Macon man says health declined after receiving someone else’s prescription

http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/67-year-old-man-recieves-someone-elses-prescription-saying-it-harmed-his-health/440925340

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure 1.3 million people annually in the United States.

Nicole Butler met up with a Macon man who has recently suffered from being given someone else’s medication and talks about how it has dramatically affected his health. 

67-year-old Thomas Newson was admitted into Navicent Health’s Luce Heart Institute on May 6th.

He’s had six heart attacks in the past year, and he says last Friday when Newson was discharged was when his health really started free-falling.

“I was scared because I didn’t know what they were giving me,” Newson says, saying his heart started feeling weak.

He says they called and told him to stop.

Newson says by that time the damage had been done, and he’s lost part of his speech.

“They always knew what I was talking about, but now, you know, people ask me, ‘What you say? I can’t understand what you’re talking about,'” he says.

It even affected his eyesight.

“He can’t hardly see. It’s like his eyes, he’s going blind,” Julia Washington, Newson’s caregiver of 34 years, says.

Washington says Newson’s personality and even appetite changed as well. 

“This is not him,” she says.

“He wants to make sure they won’t get him mixed up with nobody else. He said they’ve already gotten him mixed up,” Washington says.

Washington says Navicent’s mistake is inexcusable.

“And we hope the Medical Center won’t keep making these mistakes anymore,” she says.

Newson says he is still suffering from the medications side effects, but is praying to get a little bit better every day.

We asked Navicent Health for a response, by email they said they would not discuss individual’s case due to patient privacy.

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For some airline workers, tipping off the DEA pays off big

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/some-airline-workers-profit-big-tipping-off-dea-watchdogs-united-airlines-ohare-airport-glen-ellyn/

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has paid some airline employees hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide flight itineraries of suspected drug traffickers, leading to the seizure of millions of dollars and prompting concerns about the constitutionality of the cash grabs.

In Chicago, the once-secret program led the DEA to seize $5,000 from a United Airlines passenger’s luggage during a layover at O’Hare Airport last year, according to a lawsuit the man filed.

Breland Barcel Lee, a convicted drug dealer, turned up on the government’s radar when a confidential source flagged his one-way ticket as suspicious and alerted a DEA task force officer at O’Hare, court records show. Officers then searched his Olympia roller bag and found the cash. Lee says he was carrying the cash because he was planning to move to California.

“It’s Big Brother,” says Lee’s attorney, Brendan Shiller. “Innocent people are being swept up, and their property is being taken.”

According to a lawsuit Lee filed against United Airlines and members of a DEA task force, the agency seized $5.5 million in suspected drug money from 118 travelers at Chicago airports in a single year, 2015. The money is split among the DEA and the police agencies that work on its interdiction task force.

The DEA, responding to Chicago Sun-Times questions, acknowledges it “routinely receives information from a wide variety of sources, which includes transportation service employees.

“Because drug traffickers routinely use parcel services, airlines, trains, buses and other means to move their drugs and drug currency throughout the United States, DEA routinely works with personnel from these agencies to interdict these substances.”

Last year, the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office issued a report raising concerns about the DEA using confidential sources in the airline industry. It looked at the files of 19 DEA “limited-use” sources in the industry.

The federal drug-fighting agency paid those 19 people a total of $1.6 million for information they provided in 381 cases between 2011 and 2015, according to the Justice Department watchdog — an average of more than $84,000 apiece, with one airline source getting a whopping $617,000 over that period. The DEA’s Chicago office was among six of the agency’s offices that were audited.

The information that the paid sources gave the DEA resulted in reported cash seizures of more than $14 million from passengers, according to the inspector general, who questioned whether those lucrative relationships might violate travelers’ constitutional rights.

Limited-use sources are supposed to act without direction from the DEA. But the inspector general found that, rather than getting unsolicited tips from them about individual travelers, some DEA agents ask their sources to provide entire passenger manifests on an almost-daily basis. Some sources were being cited 20 times a day.

That “calls into question whether a source is truly providing information independently or is acting as DEA’s agent, the latter of which could have implications relating to compliance with the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures,” the inspector general wrote.

