“I will not be intimidated and I will not be silenced,” said Reynolds, who founded PRN… “As I testified before Congress, an obsession with prescription drug abuse has resulted in the gross under-treatment of pain in this country. We have turned honest physicians and desperate patients into criminals, and policymakers and the public need to hear about it…”
We keep hearing about how the War on Drugs has failed. But the truth is, the War on Drugs has been tremendously successful, that is if you wanted your country to be a police state, your Congress completely unresponsive to the needs of the people, and your doctors letting you and your loved ones live and die in unnecessary pain.
Shaygan’s attorney Markus discovered that govt prosecutors authorized two witnesses to surreptitiously record conversations with the defense team and attempt to bribe Markus, and failed to disclose that the witnesses were paid, confidential informants for the DEA. U.S. District Judge Gold said there were “flagrant violations” of basic rules by Shaygan’s prosecutors, and that “important safeguards were not met.” An order from Gold is expected in a few weeks.
Wow. To win acquittal on federal drug trafficking charges is very difficult and very rare, as I have [discussed before][rm]. A resounding win is almost unheard of. I will be very interested in the outcome of the prosecutorial misconduct case being brought by Dr. Shaygan’s defense attorney, Mr. Markus.
Excerpt: “Dr. Mangino has been unjustly prosecuted and convicted in Pennsylvania. His case is unusual. He is currently incarcerated at SCI-Cresson… Essentially, in PA and nationwide, if this conviction is allowed to stand on the grounds presented by prosecution, then any single opioid prescription can be deemed illegal.” — Dr. Mangino
In pain medicine we have the deeply disturbing situation that what most doctors do (medical community norm) is at odds with, and clearly below, the medical standard of care. Literally, in the treatment of chronic pain, an ethical physician attempting to practice in good faith, according to the clinical literature, is an outlier deviating from how most reputable physicians would practice.
Many physicians are concerned that prescribing opioid analgesics in chronic pain treatment is accompanied by an unacceptable risk of unwarranted prosecution. The validity of this fear is evaluated by examining the standards through which physicians are targeted and prosecuted. Prohibition law is identified as an error in social policy that distorts medical standards.
I came across the article linked to: “Third Circuit Gives New Meaning to Term ‘Criminal Justice System’”, by Dr. Bernard Rottschaefer, himself the victim of federal prosecutor Mary Beth Buchanan in what Radley Balko, who wrote “Sex, Drugs and a Federal Prosecution – The Shabby Case Against Dr. Rottschaefer,” calls “Buchanan’s most outrageous case.” Balko writes: “Since Rottschaefer’s conviction, Buchanan’s case has fallen to pieces, as each of the five witnesses who testified to getting illegal prescriptions from Rottschaefer have since been shown to have lied. Buchanan refuses to reopen the case.”
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…
Unrelieved pain has a devastating impact on the physical, emotional, social, and economic well being of patients and their families. Diagnosing and treating pain is, therefore, fundamental to the public health. Terminology is review, myths identified, and medical understanding is stated.
Article from PascoTribune, including video interview of Paey, about Paey’s readjustment to live out of prison as a pardoned chronic pain patient. Permalink:
I spoke to Billy’s wife briefly, recently, and am very happy to be able to report that Dr. Hurwitz is no longer in federal prison. He is currently in a half-way house in D.C. and will be transitioning to house arrest as part of his parole and probation requirements… He is in a sort of “titration to house arrest” best I understand it. Meaning, he is starting to get overnight visits with his family – YEA! – and more and more of that till he sort of “stabilizes” on a regimen of maintenance house arrest. (Is house arrest a substitution therapy for …
Update on the case of USA v Dr. Martinez in Washington state. Martinez has been acquitted of all drug crime charges. The fraud charges remaining after her 2007 fed trial have also been dismissed, but the govt can bring the fraud charges anew. Also examined is a recent Yakima Herald article announcing “new” charges that are not, in any reality-based sense, “new” at all.
Experts: Untreated pain as serious a problem drug abuse. By Tristan Scott of the Missoulian. With the specter of prescription drug abuse looming large, health care workers stressed Friday that untreated pain in Montana is a public health crisis commensurate to that of addiction.
10 May 2009 |
