More Than 80,000 Spinal Cord Stimulator Injury Reports Filed With FDA | NBC Nightly News

Some 60,000 spinal cord stimulators are surgically implanted every year. They send a mild electrical current to the spinal cord to relieve chronic pain. An NBC News investigation in partnership with the Associated Press found tens of thousands of injury reports had been filed with the FDA.

5 Responses

  1. The FDA Hid the Incident reports on all devices for years to protect industry profits. The so called opioid crisis and the mistreatment of people with chronic pain forced a lot of sick and vulnerable patients to “choose” these devices. Patients died, got infections, required multiple surgeries, and had to endure random electrical shocks,with very few benefits. Marketers seized on the opioiphobia to sell even more of these devices, while physicians took kick backs and denied care to people who refused to have these invasive surgeries.

    Pain related sites, like “Pain Matters” owned by a physician ran deceptive content marketing, to sell these devices, along with alternative medicine, like aromatherapy. This was on social media do the few laws left do not apply. This country used to have laws against this kind of marketing, but thanks to industry lobbying they are no longer enforced,

    The C-Span “Opiod Epidemic” is giving that deliberately ignorant Senator, Kennedy a platform to display his willful ignorance.

    “They don’t need evidence based training, they have been to medical school.” Senator Kennedy of Louisiana

    He was probably first in line to take industry money to prevent the DEA from collecting data on the suppliers. His good friend Rudy Giuliani protected the pharma industry and Perdue from being barred after a conviction for selling Oxycontin. He ensured that Perdue and other companies could continue to do business after they were caught in the early 2000s. Perdue’s propaganda campaign consisted of blaming doctors and patients, instead of the pharma industry.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/22/rudy-giuliani-opioid-epidemic-oxycontin-purdue-pharma

    Sen Tom Tillis asked an informed question about chronic pain and suicide. SAMHSA is still ignoring that problem, but their representative acknowledged the problem, that did not stop them from targeting patients and allowing pain patients to commit suicide,to avoid SAMHSA has still not “educated” any physicians avoiding intractable chronic pain. out any of that. Of course anyone with any common sense, would have know their crackdown on opioids would lead to the deaths of patients. It also led to the deaths of people addicted to opioids, since there was no treatment available for most of them.

    Now they have a second panel, Dr Bradley Stein form the Rand Corporation, is now talking about pain patents and unintended consequences. After that Patrick Kelly from the Pharma distributors is allowed to repeat some corporate propaganda, to avoid responsibility for the opiates diverted from the supply chain. They are even allowing a pharmacist to speak, from an independent pharmacy.

    Sen Durbin doesn’t understand that the DEA was not allowed to collect data, due to industry interference. This was the fault of our politicians who took money from the industry.

  2. Oh, puh-lease. Save me the faux concern for what I, and many like me have to go through in order to find some promise of relief from unrelenting pain while you at NBC News and your ilk constantly beat your drum about the “Opioid Crisis” that was based on skewed statistics and studies. You have no idea how many lives this has affected and the cost incurred by insurance companies and patients as we pay for innumerable procedures that put us at even greater risk, not to mention the toll on our families that have missed work as we seek transportation to and from these procedures.

    • Could have said it better…I live with cronic pain every flipping day! With nothing for the
      pain. So yes we do anything we can to get some relief. I had the stem router put in( the trial ) I have pain in my spine , my neck locks up and so does my jaw. I have to my pain doctor 7 times so far..3 MRI’s and now I’m going to a Nero surgeon tomorrow. I can’t walk have to deal with constant feeling of being stabbed! …..just to get some help with my CRPS.

  3. Hey, at least those folks aren’t “addicted” to “opioid drugs” –nothing else matters any more. Even dangerous procedures or devices that make people much worse than they were are preferable to pain meds to these hysteriacs.

  4. The poor guy bound to a wheelchair is so right! I thought when going to a supermarket and seeing the boy scouts or girl scouts ready to sell you 50 boxes of cookies was stressful. He is not kidding when he says they just about force you to try these devices,the same way they do with the needles. Its the worse situation you can be in. In your heart you dont want to do it because you know how easy it can go off the rails But you cave n give it a try to show you would do anything to get rid of pain.Only after ending up like the poor guy then we say ENOUGH! But sadly its to late,

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