The World Health Organization has rescinded its opioid-prescribing guidelines after a congressional report accused the agency of being corrupted by the powerful drugmaker Purdue Pharma.
The May report from U.S. Representatives Katherine Clark, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, said Purdue funded organizations, people, and research to influence the WHO. As a result, the organization’s opioid-prescribing guidelines from 2011 and 2012 contained “dangerously misleading and, in some instances, outright false claims about the safety and efficacy of prescription opioids,” Clark and Rogers said.
