Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest by Physicians Creating the CDC Opioid Prescribing Guidelines: An Epilogue

by Chad D. Kollas, MD, Beverly Schechtman and Carrie JudySeveral important developments have occurred since the publication of our article, “Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest by Physicians Creating the CDC Opioid Prescribing Guidelines: Bad Faith or Incompetence? ” in Pallimed on September 12, 2022 (1). Most notably, this includes the publication of the 2022 CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain (2), which updated the guidance previously provided by the 2016 CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain (3). In this epilogue, we will describe those important developments and examine how the 2022 revision of the Opioid Guideline (hereafter the 2022 Guideline) should affect pain care and national opioid policy in the future.Disclosing Sullivan ’s Conflicts of InterestIn our article, we criticized the medical journal, PAIN, and Mark Sullivan, a member of the advocacy group, Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP), for failing to disclose his conflicts of interest related to his expert witness work in opioid litigation (1). Just two days later, on September 14, 2022, PAIN electronically published statements (4, 5) disclosing Sullivan ’s previously omitted COIs. PAIN had initially acknowledged Sullivan’s COIs in May 2022 (6), but it is challenging to believe the timing of its disclosure and the publication of the Pallimed article was entirely coincidental.CDC ’s Response to FOIA RequestsWe also noted in the Pallimed arti...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: CDC judy kollas opioids schechtman Source Type: blogs