.
The current narrative CDC is promulgating places the blame for the guideline fiasco, patient deaths, misery and force tapering on “physician misapplication”.
This is nothing more than artful deflection and political pandering at the highest levels.
Firstly, why would the CDC place a disclaimer on their work in the first place? Surely, if they were confident in their contracted work and guidance, there would be no need for a CYA.
Also, one needs to look no further than the DEA and their unhinged arresting of physicians, left and right, through PDMP (prescription drug program monitoring) targeting.
If physicians have “been allowed” all along (per what the CDC is now saying) to prescribe opioids at the amounts patients require to relieve their pain, then why is the DEA using the PDMP to target physicians who… prescribe any opioids?
In fact, isn’t the PDMP supposed to be an aid for doctors to keep drug addicts from working the system, not a tool for law enforcement (99.9% of whom are clueless about pharmacology and medicine, dosages) to use to target doctors in some kind of fantastical “pre-crime” Minority Report profiling system?
Social engineering has conditioned society at this point to view any person who needs or uses opioids in a negative, dim way. Therefore the CDC knows that they can wholesale push anything onto the public at this point and it will be believed by most, unquestioned.
Please start asking questions.
Don’t let these agencies attempt to talk their way, shame patients and doctors, and weasel around their extremely questionable actions and culpability.
It makes virtually no sense at all, the way this has all unfolded. Now it appears that it will be rugswept and hopefully no one with a credible reach will point it out to the public.
To illustrate how nonsensical the entire scenario has been and still is, think of it in this way:
Insurers are tired of paying out claims on texting and driving accidents. They want to reduce the numbers of teenagers even getting licenses in the first place. Stakeholders reach out to FCC.
In response, the FCC issues a broad guidance on driver’s licenses, across the country. All drivers license centers that test people for drivers licenses have a list of suggestions, 18 to be precise, of things that FCC thinks are pertinent to the fight against texting and driving.
These suggestions are not laws. They are not issued by Congress. However, the drivers license centers notice that if they don’t implement the suggestions, their funding is denied at the state level. Many of the centers have had to close in the wake of the suggestions. Some of the drivers license test implementers think the suggestions are unfair. These people have gotten visits from the government. They have been threatened with early retirement from government service or loss of their pension if they don’t go along with the suggestions from FCC. Whistleblowing does nothing. Whistleblowing only works if one can whistle blow to an agency that isn’t in on the scam… if they are all in, it does nothing but put a target on one’s back.
Others have pointed out that FCC has zero jurisdiction over drivers licenses. That is under the jurisdiction of the DMV.
Anyone who points this out finds themselves the target of attacks, personal and professional. The person finds their reputation is quickly destroyed in an insidious, relentless manner.
Soon the vast majority of the United States public believes that driver’s licenses are a very expensive and time consuming ordeal to obtain, versus what they used to be, a rite of passage for a teenager- something a parent would look forward to doing with their child as the age approached. People on social media view and attack others who speak out on this issue as non-conformist, elitist, or conspirators, as well as horrible parents for allowing their children to even drive, thanks to being socially engineered by government hired influencers.
The fact that a federal agency that had no invitation or business injecting themselves into rules and regulations of another agency is not even noted by anyone. It was worked out behind closed doors as usual.
The goal was obtained. Reducing the number of driver’s licenses being sought in the first place.
A simple analogy to illustrate.
It is this big, and the loss of critical thinking skills is how we have gotten to this point as a society.
No one thinks thoughtfully anymore before they make a judgment on an issue in today’s culture, largely because everything is designed to be “up to the minute, blink and you’ll miss it, move out of the way, so fast”.
Consider the idea pushed so heavily regarding opioid addiction — that “addiction will happen in three days exposure”.
Addiction will happen in three days exposure, to a person predisposed to addiction to any substance, guaranteed, for sure. Whether it be alcohol, nicotine, methamphetamines, cocaine, opioids… if one is an addict, it will happen.
However, most of the adult population of the United States has been exposed to an opioid medication at some point of their life by age 30. We do not have a society of 350 million opioid addicts.
This is a classic example of the social engineering promulgated upon society laid bare for all to see. Our parents and grandparents were not opioid addicts. They would not have entertained the notion that this was true. Why do we?
