Opioid painkiller safety seen as complicated (Are Doctors Too Reluctant to Prescribe Opioids? TIME Article)

[Justin]

Opioid painkiller safety seen as complicated

Time (2/24, Szalavitz) reported that "decisions about a patient's pain treatment are...fraught with moral judgment, stemming largely from the nature of available pain treatments and an incomplete understanding of how to use them." While recent studies have increased understanding of how opioid painkillers work, "the general question of safety remains complicated." That is because "differences in the age and health of patients, their history of substance misuse, the nature of the pain, and patients' sensitivity to certain drugs mean that a miracle drug for one person may be harmful to another."

Opioids: New Studies on Chronic Pain Drug Prescriptions - TIME

[KBear]

Very well written. I like the line that "opiods are both overprescribed and underprescribed". So true, we all know too well about the under-prescribing and most of us have heard of the over-prescribing too. However, I think the average non pain patient only knows of the over-prescribing.