According to the website www.opensecrets.org American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians have spent upwards of $430,000 for lobbyists in any given year
and up to 17 lobbyists working for them. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2017&id=D000021834
and they have political contributed between $250K – $300 K per 2 yr election cycle …here is a website showing their political contributions to members of Congress https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000021834&cycle=2018
The chronic pain community needs to take notice of this… while the chronic pain community is busy … making phone calls to members of Congress, sending emails, signing petitions, sending letters to media… having some rallies/demonstrations at numerous places around the country a few times over the past year.
While more and more information is coming to light about the harm that ESI’s can and does do to pts… while the FDA and the pharma that makes the primary corticosteroid that is used in ESI have come out discouraging the use of that category of meds in ESI.
CMS is reportedly discussing increasing the allowable paid to pain clinics that provide ESI’s to ENCOURAGE them to do more.
It is claimed that there are 10 million ESI’s given to pts every year and abt 5% of those pts will develop adhesive arachnoiditis a VERY PAINFUL and IRREVERSIBLE disease.
The national association that represents all of those pain management clinics spent 1.5 million dollars in 2017 to lobby congress to overlook all of the “bad outcomes” of pts getting repetitive ESI’s, How many other years has this association spent a similar dollar figure to lobby Congress ?
How many other organizations are out there spending untold number of dollars lobbying Congress to do things that are not in the best interest of those in the chronic pain community ?
Filed under: General Problems
During the “pill mill” explosion era, when opioids were given too freely; 1 medical class of docs took advantage of all the fear mongering about opioids. They were the pain docs that pushed procedures in place of opioids. They w/a lot of help from the media elevated them above the docs that were giving opioids.
While there were bad pill mill docs that were way over prescribing & needed to be shut down; there was also many good docs, who’s only crime was compassion. The procedure docs were constantly putting down docs that gave opioids as examples of how not to treat CPP & accused them of creating addicts & the opioid epidemic.
So while everyones eyes were on opioid docs; THESE procedure docs were left to operate willy nilly, using & pushing either harmful & un needed procedures many w/o benefit proof and/or FDA approval!
Within this group came “hostage” docs. These were docs that would give pain meds. short term, then snatch them away & hold them hostage until pt. agreed to allow docs to do whatever useless, dangerous & many times harmful procedures!
Yet because their pts. were not overdosing; no one was looking into all the harm they were causing & how there was little to no science backing up these procedures!
These docs can continue to pat themselves one the back & bragging about the fact that their cpp were not overdosing nor getting addicted; which was completely true! However when you pull back the curtain; you see the awful truth; horrific suffering on an unbelievable level & death! But hey, at least they didn’t create addicts! Instead they just created multitudes of CPP & suicide victims!
These procedures were more about the huge amount of money they were able to charge, for them than it ever had to do w/patient care & compassion! If they really cared, they would start fighting w/ us instead of against us!!
Ya know, it really, really ticks me off that in my over 4 decades as a chronic pain sufferer, I never once ran into a pill mill, never even heard a rumor of one anywhere near me. I’ve always had to beg, grovel, suffer, & sign all sorts of extortionary contracts & other things to get any pain meds at all (when I COULD get any pain meds). I’m quite offended that not once in all these decades has any doctor just flung buckets-full of pain pills at me merely for the asking. And I had to move many times in those decades & lived in 8 different states (including Florida, the supposed Home of the Pill Mills).
Makes me feel left out, like the wallflower at the dance…aren’t I pretty enough, don’t I wear the right “in” clothes, aren’t I cool enough to get buried in pain pills? It’s downright anti-social.
(criminally, I don’t mean to give you grief, I just think this every time I see any mention of pill mills. It’s just so unfair….like anything about being a CPP is fair….).
The so called Opioid epidemic has been a marketing bonanza. In New Mexico our AG and the industry “recommends alternatives,” such as intrusive and dangerous surgeries, pain pumps, and steroid injections for people with pain. Of course these marketers do not mention the side effects or the people with intractable chronic pain after surgery. No agency tracked the outcomes of people who had surgery and were left with intractable chronic pain. The FDA hid the number of deaths, and adverse events associated with the pain pumps, and other implanted medical devices. Pain pumps are associated with death, infections and no pain relief, but that data has been withheld. Of course the steroid injections, led to infections, deaths, and even paralysis, but they are profitable.
Remember the corporate media has not covered any of these Facts.
My Congressman was not aware of FDA warning against ESI or the fact ESI are not FDA approved until I told him the harm they caused. And he has a medical background.
Patients need lobbyists, yesterday
Hello Steve. ESI’S ? Not aware of the annogram (sp). Epidural sensory injection? Anyway. I realize the $ and irresponsible damage which may and does occurr.
I read over the BROCHURE outlining the annual 2020 AAPA meeting in MD… With these organized symposiums, how do CPP’s reverberate our critical concerns.
And the cost of the individual ‘professional’ presentations…. smfh. Again, the $$.
Where was the overwhelming consern during the 1980’s crack epidemic? How racist is this agenda as well as profitable. These are my opinions alone.
While this continues, pain remains under and untreated. All the while more anti medicinal multi modalities are introduced pushing tried and true pharmacological therapies out the proverbial ‘window’.
I respect your diligence to remain in the loop. Happy Holidays to you and yours.
Hopefully reality of human suffering invades populace and medicine shall once again become factually the TRUTH.
THANK YOU !