We hear stories of the infamous “morphine addicts” of long ago before morphine was made a prescription item — the women (of course) who were “addicted” to the cough syrups loaded with morphine and sold by country peddlers.
I have read these stories myself. I always think:
- “How many of these women had untreated painful disease? Is it hard to imagine many did?”
- “How presumptuous is it to assume all these women were ‘addicts’ and not merely dependent upon these medicines, went through withdrawal and were fine? I have never once read the word dependent in a single account.”
- “Did these women destroy their lives, their families, after these medicines were put behind the counter? Or did they carry on with life? No one has much to say after the dramatic proclamation that there were ‘hoards of female morphine addicts.”
- “Who is to say they were all ‘morphine addicts’? (Only those with an agenda to push).”
- “Misogyny is alive and well, even in historical storytelling. Women were “hysterical patients and exaggerating their symptoms” throughout history. Why would today’s women expect any different treatment?”
Please unite, stand up against these false narratives, these untruths, these engineered stories, and demand action for patients and society in the name of informed consent and truth in health care decision making.
Allowing our physicians to practice medicine without state sponsored restrictions, free and unfettered, should be first and foremost.
They are licensed and trained. They should be allowed to fully practice medicine under the law, as they are trained to do.
The legislation proposed and put into place in over half the states that is based upon guidelines that weren’t even approved by the regulatory body overseeing medications in the United States could be challenged at the very least. Legislation that was written by people not trained or licensed to practice medicine, I might add.
The forced compliance of society to participate in a study that was engineered into place without their informed consent is also a grave concern.
The PDMP system stand alone is wrought with privacy issues. It is extremely vulnerable to attack, easy to exploit, has very sensitive patient information contained within and no one in a position of authority seems to care that all of it is on the cloud without a single signature of informed consent.
The vast majority of patients do not even realize this system exists or what it even is or contains! I fail to see how any insurer or healthcare system could possibly think this falls under informed decision making or consensual care, or possibly justify this system as any kind of team building with the patient included.
These are but a couple of very real concerns that are glaringly obvious. Consider these, read the linked documents, and consider what I have said some more.
Photo by JJ Jordan on Unsplash
I don’t want any person to make quick decisions. I want every person to be thoughtful and deliberate in how they decide to proceed. I hope that all who read my work decide to unite behind the message — that we are taking our patient power back, as free American citizens, and demanding truth and transparency in our healthcare going forward.
CIAAG has the full dossier of Violation of a Nation at their website. Please download all documents and spread the truth of the government population study/clinical trial.
The only truly free society is an informed society.
Filed under: General Problems
The FDA is just one division under the HHS, just like the CDC is, so I’d like to know why the HHS didn’t take responsibility for those guidelines originally – they at least deserve some of the blame for the crappy 2016 guidelines since they obviously were in on it all along!
Innocent chronic pain patients are committing suicide because of their pain. They are turning to the streets for relief.They are dying of heart attacks, strokes, pain related illnesses and high blood, pressure. They are blaming doctors now. What’s even more criminal about the current fake opioid crisis is that the DEA was caught working with the Sinaloa Drug Cartel from 2000-2012. They are the ones now sending in a lot of the fentanyl that is killing people. But I don’t even trust that. The opioid crisis is a part of the War on Drugs. The deadly and disastrous War on Drugs is based on lies meant to control and prey on those who are weak, vulnerable or deemed “undesirable” by those who control state power. I want to see all of those death certificates and tox reports. Coroners and ME’s are less than infallible. I know in twenty years we’ll see that all of this was based on lies. Unfortunately by then millions of chronic pain patients will be forced into making the decision to commit suicide or submit to a life of having their body torture them uncontrollably or be treated like a criminal – and forced into the pain contract/pain mismanagement system.They are now turning away normal people with broken bones and third degree burns at the ER and sending them home with Tylenol. Even for during and after major surgery., They are given local numbing agents. Do the research it is all there. Isn’t it time that Trumps finally reveals the truth? Anyone who knows anything about this knows that the so called ”opiate crisis” is based on lies. It’s time that you do a video based on those lies and let Trump know it’s time to put an end to the suicides?
EXACTLY!!!
