age, perhaps chief among them the DEA's decision to cut all opioid
production by 25% in 2016 and by an additional 20% in 2017. The fed-
eral government's well-intended policy to curb the opioid crisis is neg-
atively impacting the care thousands of patients undergoing surgery
receive every day.
Then there was a manufacturing snafu. A Pfizer plant that produced
the majority of prefilled opioid syringes ceased production in 2017
after experiencing technical problems. Pfizer says full production is
not expected to resume at the plant until early next year. In the mean-
time, many of us spend our days finding workarounds to safely man-
age patients' pain.
OSM
Dr. Grant (j.grant@asahq.org) is president of the American Society of
Anesthesiologists and chair of the department of
anesthesiology at Beaumont Health-Royal Oak Hospital in Michigan.
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