Dr. Charles LeBaron Discusses His Just Published Book, "Greed to Good, The Untold Story of CDC's Disastrous War on Opioids"

This century drug overdose deaths have equaled roughly 1.1 million largely due to overdose deaths among men that increased from 15,000 to 80,000.  As Dr. LeBaron notes drug overdose fatalities this century have exceeded the sum of all service member deaths in all wars in US history.  The vast majority of drug overdoses were opioid related that, e.g., increased from 50,000 to 82,000 between 2019 and 2022.  While opioid drugs have been available for decades, the opioid - or the opioid use disorder epidemic is strongly correlated with opioid prescribing.  As Dr. LeBaron notes between Purdue Pharma’s 1996 introduction of OxyContin and 2010, opioid prescriptions and overdose deaths increased fourfold, or in almost exact parallel.  The CDC, only agency charged with controlling epidemics, published in 2016 its “Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in the US.”  Tragically, the guideline was quickly weaponized, by payers and states.  This led to significant decreases in prescribing that in turn led to dramatic increases in undertreated pain and not surprisingly increased suicides.  In 2022 CDC updated its opioid guideline but as Dr. LeBaron notes in his conclusion reduced prescribing without improvements in prevention and treatment programming will backfire.  Though the CDC last month announced preliminary data showing drug overdose deaths may have dropped by 10% or to 70,000 over the 12-month period ending this past April, the epidemic continues largely unabated.