Lee sued United Airlines and members of the DEA Interdiction Group 24, which seized the cash on April 13, 2016. He says his privacy rights were violated when an unknown United Airlines employee handed over personal information about Lee to the DEA, even though he wasn’t a suspected terrorist or threat to national security.

Lee, 31, previously had been convicted of drug and weapon charges — with one drug arrest in North Carolina just two months before his money was seized at O’Hare.

The DEA was alerted to him because he bought a one-way ticket from Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina to Los Angeles the day before his flight.

DEA task force officers looked at Lee’s social media accounts and found pictures of him posing with large amounts of cash “consistent with narcotic proceeds,” according to the application for a federal warrant to search his bag. They also did a background check that turned up his convictions.

Officers delayed Lee to question him about the contents of his bag. They said he initially denied having any cash, then opened his bag and showed them a leopard-patterned pouch that he says contained his money. The officers said Lee told him he planned to use the money to move to California and that he denied having more than $5,000 in the bag.

The officers said he wouldn’t voluntarily let them search the bag, so they told him they were taking it to have a drug dog sniff it, gave him a receipt and seized it.

A narcotics dog alerted to the presence of drugs in his black roller bag, a task force officer said. They obtained a search warrant and found $5,000 inside.

Though agents seized his money, Lee wasn’t charged with any crime. He was allowed to continue on his trip — which is common practice in cases in which the government seizes suspected drug proceeds.

Lee didn’t challenge the seizure through the government’s civil forfeiture process. Instead, he filed suit last July against United Airlines and DEA task force members.

“They should have more evidence to stop somebody,” Lee says. “They are hurting more innocent people than people who are doing illegal things.”

Lee says he’s a carpenter and part owner of a tobacco shop in North Carolina. He says he was planning to leave the shop to a partner and move to California to “start a new life.”

He says he still wants to move to California, but the seizure set his plans back.

The DEA’s application for the search warrant for Lee’s luggage says the agency received Lee’s travel itinerary from a paid, confidential source who previously had provided reliable information. The application doesn’t say whether the source worked for United Airlines, but Lee’s attorney says there’s strong evidence pointing to that, including the inspector general’s report.

Lee won a partial victory in December, when the village of Glen Ellyn settled on behalf of a police officer who worked on the DEA task force and participated in the search of Lee’s luggage. Lee got $6,000 in the settlement — reimbursement for the $5,000 in seized cash, plus $1,000 to pay his legal fees.

Lee didn’t sue the DEA itself.

United Airlines is the only remaining defendant in the case. On Monday, a judge threw out the federal claims against United but ruled the case could continue on claims based on state law, including infliction of emotional stress and false imprisonment.

In response to questions from the Sun-Times, United Airlines issued a one-line, written statement saying, “United complies with written requests from law enforcement for information and believes this case has no merit.”

In court papers, the airline’s lawyers say the allegations that “United was somehow acting as an agent of the DEA” are baseless.

The airline, which recently was the subject of a huge public backlash with the release of a video showing a passenger dragged off a United flight at O’Hare, didn’t respond to questions about whether its employees are secretly providing information to the DEA.

The inspector general’s report didn’t cite any airlines by name.

According to that report, the DEA needs better oversight of payments to its sources working in the transportation industry, including airlines — and of how the agency uses those sources.

The inspector general was troubled that DEA agents didn’t always disclose the use of airline sources in their investigative reports.

Shiller says that lack of transparency is at the heart of Lee’s case. “We’ve been kept in the dark,” he says.

Attorneys for passengers have been told almost nothing about how DEA agents target their clients’ luggage, Shiller says.

He says he reviewed other DEA applications for warrants to search luggage at O’Hare. In one case, a DEA task force officer disclosed that he conducted routine reviews of flight manifests of planes leaving O’Hare. But the officer didn’t say how he got that information, including whether he relied on a confidential source.

The warrant for Lee’s luggage mentioned the use of a confidential source in small print in a footnote.

Testifying last month before the House Judiciary Committee, Acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg was asked about the inspector general’s concerns about his agency using airline employees as informants. Rosenberg said they’re being more closely monitored now.