This is honest and the most thought out article I’ve seen on the subject of State Sanctioned Torture for Law-abiding, Voting, US Taxpayers with Chronic Intractable Pain! CDC making assinine hard and fast RULES, conveniently called “guidelines,” God help any Pain Management Specialist that quietly and desperately tries to help his suffering patients. He lives in terrible trembling fear that at any moment the DEA will come blazing through the clinic door with guns drawn and fingers on the triggers, to arrest him! They will show him who’s Boss!
Treasonous traitors on Capitol Hill Practicing Medicine Without a License, all the while ignoring their Constituents cries, whimpers and pleas for HELP, while greasing their own pockets with the “perks” of being in “office.” The Surgeon General, the Attorney General and the Commander-in-Chief all making their selves busy with other matters, while Law-Abiding Pain Patients suffer in their debilitating misery with each and every door (their pain doctor, their pharmacy, their insurance and finally their hospital) slamming shut in their face. Some will turn to alcohol, some will turn to illicit street drugs, which is how this whole God-awful world of hurt began, and the precious ones who would never think of such things will simply and quietly commit Suicide. At last their Gnawing, Stabbing, Aching, Horrific Intractable Pain will end.
The FDA, DEA and CDC will conveniently ignore the growing number of bodies piling up and carry on. Business as usual.
Agree we need to stop this stand together Dr and pts we are the scapegoats and collateral damage in all this . All need to rally may 22 in all 50 states. DPPR check out private group on FB then go to your state page and join both groups and rally together Dr and pts, families of those who forced to comitt suicide or turn to the streets and od accidentally or become addicts themselves. Stand up and show we are not ginipigs or lab rats, but we are human beings. . We have intractable pain!! Pain hurts!! Pain kills!!! Kolodny and his PROP NEED TO GO write letters to the university where kolodny works. Also even annonmous to DEA and to all politicians and legislators !! Tell them we won’t stand for these acts againstI the AMERICAN PEOPLE, against us who are chronically Ill. The use of PDMP record by the DEA OTHER then what it was intended for, is unlawful and invasion into our privacy. To none other then attack, threaten and go after our Dr. Acting without knowledge of chronic pain, dosing of our meds and trying to arrest our Dr.,for over prescribing when their isn’t any laws, set standards or definition of what is considered over prescribing!!! We in turn are left suffering and being torchered because of this witch hunt and false attack on our Dr’s and us. We need to spread the word and make the public and American people aware of the injustices going on within these government agencies. The attack on innocent Dr and pts with chronic illnesses in chronic pain if not now, or in the past will one day affect each and every American in some way whether it’s yourself or a family member.!! Make the truth be known we need to fight with everything we have. Make the public aware, make this suffering and injustice to pt and Dr stop and, allow Dr to do their job and they were trained and are licensed to do. Rally also at the DEA office and in Washington needs to happen so this injustice stops Dr and pts need to stand up together or more pts and Dr will suffer the consequences and be collateral damage. While all these agencies scramble to cover up the wrongs they have done. DEA needs to start doing their actual jobs and go after the true reason why people are dying on the streets illegal drugs such as illicit fentanyl, heroin, meth, cocaine manufactured by drug cartels and sold by drug dealers and gangs. Not innocent Dr treating pts legitimately with legal prescription opioids that have been effective for pain /chronic pain for many years!!
Quit posting about that fraud. You are very Gullable to be a part of that group that woman running it is preying on the sick and scamming all of you out of money to get her rich.wake up and quit making a fool of yourself.
Try to deal with the fact that you are a fish out of water when you are not around your own people. For you to say that reveals this. I came from two worlds and know darn well why you say this. You two are in fact different and different people are strangers to you. You are going to be very limited and at a disadvantage when you do not widen out to embrace other cultures and kinds. Do not isolate yourself and never pretend at living.
There are billions of people in this world so not everyone is going to get along with everyone else but when you become an adult, you have to learn that you aren’t the center of the universe & must learn to co-inhabit this planet with many other types of people that have different values than you do!!!! You are very childish and obviously don’t care about REAL chronic pain patients, the doctors, etc., (“our cause), because all that is important to you and a few other of your friends, is that you smear one person – no matter how much good the groups are doing, and it’s done at the expense of hurting groups who ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!! At least WE are DOING something and not just sitting back and bitching and moaning! You don’t have to like everyone but you aren’t living with them, so you have to tolerate people that are different from you. Grow up – oh and don’t believe everything you hear. What you are doing is no different than what many of the news organizations are doing with their propaganda! By the way, she isn’t scamming anyone out of money! We are not a “gullible” bunch of people like you seem to be and again, WE ARE doing something constructive to help our situation. What are you doing?
