This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science. I'm Steve Mursky.

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

prospective piece by Susan Glaud. 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 deterrent 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. Glod, 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, such as lack of

...