How a doctor stirred national demand for the Bridge detox device — without solid evidence it works
CREVE COUER, Mo. — The private Facebook group for the Bridge — a wearable medical device claiming to help opioid users overcome the pain of withdrawal — feels like a recovery meeting. Doctors sing the device’s praises. Patients describe it as a miracle and offer to help spread the gospel.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared the device, which sends small electrical pulses through four cranial nerves, for treatment of chronic and acute pain three years ago. Now, doctors from Alaska to Florida are charging $600 to $1,500 or even more to attach it to patients’ ears in a bid to curb the intense nausea, anxiety, and aches of opioid withdrawal. A municipal judge in Indiana allows defendants addicted to heroin to choose the Bridge over jail. State officials in Utah recently agreed to buy 100 devices for inmates. Ohio Gov. John Kasich even mentioned it during his State of the State address.
But the Bridge has never been tested in a controlled clinical trial to evaluate whether it’s effective for treating opioid withdrawal. The only published study looking at its use as a detox device is flimsy — and co-authored by a doctor with a financial incentive to promote the device. And much of the extensive hype about the Bridge has been ginned up by that same doctor, who runs the Facebook group, responds to positive posts with applause emojis — and routinely asks satisfied patients and providers to speak with reporters.
At a time when , and only a tenth of people with opioid-use disorders make it to medical treatment, the excitement surrounding the Bridge underscores a conundrum of the opioid crisis. New products promising to improve recovery are . But advocates worry that vulnerable patients desperate to kick their drug habits are being sold hope ahead of hard evidence.