Amen!
What if Next our Blood pressure meds,etc. Is just taken from us! What would happen???? Shame” no different meds to survive”!!!
We are a community of PAIN RELIEF SEEKERS. Not drug seekers. I am so sick and freaking tired of this. Honestly, I preach this on a daily basis all over our community but yet people are still continually “Pain Shamed” and put through the hell of living through THAT! Or worse, deciding to end their life because they cannot take it anymore! THIS MUST END NOW!
But where do we begin? I have a community of people behind me that are TERRIFIED of what will happen to them. YES, they want change. But you also have to realize that the chronic pain patient is TERRIFIED OF CHANGE. They have lived their lives seeking answers to their pain and once they get it and get relief, they NEVER want to go back, start over or face what they have just been through ever again. It takes a LONG time to just think about switching to a different pain clinic. Anxiety kicks in IMMEDIATELY at the thought of having to do so for fear of the unknown of a new doctor. “Will he make me go down on my meds?” “What if he won’t let me stay where I am comfortable now?” These are just the initial thoughts that come to the mind when a patient hears they MAY have to leave a clinic.
I advocate for these people. I am these people. These are my people. I love these people. They are my family, my friends and my loved ones. I have been living with chronic pain almost my entire life. I have been pain shamed, gone through doctor forced withdrawal once, WITHOUT ANY WEANING, a second withdrawal as a side effect of a medication (yeah, who knew it would actually happen, NOT ME! I just wanted to not be constipated anymore!) and both times I almost died. So I understand what these people are going through. There is NO DAMN REASON why we should continue on this way, but fear… FEAR IS BIGGER than anything I have ever seen in anyone’s eyes.
So I battle on for them. I do war for them. My Organization goes against the assholes that rip them offf of their meds and forces them to turn to street drugs because the ED won’t take their insurance, or the doctor won’t give them more than 7 .5 Vicodin’s. When they were just yanked off of 10mg Norco.
I agree with you sir, but the battle begins in the communities, we can’t start at the top. If we start at the top, we will fall a LONG way down and get crushed along the way. I will pass your info along but I’m not sure that the top is where we start…
I’m a new CCP, 3.5 years since started on opioid medication.
I’m being dribbled minute increases but no focused titration to effective dose.
This means I have had significantly undertreated pain for the entire duration of my diagnosis.
I do not believe there will be anymore increases for seeking of effective dose for me.
They have been suggesting that methadone may be for me but are not giving reasons. I believe that once chronic pain patient is on methadone or Suboxone it is easy for the treating doctors to push them to an addiction program.
For these reasons, I am not real eager to see the illicit the sources for opioids to evaporate any time soon. I’m afraid I may actually end up being one of those people who must seek this alternative for my own Survival. I’m afraid I will have a good deal of company.
I will be extremely cautious of course because I have a strong desire to live a fruitful life.
The doctors I’ve seen did not seem to care in the least whether you are a working and functional provider for your family. It seems to make no difference to them. I am frankly scared of these relatively new doctors who are subservient to the DEA and the current unfounded opioid Hysteria. They are mostly they younger Physicians and they seem to know where their place is and will seemingly do whatever is dictated to them by those having power over their own ability to provide for their family’s.
I feel that it is my responsibility to be prepared. Learned this on the path to achieving Eagle Scout.
Thank you for your efforts. So many of us have needlessly suffered, and are still suffering, through forced tapers, reduced productivity, sleepless nights, and chores undone.
Someone needs to pay for the damage they have done.
