A Painful PGx Codeine Controversy | Pain Pod

We've got a controversy, okay? What we've got here today on the pain pod is a painful pharmacogenetic codeine controversy.

That's a mouthful, right? But in essence, what we're going over here is, of course, the general idea of should a clinician or all of us clinicians ever shift practice based on one study or even one guideline or one case study, you name it, right? Deep thought there, folks.

I'm going to follow up with a little bit more granular, specific question here for you.

Y'all see the Lancet, quote unquote, you can see my two peace signs with my hands indicating quotes right now.

The Lancet expression of concern back in February of 2026.

So the Lancet had that expression of concern regarding the original 2006.

So like two decades ago, the publication of a case study involving a newborn infant who very unfortunately died with a toxic post-mortem morphine concentration.

So very unfortunate situation, of course, from decades prior.

But did y'all see that in the Lancet? Well, good golly, even the New Yorker.

Yes, the general, lay public for all of us publication, the New Yorker covered it this year too.

Yet how many of us healthcare professionals didn't see or read that one either? Too many, that's how many, too darn many.

So let's, we're not going to put the, you know, reading nerd caps on just yet, but in a very short period of time here in this episode, we're going to cover a couple articles.

We'll highlight two or three of them, but it'll involve some very important ones in the background.

But, you know, let's dive in to save y'all an hour or three, if not eight, of the reading and the research, okay? So it all starts with the OG case, the original 2006 case that was published in The Lancet in 2006.