This Congressman REPRESENTS WHO … not all the VOTERS ?

Posted on July 3, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

Vet With Chronic Pain Denied Access to his Congressman

www.nationalpainreport.com/vet-with-chronic-pain-denied-access-to-his-congressman-8833959.html

by Ed Coghlan

A veteran with chronic pain wants to talk to his Congressman—and another attempt to do that on Monday failed.

Robert Rose is a 51-year old Marine who believes the Mountain Home VA Center in Johnson City, Tennessee has been denying him care and has been quite vocal about it,

Congressman Roe was scheduled to speak at the Mountain Home VA Center at 11 am—and Rose–well known to the VA authorities because of his protests about his care—arrived early, he said, to speak with other veterans.

Rose called me and told me that he had been told by the VA law enforcement people that he would be arrested if he said anything at the Congressional hearing and asked me what I should do.

“I told him I was a reporter not an advocate and it wasn’t my job to advise him about that–but let me know what happened.”

That call came at 9:41 EDT.

My phone rang again at 9:57 and again it was Rose who told me he was being escorted into the building by three officers–and I asked him to put me on speaker. We were on the phone for nearly 30 minutes to hear the exchange between Rose and VA law enforcement.

A VA policeman, later identified as Sergeant King, said to Rose,

“You are not being arrested,” but he was being urged to come with them to discuss the situation.

Sgt. King wanted to know who I was and said I could not record a conversation on federal grounds and wanted to end the phone call. I assured him I wasn’t and if I was recording anything I would have to let him know that and he agreed to let me continue to listen.

Essentially Sgt. King told Rose that he had received a complaint about him yelling and being disruptive at the Congressman’s entourage.

Rose, with some passion, explained that he was 30 feet from the roadway (a fact confirmed by a VA official) and wasn’t even on the sidewalk and that he had been talking with a fellow vet and his wife.

Rose asked twice (and I asked a third time) who had made the complaint and Sgt. King said he couldn’t say.

Later when I asked him, the Sergeant said that the “Congressman’s staff felt on edge,” but did not elaborate.

Rose, who is in a wheelchair, was told that they didn’t want to arrest him and was asked essentially to behave.

During the speech, he behaved but he silently protested.

During Congressman Roe’s speech, Rose, sitting in his wheelchair, turned his back on the Congressman–who by the way in an Army veteran himself and–importantly–Chairman of the House Committee on Veteran Affairs.

After the speech, Rose said his path to the Congressman was blocked by the VA Police and he wasn’t allowed to speak to him.

I asked Rose if he had any photos and he said that he was told he would have been arrested had he taken any, although local media did attend and took photos and video.

Rose, who said he’s lost count of how many times he’s tried to speak with Congressman Roe, believes the VA Police were trying intimidate him and illegally detained him before the meeting.

The National Pain Report called Roe’s office in Kingsport, but received a recording because they are on holiday today and tomorrow (July 4).

If they call back, we’ll let you know what they say.

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DOJ civil rights division: IS Dreiband “the wrong person for the job.” ?

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

Civil rights advocates concerned with Trump’s pick to lead DOJ civil rights divisionCivil rights advocates concerned with Trump’s pick to lead DOJ civil rights division

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/340402-civil-rights-advocates-concerned-with-trumps-pick-to-lead-doj-civil

Civil rights advocates are raising alarm over President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

Trump nominated attorney Eric Dreiband, who has represented corporations on matters such as civil rights and employment discrimination, to lead the DOJ’s civil rights division on Thursday.

Dreiband has represented various corporations such as Bloomberg, CVS Pharmacy and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. He also served in George W. Bush’s administration as general counsel for the Equal Opportunity Commission.However, the official who led the division under former President Obama issued a statement saying Dreiband is “the wrong person for the job.”

“He has opposed important legislation to safeguard our civil rights. And he has no known experience in most of the Civil Rights Division’s core issue areas, such as voting rights, police reform, housing, education, and hate crimes. He is the wrong person for the job,” Vanita Gupta, who now leads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said in a statement.

“Dreiband’s nomination, however, continues the Trump administration’s disturbing trend of retreating from — if not outright undermining — fundamental civil rights priorities,” the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said in a statement on Medium.

The White House pushed back on the claims against Dreiband saying nominees are selected based “on the merits of their character and not on the clients they once represented as counsel.”