“So confidential sources, confidential informants are very important to our work,” Rosenberg testified. “But we have to make sure we’re careful.

“We’re now doing 90-day reviews of every single one of our confidential sources. We’ve put in place an awards review board so we can make sure that confidential sources are paid and treated the same way.”

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Friday Feedback: Should Opioids Be FDA’s Top Priority?

Experts review agency’s actions thus far & offer additional strategies

https://www.medpagetoday.com/painmanagement/painmanagement/65433

During the new FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s first all-hands address to agency staff, he declared the opioid abuse epidemic as the agency’s “greatest immediate challenge.”

As opioid abuse and overdose deaths continue to rise, it’s clear that the crisis should be a public health priority. However, the jury is still out on what efforts the FDA can and should take to increase awareness and better manage the issue.

Do you agree that combatting opioid abuse should be the agency’s top priority? If not, what would you pick?

Petros Levounis, MD, Rutgers University: Yes, wholeheartedly! We are seeing a devastating increase in fentanyl and heroin use in our communities with increased rates of admissions and deaths.

Dessa Bergen-Cico, PhD, Syracuse University: I agree that combatting opioid abuse, specifically prescription opioid abuse and overprescribing, should be a top priority of the FDA.

Peter R. Martin, MD, Vanderbilt University: I do not believe the FDA can do anything truly transformative to combat this problem. Where the FDA may help is in facilitation of the development of medications for psychiatric disorders, including opioid and other drug use disorders. Although there have been some advances in medication assisted treatment of opioid and other drug use disorders, these advances have received little priority for the pharmaceutical industry for a variety of reasons, including stigma associated with drug use disorders (“addiction”) and lack of financial incentives to pharmaceutical companies.

Timothy A. Collins, MD, Duke University: No. Combating opioid abuse should be a priority, but not the top priority for the FDA. The FDA’s top priority should be combating the needless increase in the cost of prescription medications.

Sally Satel, MD, American Enterprise Institute: Yes. With no infectious epidemics raging and the death toll from opioids rising, it is a top priority. But I would put easing regulations for electronic cigarettes as a close second.

Jason M. Hockenberry, PhD, Emory University: To the extent it fits in the FDA purview, yes. This means FDA should really focus on the pipeline issues in pharmaceutical and device development related to the treatment of opioids, and pain management related treatments more broadly. The bigger immediate issues in the opioid epidemic are the purview of the DEA, CDC Center for Injury Prevention, SAMHSA, CMS, and the broader healthcare system, not FDA.

Lewis Nelson, MD, Rutgers University: No other FDA related issue is associated with the scope of consequences as is occurring with the opioid epidemic, but it is not just abuse. More important are complications of long-term use due to addiction, dependence, and hyperalgesia (worsening pain due to opioids), as well as overdose death. Therefore, this very realistically should be priority number one.

What can the FDA actually do about opioid abuse that it isn’t already doing?

Joseph A. Boscarino, PhD, MPH, Geisinger Clinic: I’d say find a means to support more applied health system-level research among providers. This knowledge will help in development of more effective interventions at the healthcare delivery site.

 

Satel: Put special focus on development of non-addicting analgesics.

Levounis: The FDA has done a lot for the epidemic already, but further facilitating and promoting treatment of opioid use disorder with safe and effective medications, such as buprenorphine, is greatly needed.

Amol Patwardhan, MD, PhD, University of Arizona: Better education for primary providers and better public education campaigns.

Bergen-Cico: Require and mandate adequate training and education in addictions for healthcare professionals. It is not required and it is a major factor of what healthcare staff deal with in on a daily basis. Regulate advertising and direct marketing of prescription medications to consumers and revise practices of pharmaceutical reps being the main conduit of information for medications to doctors and nurse practitioners.

Collins: The FDA could require end-to-end tracking of every opioid medication. The ability to track from the manufacturer plant to the distribution center, then to pharmacy and patient pick-up, would significantly decrease the diversion of opioids to the illicit market. They can limit marketing of opioid products, require additional studies of longer duration for newly developed opioids, and potentially remove products from the market (if there is evidence of a safety issue).

