From the pages of Politico:
CDC opens opioid prescription guidelines to public comment
The CDC plans to publicly post draft guidelines on opioid prescribing after being criticized by pain advocates, professional associations and some within HHS for developing them behind closed doors and with limited public input.
A notice posted this morning provides 30 days for public comment, which means that the guidelines - a key part of the Obama administration's response to the opioid abuse and overdose epidemic - won't be released in January as the agency had planned.
"Opening a docket will tack months on to the process [and also] increases the likelihood that the guideline may never be released," said Andrew Kolodny, a founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and the chief medical officer at Phoenix House. "This is an enormous win for the opioid lobby."
CDC hadn't planned to publish the document ahead of its release in January but came under fire earlier this month from members of the administration's Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee, which announced that it would file a formal objection to CDC's prescribing guideline after agency officials briefed them at a meeting.
The level of evidence cited to support the guidelines, which are non-binding on physicians and apply to chronic pain patients outside of the cancer or palliative care treatment, "is low to very low and that's a problem," Sharon Hertz, FDA's director of the Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia and Addiction Products, said at the meeting.
AHRQ health scientist Richard Ricciardi, another member of the interagency committee, called the recommendations "ridiculous" and "an embarrassment to the government."
The document had already been circulated among HHS agencies for final review ahead of its planned release in January, but it had drawn criticism from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the American Medical Association after it was previewed for some health care groups at a webinar in September.
CDC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