“Mr. Dreiband is highly qualified to run the civil rights division, and we are privileged to have his service,” White House spokeswoman Kelly Love told CNN.

Should all the those in the chronic pain community and others that are covered under the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disability Act start to align with each other… to CAUSE CHANGE ?

 

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Cost Containment by the Insurance Industry ?

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

This was a post on a FB page for chronic painers today:

Our world is going to crap. An insurance company just proposed to a doctor that two patients that needed treatment in another state, that they wouldn’t pay for treatment but would pay for assisted suicide. Look out everyone. When our laws are willing to let someone die that is suffering from a disease called addiction and kill another two that needed expensive treatment we are all in trouble. Wake up Americans

 

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What happened to the OBESITY EPIDEMIC ?

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

Image result for cartoon obesity empidemic

850 will die from OBESITY — TODAY 

Remember a year or two ago… nightly in the media… there was WARNINGS about our OBESITY EPIDEMIC ?

But it is estimated that  850 DIED EVERY DAY IN 2016 from OBESITY.  Obesity is the FOURTH LARGEST CAUSE OF DEATH.. behind Heart Disease, Cancer & Tobacco/Nicotine.

Since 850 deaths per day … would appear to be AT LEAST TEN TIMES the number of opiate OD death per day that is being reported…  as an EPIDEMIC

I guess that a EPIDEMIC is in the eye of the beholder and what they can get the media to believe

Does that mean that the MEDIA is pretty gullible or the public is pretty gullible about all the fake epidemic(s) that various parts of our society is allowed to fabricate and promote.

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The 800 lb gorilla in the room ?

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

PALLIATIVE CARE diagnosis – exempts pt from daily opiate limits

The above post was about two Maine residents that threatened to sue the state over their mandated daily opiate dosing limits.

Most/many/all of the state’s opiate dosing limits and the “guidelines” published by the CDC and which many entities are adopting as their standard of care and best practices for treating chronic pain pts have pt’s conditions that would exempt them from the daily mgs limits.

That is the GOOD NEWS… but the 800 lb Gorilla in the room may be that I have not seen anything from the DEA that they are going to recognize those exemptions.  Are the going to continue on their hap-hazard approach in determining who is operating a “pill mill” ?

The DEA still have to continue their work to protect/grow their 81 billion/yr war on drugs and could their job security trump any concerns for chronic pain pt’s health/safety and quality of life ?

We always seem to hear about the number of  “bodies” that are suppose to be attached to an accused “pill mill” office.. but.. we never seem to have the numbers of “bodies” that result from the DEA shutting down a prescribers office as pts from those offices are thrown into cold turkey withdrawal and elevated untreated pain.  It is also a fairly well known situation where those pts that had been seen by the closed practice often have the sigma of that RED “A” on their forehead and will not be accepted as a pt by another physician practice or clinic  

 

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Are criminals SMARTER ….or… Bureaucrats just DUMBER ?

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

DEA official: ‘Marijuana black market has increased exponentially’

http://beatricedailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/dea-official-marijuana-black-market-has-increased-exponentially/article_1eecc057-12c5-5aae-98d2-1958872bd4fc.html

DENVER — A mammoth marijuana trafficking ring that pretended to be growing weed for sick people was instead illegally shipping the drug to a half-dozen other states and bilking investors, including former NFL players, Colorado officials announced Wednesday.

A Denver grand jury indicted 62 people and 12 businesses in the case that involved federal and state agents executing nearly 150 search warrants at 33 homes and 18 warehouses and storage units in the Denver area.

“The black market for marijuana has not gone away since recreational marijuana was legalized in our state, and in fact continues to flourish,” state Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said in a statement.

 

The indictment targets the largest illegal marijuana operation discovered since Colorado legalized recreational pot in 2012, Coffman said.

It says the enterprise produced more than 100 pounds of illegal pot each month for shipment to Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and other states.

The ring operated from 2012 until 2016 and raked in an estimated $200,000 a month, Coffman said.

The defendants were charged with 31 felony counts of money-laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes. Most are now under arrest awaiting trial dates in Denver District Court.

Prosecutors say that one of the conspirators, Connor Brooks, duped friends, including two former pro football players, into investing in his scheme.

