“It would be hard for me to overstate how thrilling it is to read these guidelines after all these years,” said Dr. Carl R. Sullivan III, director of the addictions program at West Virginia University, whose state has been a center of the epidemic. “This is a very big deal. These prescribing practices have been an embarrassment for so long.”
The guidelines are part of a growing backlash against practices developed two decades ago, when doctors across the country began prescribing opioids for routine pain amid claims by pharmaceutical companies and some medical experts that they could be used to treat common conditions like back pain and arthritis without addiction. Those claims ended up in court and were found to be false.