Sample 3: 2010
Anesthesiology papers published in 201033–40expressed increasing skepticism about the effects of long-term opioid prescribing and began documenting opioid-related harms. Most papers did not necessarily report that opioids were ineffective for pain relief. Instead, they pointed out that other negative consequences have been overlooked. A study of patients who received opioids for chronic non-cancer pain concluded “that the range of possible harms from [chronic opioid therapy] may be broader and of a different nature than has been described in treatment guidelines.”40This is a widely shared sentiment in most of the articles in this sample. For example, Jay writes that “[t]he treatment of the CNCP patient with only narcotics is problematic and most often leads to failure. The most appropriate treatment is within an inter-disciplinary pain management program.”34This represents a significant change in the tone of anesthesiology papers from 2000, when opioid prescribing was generally advocated as a standalone solution for chronic non-cancer pain.