Brooks got money from Erik Pears, a free agent most recently with the San Francisco 49ers, and Joel Dreessen, a former Denver Broncos tight end, the indictment says.

Neither football player is accused of a crime, and the indictment does not say how much the two invested in what they thought was a legal marijuana business. Other investors gave money, too, the indictment said.

“These individuals each provided tens of thousands of dollars to Connor Brooks to fund an allegedly legal grow operation, and they did not receive any of their invested funds back from Connor Brooks as promised,” the indictment said.

It was not immediately clear if Brooks or any other defendants had an attorney.

 

In addition to growing black-market pot in private homes, the indictment says, some defendants ran phony marijuana consulting businesses or leasing agencies.

Some held partial ownership in a suburban Denver store that sells marijuana growing supplies, which the indictment says allowed them to have ready access to nutrients, pesticides and other supplies. The name of that store was not listed.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, along with the Kansas State Patrol and Nebraska State Patrol, participated in the investigation.

“Since 2014 there has been an influx of these organized criminal groups to Colorado for the sole purpose of producing marijuana to sell in other states,” said Barbra Roach, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Denver Field Division.

In a statement, Roach said “the marijuana black market has increased exponentially since state legalization.”

The indictment was returned June 9 and announced Wednesday by Coffman.

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Persistent Pain Linked With Greater Memory Decline & Dementia Probability

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

Older adults with chronic pain have been found to have poorer memory and executive function than their younger counterparts.Persistent Pain Linked With Greater Memory Decline & Dementia Probability

http://www.clinicalpainadvisor.com/pain-comorbidities/executive-functioning-is-affected-in-elderly-individuals-with-persistent-pain/article/669954/

In a population-based cohort study described in JAMA Internal Medicine, older adults with persistent pain showed more rapid memory decline and greater dementia probability compared with adults without persistent pain.1 

The prevalence of chronic pain in older adults is 25% to 33%, and recovery is less likely in this group compared with younger individuals.2,3 Recent findings demonstrated a link between pain and outcomes that commonly affect the elderly, including functional impairment, cognitive decline, and dementia.4-6 Older adults with chronic pain have been found to have poorer memory and executive function than their younger counterparts, both of which are closely associated with functional independence.6

In the current study, data from 10,065 participants (median baseline age, 73; 60% women; 1120 [10.9%] with persistent pain) in the Health and Retirement Study was analyzed to assess the longitudinal effects of persistent pain on memory and the probability of developing dementia. In addition, the impact of pain-related memory decline on daily functional tasks (ie, medication and financial management) was examined.

Participants initially reported outcomes in 1998 and 2000 and were followed until 2012 or until death or dropout from the study. Composite memory score and dementia probability were “estimated by combining neuropsychological test results and informant and proxy interviews.” Patients with moderate to severe persistent pain were compared with age-adjusted peers without persistent pain.

Study participants with persistent pain at baseline had worse depressive symptoms and more functional limitations pertaining to daily tasks vs participants without persistent pain. After adjustment for covariates such as marital status, alcohol use, and financial assets, more rapid memory decline was observed in patients with persistent pain (mean, 9.2%; 95% CI, 2.8%-15.0%; P <.001). 

These patients also had an increased relative risk of inability to manage medications (11.8%) or finances (15.9%) after 10 years, compared with patients without persistent pain. In addition, the increase in adjusted dementia probability was 7.7% (95% CI, 0.55%-14.2%) higher in the pain group.

These findings suggest that, along with the direct treatment implications of asking patients about pain, such discussions could provide clinicians the opportunity “introduce mitigation strategies—such as assistive devices or other physical or occupational therapy interventions to address pain-related functional limitations, or self-efficacy and mindfulness strategies to reduce the affective impact of chronic pain,” the researchers concluded.

Summary and Clinical Applicability

Moderate to severe persistent pain in older adults is linked with accelerated memory decline and increased dementia probability. 

Limitations

Because more patients with chronic pain had higher rates of death and dropout in the study, these patients had fewer evaluations than the comparison group. Also, the Health and Retirement Study provided scant information about the origin, nature, or treatment of the pain, which precluded the stratification of participants based on common criteria. 

 

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3 strikes and you are out … takes on a new meaning ?

