[gayprogrammer]

>> Q: What connection might there be between drug-maker payments to physicians and the current opioid use epidemic?

The article is pure speculation. They did not correlate the payments made to doctors with the prescriptions those doctors made, nor even more broadly with national prescription rates.

This article just makes the implied assumption that doctors push pills onto patients. I don't discount that at one time doctors may have been incentivized to play it fast and loose with pain pills, but those days are LONG gone now.

I would like to see research on the population in terms of predisposition to addiction and susceptibility to chemical dependence.