Nelson: Overhauling the assessment of value — meaning the interplay of efficacy, safety, and cost, for all FDA regulated products would likely find that there is little basis for the ongoing approval and lax regulation of opioids for chronic pain. The FDA does not, however, currently take cost into account, and they occasionally lose sight of the risk/benefit relationship for a drug due to external forces, particularly legislative realities, pharmaceutical industry efforts, and vocal advocacy groups (which often have misaligned incentives).

What effects, if any, have you seen from previous efforts by the FDA and CDC to combat opioid overuse and abuse?

Patwardhan: Very positive outcomes. Significant improvement in patients’ and physicians’ attitudes toward chronic narcotic therapy.

Collins: The previous efforts of the CDC (and to a lesser extent the FDA) have resulted in a much greater awareness of the problems with opioids, and increased discussion between patients and their provider regarding doses and need for opioid medications. Unfortunately, this does not appear to have altered the abuse or diversion of opioids, and does not yet appear to have decreased the rate of overdose and death from prescription opioids.

Martin: The CDC has done an incredible service by bringing the opioid use “epidemic” to the attention of most Americans through seminal publications that have identified the scope and cost of this problem. Unfortunately, the policy response to this crisis immediately led to a focus by the FDA on altering pharmaceutical formulations of opioids to make them less liable to abuse. In retrospect, this response seems overly simplistic and without true understanding of drug use disorders because limiting availability of abusable opioids has simply enhanced transition of the using population to illicit drugs like heroin that are now readily available throughout the country and expanding the epidemic.

Levounis: We have an increase in regulatory oversight of opioid prescribing with good results. Prescription monitoring programs and opioid labeling changes have already given us significant results. Making naloxone easily available to users has also helped decrease the lethality of the illness.

Hockenberry: CDC has helped coordinate efforts to implement public health policies, such as prescription drug monitoring programs and pain clinic laws, that are reducing opioid prescribing, and translating into lower rates of overdose deaths. More needs to be done to get those with opioid use disorders into treatment, and these issues involve financing and other issues outside of FDA and CDC purview.

Boscarino: Addiction use disorders are complex and multifactorial. The FDA and the CDC have worked within their regulatory limitations to address these issues. I think they have had an some impact, but as we see the list of casualties grow in our local towns and cities, most wish to see more done to prevent this epidemic.

Nelson: There has certainly been a greater recognition of the extent and complexity of the use of opioids to treat pain. Some of the good and necessary efforts, such as abuse deterrent formulations, are simply nibbling at the edges of the epidemic, while others, such as public access to naloxone, are akin to closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. What we need to see is primary prevention of the short- and long-term consequences of opioid use, which will require further shifting patients’, physicians’, and regulators’ understanding and expectations about the value of opioid use for pain.

Satel: The abuse deterrent re-formulation of OxyContin has been disappointing. Some users have shifted to heroin/fentanyl and others just use immediate-release generics. The substitution dynamic makes the problem very difficult.

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Iowa hospitals get grades from nonprofit group for safety, injuries

http://siouxcityjournal.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/iowa-hospitals-get-grades-from-nonprofit-group-for-safety-injuries/article_500b4f97-750c-5797-99bc-411bc0ab3366.html

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Indiana police departments want drones. There’s just one big problem.

http://www.whas11.com/news/local/indiana/indiana-police-departments-want-drones-theres-just-one-big-problem/441173901

(INDYSTAR.COM) – Indiana’s two largest police departments both want drones; one for crowd surveillance at major gatherings Downtown, the other to monitor traffic at events such as the Indiana State Fair.

There’s just one problem. Both uses appear to be against the law in Indiana.

As the cost of drones drops and police departments rush to acquire the latest technology, officers are finding it difficult to navigate a tangled web of federal and state policies. They also face ethical questions. How will the community respond to cameras in the skies? And what are the appropriate uses?

 

Across the country, more than 340 public safety agencies either have drones or the authorization to fly them, according to an April report from the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College. More purchases occurred last year than all previous years combined, the report found.

