Irrational Exuberance in Medicine

Excerpt

In 1996, former Federal Reserve Board chair Alan Greenspan warned that “irrational exuberance” may have inflated stock asset values to unsustainable heights. Greenspan was concerned with economics, not health care, but he would surely see the parallels with some recent medical enthusiasms. The rise in prescription opioid use is one example. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), on an average day in 2014, more than 650,000 opioid prescriptions were dispensed, 3900 people initiated nonmedical use of prescription opioids, and 78 people died from an opioid-related overdose (https://​www.​hhs.​gov/​sites/​default/​files/​Factsheet-opioids-061516.​pdf). Though 2015 data show a decline in total opioid prescriptions for the first time in years, the problem continues to command widespread attention. …