The WHO has retracted its two main guidelines on the use of opioids in the wake of accusations they repeated drug company marketing slogans.

Last year, a US congressional report accused US drug company Purdue Pharma and its UK-based sister company Mundipharma International of funding organisations and specialists to influence the writing of WHO policy to encourage wider prescribing of high-strength opioids around the world.

The report called Corrupting Influence described the two WHO guidance documents as “marketing materials for Purdue” because of their use of terms such as “opiophobia”.

The report authors claimed the term had been coined by the company to characterise doctors who were slow to prescribe opioids.