And when it comes to finding ways to use them, well, the sky is the limit — which has created some concerns.

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In North Dakota, police have authority to attach nondeadly weapons, such as stun guns and devices to fire rubber bullets, which drew a rebuke from the American Civil Liberties Union.

In Connecticut, the state legislature briefly considered a bill this year that would have allowed police agencies to attach deadly weapons.

But most drones are simply strapped with cameras, giving police high-definition pictures from the sky.

At least 10 Indiana police agencies now own drones, and more are considering the possibility. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department hopes to identify funding in the 2018 budget, Chief Bryan Roach told IndyStar, to begin deploying “in a very limited scope.” Top officials at the department said crowd surveillance was one possible benefit.

Indiana State Police also are currently researching drones, a spokesman said, adding traffic control was one of the goals.

But here in Indiana — which is among 17 other states with similar laws, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures report — a police department needs a warrant to use a drone, except in a few circumstances and in emergency situations.

That means IMPD most likely wouldn’t be able to fly near large gatherings, providing a bird’s-eye view to look for wrongdoing, unless officials feared a terrorist attack or expected a crime. Nor could state police watch for traffic snarls outside big events. When told of the restrictions, both departments acknowledged they needed to conduct more research, and said they would only use drones for legitimate purposes allowed by the law.

Eric Koch, who as a state representative authored Indiana’s drone laws in 2014 and 2016, said the laws add judicial oversight, and err on the side of privacy.

“And that’s an expectation among the public,” said Koch, a Republican who’s now a state senator.

DRONE CATCHES A HIDING SUSPECT

In March, in the northeast corner of the state, Indiana saw perhaps the best example of a drone’s policing power.

There, in rural Noble County, sheriff’s deputies were hunting for a man in the dark. He had refused to pull over for a traffic stop, then crashed as he sped away, and ran into nearby cornfields, wetlands and woods.

Deputies set up a perimeter. They first hunted for the man using K-9s, but the dogs lost the scent.

Then the Noble County Sheriff’s Department’s two-man drone team launched a DJI Inspire 1 unmanned aerial vehicle with a thermal imaging camera that picks up heat signatures and relays images to a hand-held monitor. It displays a person as a bright white figure on a gray landscape.

They quickly found the suspect walking alone in a cornfield.

The craft hovered at 200 feet, chasing the man as he continued fleeing from police. The drone operators radioed other deputies, telling them to follow the drone’s lights to the man.

Soon, he was in handcuffs.

Without the drone’s aerial view, “he probably would have gotten away that night,” said Deputy Brandon Chordas, who aptly named his drone Con Air, after the 1997 Nicolas Cage movie about an aircraft transferring convicts to a prison. “We were giddy.”

In all, the mission took about 20 minutes, the deputies said.

Drones also helped the deputies locate a runaway teen in about five minutes. And they needed only 25 minutes to find the body of a man who died while hunting for mushrooms alone in the woods.

“What used to take hours now takes minutes,” Chordas said.

The department, which originally faced local criticism for buying the drones, decided to post the video of the March incident on Facebook. The reactions and comments were overwhelmingly supportive.

“One can RUN, but they can’t HIDE!!” one person wrote.

“Now THAT is a good investment in taxpayer dollars,” another wrote.

SAVING MONEY AND LIVES

Drones help officers reconstruct major crashes and provide aerial photos of sweeping crime scenes. They also can aid during SWAT situations or natural disasters.

“It’s a life-saving device,” said Jim White, a public safety senior lecturer at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and former Indiana state trooper.

The Warrick County Sheriff’s Department in southwest Indiana has used its drones about 40 times so far, Chief Deputy Michael Wilder said, mostly at crash scenes.

“As the technology advances, we’ll find more and more ways to use them,” Wilder said.

So far, the Valparaiso Police Department in Worthwest Indiana has used its drone only a few times, most recently to help another agency search for evidence following a murder. Valparaiso officers also have searched for a dementia patient who walked away, and for a suicidal person who needed help.

IMPD sees a lot of potential in a drone, said Sgt. Kendale Adams, spokesman for the department, but finding money isn’t easy. Once the everyday needs of the department are funded, he said, “we never have a whole lot of money” left for things like emerging technology.

