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This is Scientific Americans' 60-second science. I'm Steve Merski. The opioid epidemic is a national

crisis that should not be underestimated. That's a quote from a June 1st, New England Journal of

Medicine Perspective piece by Susan Glaude. She's a physician involved with hospice and palliative care

and pain management. But the title of

the piece reveals another issue related to the current situation. That title is the other

victims of the opioid epidemic, those other victims being people in desperate need of pain

treatment who cannot now get it because of fears related to the prescribing and use of opioids.

To try to help to avoid abuse, new forms of opioids have been created called abuse-deterrant opioid medications.

These can't be crushed or dissolved, thus making them difficult to snort or inject.

But these formulations would have no impact on other opioid-related deaths, such as unintentional overdose.

Glogd, in an audio interview related to her New England journal piece.

I think that the downside to all of these formulations are that they have the potential to make needed

medication more expensive and less accessible to patients who are having opioid responsive pain

and who really do require these medications.

What really worries me the most about all of this is that if the medical community,

the public, and policy makers get too distracted by the promise of a solution to the opioid epidemic in the guise of a reformulation of known opioids,

I'm worried that we're going to lose focus on addressing all of the underlying systemic issues that have really led to the epidemic in the first place,

...