Don't let opioid treatment turn into a partisan issue

A partisan drug fight swirled in the background last year amid other developments in the nation’s opioid crisis. It's an unfortunate development whose continuation in 2018 should be watched closely.

When the New York Times, National Public Radio and Pro-Publica run stories the same month questioning the effectiveness of a drug used in what is called “Medically Assisted Treatment” of addition, one should be at least a bit wary that there is a campaign running in the background. Sure enough, NPR tipped its hand by quoting an anonymous Democratic Hill staffer in a piece last June, who feigned alarm about the lobbying tactics of one of the pharmaceutical companies involved in opioid treatment.

Pitting companies against each other, the media outlets question the motives of Vivitrol maker Alkermes PLC. The other company, Indivior PLC, makes Suboxone, which is portrayed as the preferred medication. Vivitrol and Suboxone work against addiction in fundamentally opposing ways. Vivitrol blocks opioid receptors in the brain, negating the euphoric feeling that causes addiction. Suboxone, itself an opioid, gives users a lower dose of the narcotic to wean addicts off more powerful “pain killer” drugs such as OxyContin and illegal heroin.

Fast forward to the end of last year and we see the agenda. California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris called for an investigation of Alkermes, citing New York Times and NPR press reports. Her complaint boils down to the company’s lobbying tactics aimed at the criminal justice system, where Alkermes has a toe hold on the market. Vivitrol is the favored approach of many judges across the country, who believe blocking the effects of opioids keeps lawbreakers from returning to drug court. Corrections officials tend to prefer Vivitrol over Suboxone because the latter is smuggled into prisons so inmates can get high. There is no interest in diverting Vivitrol for illegal use because it produces no high and is not addictive.

Harris, however, falsely asserts that other drugs used in Medically-Assisted Treatment are proven to be more effective. And she’s not alone. A cadre of university professors challenge Alkermes. Joshua Sharfstein, an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the New York Times that Alkermes puts its own “perverted idea” of marketing success ahead of solving the opioid epidemic.