CDC Archives - Not Standing Stills Disease

The following is from the US Pain Foundation’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, Cindy Steinberg, in a press release dated February 18:

You may have heard by now that the CDC released an updated draft version of the Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids – 2022. This new Guideline will take the place of the 2016 version. You can read the full version here.

The document is 200 plus pages which I am currently reviewing and will draft a formal comment to the docket on behalf of the U.S. Pain Foundation that we will share with you when it is ready. However, we wanted to summarize the changes in the new version for you. (Please see below.) We have prepared a head-to-head comparison of each of the twelve 2022 Guideline statements with the twelve 2016 Guideline statements that you can see here.

We also wanted to let you know that you can and should write into the docket with your views on the revised Guideline. All comments will be read by CDC. The deadline to submit comments is April 11, 2022. To submit your comments, click here.

Changes to the Guidelines

Overall, this revised Guideline is an improvement over the 2016 version. It is less dogmatic, more balanced and urges a more flexible approach to individual patient needs.

The greatest change is the removal of dosage cautions and limits in Guideline 5. The number of days of treatment duration for acute pain have also been removed from Guideline 6.

The newly released Guideline has softened recommendations around patient surveillance advising clinicians to periodically review state PMP data and consider using toxicology. The 2016 version directed clinicians to check the state PMP prior to every script or at least every 3 months and urged urine testing prior to starting opioid therapy and at least annually thereafter.

In this latest version, the CDC has also strengthened warnings to clinicians regarding not abruptly or rapidly reducing opioid dosages.

Again, we urge you to make your views known on this latest version by writing your comments to the docket. After April 11, CDC will review all comments and release the final draft of the updated Guideline later in 2022.

The following just popped into my email and I wanted to make sure to share it here:

The CDC released the first comprehensive report of state-level estimates about adults with arthritis today, titled—Geographic Variations in Arthritis Prevalence, Health-Related Characteristics, and Management — United States, 2015.

This Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summary shows the differences in the impact of arthritis at the state level.

The new arthritis report estimates the number and percentage of adults with:

Arthritis in each state and Washington, DC.
Arthritis-attributable activity limitations.
Arthritis-attributable severe joint pain.
Arthritis and one or more other diseases, such as obesity, coronary heart disease, and diabetes.
Arthritis who are physically inactive.
Arthritis who were counseled by their health care provider to be physically active or to lose weight (13 states).
Arthritis who participated in self-management education workshops (13 states).
Arthritis who walk for exercise.

These estimates will enable CDC and other public health partners to move forward and better target the dissemination of evidenced-based interventions that can decrease the impact of arthritis, including easing arthritis pain. The data presented in this Surveillance Summary was collected as part of CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

Interested in snagging CDC updates via email? Click here.