Posts Tagged With: public health

Take a moment to scan one or two of these Highly Recommended documents… good background reading for any serious student of the war on docs and the pain crisis. A Critical Assessment of the Impact of Drug Testing Programs on the American Workplace is a good review of this important related drug war topic that is currently in the news (govt push to drug test high school students);
War on Drugs, War on Doctors, and the Pain Crisis in America — this is probably THE CORE document; if you only …

criticisms and description of federal prosecutorial behavior rings true to me from my experience and knowledge of war on docs/pain crisis cases. Our justice system is withering, ‘the drugs exception to the Bill of Rights’ has gone from being a tragic lawyers joke to business as usual, and we now routinely apply asset forfeiture and RICO laws, intended by Congress to combat drug cartels, to individual pain-treating physicians. Doctors and sick people are easy, profitable prey for law enforcement and federal prosecutors pandering to the electorate through a media willing to be exploited for their share of the spoils.

There are so many who need opioid pain medications and can not get them… These people have their lives destroyed every day as they drag themselves from doctor to doctor being lied to, verbally and sometimes physically abused, forced into unnecessary rounds of expensive testing… They are sneered at by pharmacists, called addicts by doctors, drug tested, called “frequent-flyers” and other derogatory names by emergency room nurses and doctors, denied reimbursement…

The article well describes the public health chaos this is the predictable consequence of clinical and public health authorities abandoning their real mission to uphold the medical standard of care for their citizenry, and instead focusing exclusively on the policeman’s agenda which prioritizes ‘catching a few addicts’ over providing adequate pain management for legions of innocent patients.

This Resource Is an article by Dr. Frank Fisher published in the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin. He recounts his tale of persecution for practicing excellent pain management – a quintessencial example of the War on Doctors and the Pain Crisis in America.

This Resource Is an article discusses the failure of the ‘barriers to pain care’ literature to analyze those barriers from an ethical POV. The author relates this to ‘the collective failure of the profession to recognize the ethical implications of undertreated pain.’

In this full text medical journal article, Joranson, in response to Paulozzi (below), describes a basic public health approach to the ‘drug abuse crisis.’ One wonders whether the combined brain power of the NIH, CDC and FDA would not have accomplished this, except for the imperatives of the drug war. Hurwitz 2005 (see below) is an example of the sort of creative analysis we should expect, but never get, from our academic and federal patriarchs.

Purdue Pharma was coerced, under threat of destruction by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), into pleading guilty to charges that their drug was “more addictive” than they had claimed, the government alleging that the company failed to inform both doctors and the public of this information when it came available. The problem for Americans in pain is that this private deal creates, if you will, a “fact” on the public record that is not factual, a “fact” that severely prejudices the interests of patients in pain. [...]

Archive with links to testimony, supplemental documents, video interviews, and radio interviews related to House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime hearings on “DEA’s Regulation of Medicine” in July, 2007.

Odd drug use youTube video from Brussels…

Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Pain Relief Network, Testimony before the Senate committee on the Judiciary, regarding the Purdue Oxycontin settlement. Link to full text PDF. Excerpt: “Many people in severe pain, especially those with high dose requirements, have been maimed or killed as a result of this department’s campaign against pain management. But we haven’t, as of yet, seen Senate Judiciary Committee hearings about that ongoing atrocity.” [...]

War on Doctors/Pain Crisis blog entry presenting the embedded trailer for the documentary, ‘High – the true tale of American Marijuana.

TOC: Intro — Opiophobia and Opioignorance — Risk of Addiction in Chronic Opioid Therapy — Treatment and Outcomes — Undertreatment of Pain is a National Scourge — Footnootes

Pain Relief Network Press Release about House of Representatives Hearings on DEA Oversight scheduled for July 12, 2007. Full text: The House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, will be holding hearings on DEA oversight Thursday, July 12, 2007. As a result of my visit to Washington, DC in early June, the recent New York Times Magazine Cover article, and the assistance of many good friends on and around Capitol Hill, I have been invited to testify. This is a HUGE opportunity for the Pain Relief Network (PRN) to present its case to a wide and influential audience. — Our goal …

Blog post about the Prescription Drug Diversion Prosecutions – Quick Reference Card 2002 for which a link to full text PDF is provided. Tina Rosenberg, in her recent cover story for the New York Times Magazine, makes direct reference to the Cheat Sheet in the following paragraphs excerpted from that article. It really is fascinating in a stomach-turning sort of way. Enjoy!