November 2022 CDC practice guidelines for prescription of opioids are riddled with disabling errors, anti-opioid bias, conflated and misinterpreted research, and undue emphasis on supposed patient risks of addiction.  In truth, opioid analgesics are as safe or safer than many other medications widely accepted in medical practice.  From multiple sources, we know that incidence of opioid addiction arising from clinical treatment is far below 1%, and is far more sensitive to a history of mental health issues, than it is to opioid dose or duration.  

The only ethically sound action that should now be considered is public repudiation and withdrawal of this fatally flawed document, and removal of CDC (and the Veterans Administration) from all future policy making roles in the practice of pain medicine.  CDC has demonstrated conclusively that it is neither clinically nor ethically qualified to develop standards for doctors who actually manage pain for their patients.