The US Veteran's Association noticed that many veterans were living with pain. They felt that this needed to be treated, and they believed that opioids were safe an effective to treat long term pain, and that the risk of addiction was low.
They introduced a thing called "pain as the fifth vital sign". They wanted healthcare professionals to i) always ask about pain and ii) always try to treat pain.
This led to huge amounts of mostly unsuitable treatment for pain. People in pain tend to reject psychological treatment ("My pain is real, it's not in my head!") and access to good quality physiotherapy is more expensive than opioids.
Yes! That became the common wisdom: If patients are taking opioids for pain relief, they won't become addicted. Of course that article was talking about opioids given to patients in a hospital setting, not patients being sent home with bottles of them. It was taken completely out of context.
The other half of it was somehow deciding that opioids were the proper treatment for chronic pain, rather than temporary pain relief after surgery. Which was never really studied. And the consensus seems now to be that was a terrible idea.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40136881
The US Veteran's Association noticed that many veterans were living with pain. They felt that this needed to be treated, and they believed that opioids were safe an effective to treat long term pain, and that the risk of addiction was low.
They introduced a thing called "pain as the fifth vital sign". They wanted healthcare professionals to i) always ask about pain and ii) always try to treat pain.
https://www.va.gov/PAINMANAGEMENT/docs/Pain_As_the_5th_Vital...
This led to huge amounts of mostly unsuitable treatment for pain. People in pain tend to reject psychological treatment ("My pain is real, it's not in my head!") and access to good quality physiotherapy is more expensive than opioids.