“It works!”, Ctd

This is “effective”?

A new study of buprenorphine implants find that implants work as well as oral dosing and outperform placebo.

What does that mean?

If I’m reading it correctly, it means that the average subject receiving the implant tested positive for opioids 68.8% of the time compared to 86.6% for the placebo subjects. (If I’m misreading it, set me straight.)

I don’t know about you, but that not how I’d define success for myself or a family member.

This speaks directly to the importance of asking, “what does ‘effective’ mean?”

Another article argues for morphine maintenance for opioid addiction.

If ORT is the direction the field is heading, why not? If questioning the assertion that ORT is the most effective treatment based on quality of life differences is a bogus argument*, why not morphine maintenance or heroin maintenance?

*  Note that I’ve argued that physicians health programs are the gold standard and that they should replicated and offered to all opioid addicts. I did not say that they standard abstinence-based treatment was superior or should be imposed on anyone. In fact, I’ve repeatedly argued that the standard abstinence-based treatment offered opioid addicts does not provide the appropriate quality, duration, intensity or dose.

Related articles

• What makes treatment effective? (addictionandrecoverynews.wordpress.com)
• Heroin, opioid addicts need more access and better treatment, say B.C. researchers (theprovince.com)
• Buprenorphine and emotional reactivity (addictionandrecoverynews.wordpress.com)
• Don’t treat heroin and opioid addiction as short-term conditions: paper (globalnews.ca)
• Treatment for U.S. Opioid Addicts Often Inadequate, Researchers Say (pbs.org)
• Buprenorphine + therapy = ? (addictionandrecoverynews.wordpress.com)