OPIOID CRISIS:
MORE EVIDENCE THAT BUPRENORPHINE AND METHADONE OPIOID SUBSTITUTION TREATMENT (OST) IS WORSENING LETHAL EPIDEMICS – MISSOURI
By Clark Miller
Published January 29, 2020
Updated April 15, 2021
The medical model substitute opioid cure for the medically generated worsening lethal opioid crisis has failed, predictably. It was manufactured, branded and promoted on fabricated evidence for effectiveness just as generation of the crisis was, its failure not explained away by the emergence of fentanyl and constituting a fraudulent diversion of public healthcare funds away from longstanding evidence-based therapies for the non-medical condition of compulsive substance use.
The evidence, critically and competently examined, establishes that the medical “fix” provides no benefit for high-risk opioid use or overdose rates, instead worsening lethal epidemics, and the “evidence” for reduced OD deaths attributable to OST (MAT) used to market the “treatment” doesn’t hold up, never has, instead points to Naloxone as the effective factor in moderating OD deaths. Meanwhile diversion and abuse fueled by a runaway national “dose” of substitute addictive opioids – as in generation of the crisis – is integral to national high-risk opioid use economies – diversion and abuse of addictive opioids driving a street and prison economy; diversion and abuse of public healthcare funds driving a professional supplier economy constructed as “medical treatment”.
The new evidence from Missouri
is part of a consistent, invalidating, predictable pattern that disconfirms benefit attributable to OST. That expanding pattern is described in detail in multiple posts at A Critical Discourse for locales within and outside the U.S.
Dayton, Ohio
Plumas County, California
Franklin County (Columbus) Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Arizona
Connecticut
Tennessee
Colorado
Michigan
Wisconsin
Rowan County, North Carolina
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Ontario, Canada
United States
Victoria, B.C. Canada
France
Scotland
And in Missouri
As reported by NPR –
“It’s deflating,” Rachel Winograd says. She’s an associate research professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “It’s incredibly discouraging to see the increase in Missouri in 2018 that happened at the same time as we really ramped up so many efforts to save lives and improve lives in our state.”
The provisional data shows Missouri deaths increased by 17% — one of 18 states that saw a year-over-year increase.
Over the last several years, Missouri has received $65 million in federal grants to address the opioid crisis, Winograd says, and she has helped the state decide where and how to spend that money. They’ve focused on expanding access to medication-assisted treatment, and “saturating our communities with naloxone — the opiate overdose antidote,” she says.
“Any scholar who’s been studying this epidemic will tell you that those are effective tools at saving lives. We’ve drastically increased access to those services and we know we’ve saved thousands of lives.
“The fact that the numbers didn’t go down and that people were dying at an even higher rate — it was devastating,” Winograd says.
Devastating.
And predictable.
at the same time as we really ramped up so many efforts to save lives . . .
$65 million in federal grants . . . focused on expanding access to medication-assisted treatment . . .
Because the evidence is clear, has been clear. The medical fix for the medically-generated, increasingly lethal opioid crisis – provision of addictive, diverted, abused opioids fueling economies of opioid abuse, against all evidence, for the non-medical condition of compulsive opioid use – is predictably worsening the epidemic and outcomes including deaths, injection-related infectious disease, and enormous associated social costs.
And in areas where incidence of opioid-related overdose deaths appear to have moderated, those results are entirely attributed to recently emerging naloxone (Narcan) campaigns – increases in use and availability of the OD death-reversing antagonist – evidence consistently pointing away from medical “treatments” having a role in the changes, instead fueling the epidemic.
That headline, produced by an uncompromised and competent press, would have read –
Missouri worsens opioid epidemic with invalidated, sham, publicly funded medical “treatments” for the non-medical problem of compulsive opioid use
The more gold standard medical treatment provided to the diseased brains, the more deaths mount.
