Dear Dr Frieden
Here, on
a balcony overlooking the beautiful Aegean Sea 20 minutes from Acropolis and
not very far from an island where Hippocrates was born I still think about you
Dr. Frieden.
Certain things I try to
swallow yet I cannot digest with menacing nausea shadowing me like distant
howlings of impending death.
Partly because of you Dr
Frieden, I have been in Athens.
I'm here because I cannot
digest certain events. I cannot digest what my own government did to my family,
patients and associates robbing and raping us and the spirit of justice, due
process , law and order based upon flawed CDC statistics.
And I openly blame you Dr
Frieden for misrepresenting the vital statistics to blame prescription opioids
for the epidemics of overdose and
heroine deaths . And acting as if the United States has not
been experiencing an epidemic of deaths by suicide. Here is the CDC statement:
CDC Morbidity And Mortality Weekly Report
Increases In Drug and
Overdose Deaths United States 2000 – 2014
January 1, 2060/64 (50); 1378 – 82
The United States is
experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose deaths.
To reverse the epidemic of drug overdose
deaths and prevent or cure related morbidity efforts to improve safer prescribing
low prescription old release must be intensified. Opioid pain prescribing has
quadrupled since 1999 has increased in parallel with overdoses involving the
most commonly used pain relievers .
Drug overdose deaths involving continued to climb sharply with heroine overdoses more than tripling in
four years .This increase mirrors large increases in heroin use across the
country has been shown to be closely tied to all the pain reliever misuse and
dependence. Past misuse of prescription opioids is the strongest risk factor
for heroin initiation and use
specifically among persons who report past year dependents or abuse. The
increased availability of heroin combined with its relatively low price and
high purity appear to the major drivers of the upward trend in heroin use and overdose.
CDC alarm of prescription opioids is inaccurate . It harms millions of
Americans with chronic pain, addiction and psychiatric disorders.
CDC misrepresentations include the following:
§ Dismissal of the suicide
epidemic with some 44,000 annual deaths.
§ Inclusion of deaths from
illicit drugs (heroin and illicit fentanyl) in reporting Opioid deaths falsely
creating the impression that medication for chronic pain or addiction are the
driving force for the overdose epidemic.
§ Unscientific claims of a
causal relationship between prescription pain medications and heroin epidemic.
Association is not causation. Studies citing a causative link between
prescription pain medications and heroin addiction did not involve patients who
were taking prescribed pain medications. They were adolescents experimenting
with illicit drugs. Nothing surprising about vulnerable adolescents becoming
vulnerable adults.
§ The CDC vital statistics reported 9 deaths per 100.000 population for
opioid overdose deaths in 2014.; of those 3.4 were from heroin and 1.8 from
synthetic opioids ( fentanyl and tramadol) which nearly doubled in one year
consistent with the police reports of dramatically increased illicit fentanyl
manufacturing. Thus the actual overdose
deaths from prescription opioids was 4.3 per 100.000 population
in 2014. ( 4.3 may be an overestimation because 19% of drug overdose
deaths did not include any information on the death certificate about the
specific types of drugs involved).
Table
1
US
Deaths (2000 vs 2014) Per 100.000
Population
Overdose 6.2 14.7
Suicide
10.1 12.9
Prescription opiates 2.3 4.3
Medications(non opiates) 3.2 5.7
Heroin 0.7 3.4
PO/OD % 
38.1 28
Heroin /OD % 
11 28
11 28
Dr.
Frieden please do the right thing.Let people know CDC made some mistakes.
Respectfully
Alen
J Salerian MD
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