UN health agency to remove controversial opioid guidelines

The pledge to remove the guidelines comes a month after U.S. Reps. Katherine Clark and Hal Rogers accused the WHO of being influenced by Purdue Pharma, the American manufacturer of the potent painkiller OxyContin.
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The congressional report released last month tracked how doctors and organizations tied to Purdue, including many of the leading figures who worked to expand opioid prescribing in the United States in the 1990s, influenced the WHO document. ... Clark described it as a "playbook" that the pharmaceutical industry is taking abroad, and that the WHO was "lending the opioid industry its voice and credibility."

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, wrote to Clark and Rogers that the guidelines from 2011 and 2012 would be removed in "light of new scientific evidence that has emerged" and that the removal of the reports should address the allegations of conflicts of interest. Since the reports were first published, he wrote, the agency has strengthened its ethics polices.

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