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The C Three Foundation statement on recent findings reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association and release of the "Global status report on alcohol and health 2014" by the World Health Organization.May 15, 2014—Two reports of significance to anyone struggling with alcohol use disorder were released this week—one updating the estimated annual number of deaths due to alcohol and the other confirming life-saving medications for the treatment of harmful alcohol consumption are not being prescribed by many physicians—in spite of evidence of effectiveness.
The WHO’s status report raised the estimated number of alcohol-related deaths by nearly a third, from 2.5 million to 3.3 million people a year. The report also found 16% of those who consume alcohol are considered binge drinkers, which Dr. Shekhar Saxena, Director for Mental Health and Substance Abuse at WHO called “the most harmful to health” in the organization’s news release. The medical, social, and economic damages caused by harmful alcohol consumption are not restricted to the individual drinker. Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are lost in productivity, health care, and property damage in the United States alone. Alcohol is the third leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States behind only smoking and obesity and it does not discriminate based on age, race, religion, or economic status. The rising human cost of harmful alcohol is staggering, but even more shocking is the fact that prescription treatment options such as naltrexone have been FDA-approved for treating alcoholism for twenty years and physicians are hesitating to prescribe it to save the lives of their patients. The C Three Foundation’s mission is to save the lives of alcoholics worldwide. We work daily with those for whom the toll of alcohol is real, and have experienced the reluctance and refusal of medical professionals who are simply unwilling to accept pharmacological options that are safe and approved for treating alcohol use disorder. We are encouraged by the recent findings published in JAMA. The review’s statistically significant study size of nearly 23,000 participants from more than 120 clinical trials makes it the most comprehensive review of medications to treat alcohol use disorder to date—and the data backs Dr. John David Sinclair’s method of pharmacological extinction. The results for naltrexone were considerably better for reduction of heavy drinking than when used without alcohol. The C Three Foundation is committed to holding the multi-billion dollar addiction treatment industry and physicians everywhere accountable to make every credible option of alcohol treatment available. One Little Pill, our upcoming documentary exposes a reluctance to prescribe naltrexone for harm reduction in spite of the medication’s documented effectiveness. Click here to contact us for more information or to request an interview. |
