NO LIVES ARE RUINED BY BUPRENORPHINE

As a physician and public health professional who has dedicated my
career to improving the lives of those with addiction to heroin and
other opiates, I read with dismay The Sun's articles on buprenorphine
("The 'bupe fix,'" Dec. 16-18). I have never seen a newspaper report
so lacking in balance and context. Every medication has side effects;
what's critical is the balance of risks and benefits.

Buprenorphine is an effective treatment for the dangerous disease of
opiate addiction. Balanced against the benefit of saving thousands of
lives is the small risk of diversion of the drug, which is a tiny
slice of the overall illegal drug trade.

It is telling that despite months of reporting and thousands of
words, The Sun did not find a single person in Baltimore whose life
has been ruined by buprenorphine.

Yet just walk the streets in East or West Baltimore and you can find
scores of people whose lives are being ravaged by the condition that
buprenorphine treats effectively.

It would be a tragedy if The Sun's hysteria over the diversion of
buprenorphine turned back the clock on the treatment of a devastating disease.

Dr. Yngvild Olsen Bel Air

The writer is the medical director of the Harford County Health
Department and has done research on the medical use of buprenorphine.