Unfortunately the inhumane cruel ideology still exist about women.I for one a victim of thee archaic ,”exaggerate,” symptom’s,..My pain doctor,after the discover of a completely calcified gallbladder packed w/stones,” ,,pancretitis,,,was soo terrified of getting sued for failure to diagnose,untreated physical pain,,,neglect,,,he called the surgeon to ,’alter my medical records,,,which he did,,,,Soo still stuck w/untreated severe physical pain,,,
Think about the civil war soldiers,who the Smithsonian institute,,freidmen,kolodny all use that false,liefull history,, to justify taking opiates away from our current veterans..Claiming the civil war soldiers were addicts,hence thee invention of Pennhurst Waverly,,institutionalization of the war veterens.The reality as we have discovered,,the bullets used in the civil war were FULL OF LEAD!!!!CAN U SAY LEAD POISENING,,,DAHH,,,Not to mention the god aweful condition during surgeries, amputations etc,,,These men/women were NEVER ADDICTS as psychiatrics history portrayed them to justified AGAIN,, monies from the Federal Government,,for the warehousing these veterens as ,”addicyts,,in institions like Waverly,,or Pennhursts..The shrinks got the Feds to pay all kind of monies to stop the scourge of addiction in the 1800’s after the war,,U WOUD RTHINK OUR GOVERNMENT WOULD OF LEARNED THE 3RD TIME WHEN A SHRINK NAMED KOLODNY CAME ASKING FOR $$$$$ AGAIN,,CLAIMING THE FALSE NARATIVE OF ,”ADDICTION,” but no,,,our government saw a way to make $$$ and wrongfully believed a shrink,,who’s SOLE PURPOSE,, was to make money off of the medicaly ill with chronic medical condition,,,Just like the civil war soldiers,who were wrongfully labeled addicts,,so some shrink could make a buck,,,,WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN??!! FOR NOW,,HISTORY IS JUST REPEATING ITSELF,AND 10,000 OF INNOCENT MEN.WOMEN AND CHILDREN ARE BEING FORCED TO ENDURE SEVERE PHYSICAL PAIN,,,FOR A SHRINK,,, MAKE A BUCK,,,AND OF COUSE THE DEA TO BECOME THE NEW mafia, And steal MONEY FOR THE INNOCENT DOCTRS,,,Mmaryw
Very very good article;
“If physicians have “been allowed” all along (per what the CDC is now saying) to prescribe opioids at the amounts patients require to relieve their pain, then why is the DEA using the PDMP to target physicians who… prescribe any opioids?”
Good question, if the CDC had no authority, how did 32 states follow the CDC? Why didn’t the FDA speak up! Why did the DEA enforce the CDC guidelines?
The CDC guidelines were the DEAs idea.
These limits were circulating in 2012-13.
How do I know?
In my epic battle with the montana board,
I was offered this settlement offer:
• Dr Ibsen agreed to stop seeing Addicts
• Dr ibsen agrees to only treat acute pain for three days
• Dr Ibsen agrees to stop writing Cannabis recommendations
• Dr Ibsen will submit to the Montana Professional Assistance Program for impaired physicians for ongoing supervision
I rejected these absurd proposals outright.
I now see the end game:
Harass doctors until
No one prescribed.
The attorney for the Board, Michael Fanning,
Was “special assistant to the Attorney General for Montana.
So: DOJ was behind these absurd ideas before there were any CDC guidelines.
And,
PROP went to fda and the fda turned their guidelines down, which is why and how they went to the cdc fir an end run around the fda.
Kolodny played on head of CDC just having almost lost his so to laced cocaine with illicit fentanyl. He vowed war on all opioids. And kolodny new this approached the head of CDC and the group sat down in secrecy and the guidelines were developed. Knowing full well what would happen. That federal government and Dr will set them as laws ect. Also around the same time the PDMP record was formed so that the DEA could use to target Dr because, they could monitor which Dr continue to prescribe and which Dr either cut their pts or tapered them. The exact opposite of what this record was intended for and invasion of our privacy. Those with no knowledge of chronic pain or what these meds are actually for, how to dose pts with chronic pain ect. Both groups DEA and kolodny (PROP) WOULD FIND A WAY TO STOP THE PRESCRIBING OF PRESCRIPTION OPIOIDS!! WE AND DR COLLATERAL DAMAGE. WE SUFFER AND ARE LEFT TORCHERED AND FORCED IG WE DON’T WANT TO SUFFER OF COMITT SUICIDE. TURN TO SUBOXONE OR METHADONE AS ONLY CHOICE BUT FOREVER BE LABELED AND ADDICT. BUT MAKE MILLIONS FOR KOLODNY. AND DEA AS THE TAKE DOWN INNOCENT DR. LEAVING THE DRUG DEALERS CARTELS AND GANGS TO MAKE BILLIONS AND RULE THE STREETS. WONDER HOW MANY DEA AGENTS POCKETS ARE LINED AND WELL IN THIS WITCH HUNT.
The $64,000 question.