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

3 Strikes, You’re Out! City to Let Overdose “Victims” Die After 3rd Time

www.eaglerising.com/45079/3-strikes-youre-out-city-to-let-overdose-victims-die-after-3rd-time/

Do we continue to save people who are willingly putting drugs into their bodies and overdosing? That is the question one city has been struggling with for a while, and they are making a decision as to whether they should let the overdosing “victim” die after the third time being saved.

I use the word victim lightly because they aren’t really victims. Cancer patients are victims. They have a disease that they cannot help. Drug addicts are just that. It may not be an easy choice because their bodies are addicted, however, it is a choice they make nonetheless.

Butler Dispatch reports:

Middletown, Ohio officials are tired of overdoses in their town, and they have a way to stop this from continuing. But city officials are concerned this “proposal” may hurt them in the end. The proposal is a 3-strike policy. On the 3rd 911 call of a known “overdoser”, the 911 dispatcher will simply hang-up.

WLWT-TV and WKYC-TV stations in Ohio has released new information as to the 3-strike policy. Middletown, OH has spent $11,000 on Narcan in 2016. In 2017, they have spent over $30,000 and are projected to spend another $45,000 unless they do something to resolve their addiction problem.

Last year Middletown has 74 overdose-deaths. In 2017, they have had 51 overdose deaths and it is still rising weekly. The proposal begins with giving the person 3-chances.

The first revival is “free”, per say. The 2nd revival results in the person doing community service to pay off their “debt” for the Narcan used to revive them. The 3rd-strike results in the dispatcher hanging up on you.

The way a dispatcher would know whether to hang-up on you is a database will be created. This database will result in the names, addresses, and phone numbers of known users. If a dispatcher receives a call, and they see you have not completed your community service or you are constantly a “frequent flyer”, the dispatcher will disconnect the line and not dispatch an ambulance.

The city claims this is not a way to solve the overdose issue, but to save the city money.

 

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How Congress moves one small step at a time to control opiates

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

OxyContin and Beyond: Examining the Role of the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency in Regulating Prescription Painkillers.

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109hhrg24947/pdf/CHRG-109hhrg24947.pdf

This is a 131 page report on a Congressional hearing TWELVE YEARS ago on how they were going to deal with the perception of increased abuse of opiates by certain segments of our population.

IMO.. this also clearly demonstrates how Congress moves like a tortoise.. one small step at a time… until they get accomplished their goals.. while everyone else is busy living their life and don’t see it coming ? 

 

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Trump Administration’s idea of HEALTH CARE ?

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Pharmaciststeve

Trump Administration Looks to Give Federal Employees Fewer Opioids

http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2017/06/trump-administration-looks-give-federal-employees-fewer-opioids/139059/

The Trump administration is promising to give federal employees injured on the job fewer prescription opioids, noting the risk of substance abuse for that line of treatment.

The Labor Department’s Division of Federal Employees’ Compensation instituted new rules that took effect this week, which will limit the duration of opioid prescriptions for incapacitated feds to 60 days. The office encouraged doctors to prescribe “the shortest duration of opioid medication that will provide appropriate pain relief,” and capped fills to 30 days at a time. No more than two opioids may be prescribed at once, including in compounded medications. Those meds will now require a Letter of Medical Necessity before being prescribed.

The rules will apply to employees enrolled in coverage through the Federal Employees Compensation Act, which pays medical expenses and compensation benefits to feds who sustain work-related injuries, or their survivors. In fiscal 2016, the program, which is administered by Labor, provided $3.2 billion in benefits to 219,000 employees and survivors.

Starting in August, the FECA division will not authorize newly prescribed opioid drugs after the initial 60-day period without a special letter from a provider. Labor employees must personally review those letters before more opioids are dispensed. The department will soon issue further rules for existing prescriptions issued within the last six months. It also advised physicians to limit the daily dosage of the drugs.

Ideally, the Labor division said, FECA recipients will avoid opioids altogether.

“We strongly urge our claimants and their treating physicians to be mindful of safety concerns relating to opioid medications and to consider alternative drugs that do not pose the same risks for addiction, dependency and overdose,” the agency said. It conceded that opioid drugs “can provide necessary and safe pain relief to injured workers” when used appropriately, but noted the number of deaths from painkiller overdoses has skyrocketed in recent years.

The Trump administration has focused on the opioid abuse issue, with the president in March signing an executive order creating a commission tasked with fighting the crisis. 

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