Where ’s the Buprenorphine asked Mr. Obvious? Thanks, CDC!

A quick note tonight, hopefully with a longer post to follow this weekend… I’ve been frustrated by the people behind the Wisconsin PDMP, or Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, for their mistakes related to buprenorphine. Whoever came up with the numbers made a rookie error when calculating the equivalent morphine dose of patients taking buprenorphine products. The error is easy to notice by anyone who works with the drug, but apparently difficult to grasp by anyone with the power to correct the database figures. Those people include, by the way, the folks at Brandeis University who give the numbers to Wisconsin, and the people at the CDC who give them to Brandeis. I’ve written to all of them; the bright folks at the CDC skimmed my explanation of their error and responded with a form-email that provides a link to where I can get ‘answers to my questions’. Thanks, CDC! In short, the people doing the calculation take a low dose of buprenorphine– say 200 micrograms– and extrapolate out in a straight line to 16 mg, ignoring the ceiling effect of partial agonists like buprenorphine. The calculation causes the PDMP to display a graph showing that people on buprenorphine are on the equivalent of 1200 mg of morphine. Any physician who sees that data (and all WI physicians are required by law to use the PDMP effective April 1) will think that the buprenorphine patient needing post-op pain is on THAT dose of opioids. Talk about an April Fool...
Source: Suboxone Talk Zone - Category: Addiction Authors: Tags: Benzos Buprenorphine pharmacology Public policy risks benzodiazepines CDC PDMP Source Type: blogs