Deputy Shafter Baker co-pilots a DJI Inspire 1 drone at the Noble County Sheriff Department, May 11, 2017. (Photo: Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar)

Drones can range from a few hundred dollars for an inexpensive model to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the most advanced, said White, whose IUPUI class recently delivered a research project on drones to state police.

The Inspire 1 appears to be the most popular drone for Indiana officers, costing about $15,000 when you include an expensive thermal imaging camera.

“It’s absolutely amazing what you can do with it as far as viewing in the dark,” said Phil Rochon, Valparaiso IT officer. His drone also has a parachute that automatically deploys if the device were to unexpectedly drop from the sky after a bird attack or a mechanical failure.

Drones can, however, offer long-term savings to a big department such as IMPD. The department expects the use of drones to cut down their reliance on an aging helicopter, which costs several hundred dollars per hour to fly.

Today’s drones couldn’t completely replace helicopters, though. Rochon noted the maximum flight time on an Inspire 1, which is limited by battery life, is 18 minutes. The drone won’t work in temperatures below 14 degrees, and winds of 22 miles per hour will ground the unit, Rochon said.

PUBLIC POLICY AND TECHNOLOGY

Many of these uses are clearly allowed under an Indiana law that was adopted after an IndyStar and USA TODAY investigation found Indiana State Police had acquired a Stringray, a tool used to collect cellphone records. Drones were wrapped into the 2014 bill.

Police may use drones for search-and-rescue efforts, to record crash scenes, and to help in emergencies, such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

In Indiana, though, just about every other use for police requires a warrant.

The purpose of Indiana’s law was to protect people from unreasonable searches that might not have been anticipated when the Fourth Amendment was adopted to protect citizens’ privacy.

“Without that law, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t protect us as much as one might think it would,” said Shawn Boyne, a law professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. “The major cases coming from the Supreme Court … generally permit aerial surveillance.”

States without a similar law, Boyne said, are forced to grapple with issues involving privacy, and how police exercise their authority to deploy drones. Would certain neighborhoods be targeted routinely? What discretion does an officer have?

Indiana’s law answers many of those questions, she said, though she noted parts of the law are still unclear. For example, what would happen if police were to use a drone illegally, without entering the images they capture into evidence in a criminal case?

“Really the drone issue comes up mainly if they try to introduce information into a criminal proceeding,” Boyne said. “And then that’s where the whole Fourth Amendment protections are triggered.”

In addition to state laws, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a set of guidelines that has resulted in a hodgepodge of practices and certification levels.

The Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Department, for example, isn’t authorized to fly at night right now, while the Valparaiso Police Department is.

Multiple officers contacted by IndyStar said becoming certified was confusing. One called the process “extremely complicated.” Another said studying for a test was like “reading a foreign language.”

After buying a drone before most other departments, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department decided to abandon its program a few years ago.

The reason? Too many stipulations, and too much “red tape,” Maj. Louie Koch said.

GAINING TRUST

Understanding the rules is one step for law enforcement; making sure a community trusts a police department to use a drone responsibly is another, said Jim Bueermann, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Foundation and a former police chief in California.

He pointed to Community Policing & Unmanned Aircraft Systems, a guidebook prepared by the Police Foundation on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. The report references instances of community backlash against drone programs in Seattle, San Jose, Calif., and Los Angeles in 2013 and 2014.

To begin, Bueermann said, departments should meet with local citizens to determine what uses would be considered appropriate.

“What is not acceptable in Indianapolis might be acceptable in Dallas,” he said. “Each community is going to view these things differently.”

Officers across Indiana have heard concerns from citizens, too. Some are fearful that drones will be used to peek into their homes and backyards, or to clock them speeding down the highway.

Officers interviewed by IndyStar shook off such concerns, by noting their respect for privacy.

“We’re not just going to be throwing them in the air willy-nilly, flying over people’s backyards to see if they’re growing marijuana,” Indiana State Police Capt. David Bursten said. “We’re going to have to have a warrant — as we should — and be able to articulate why we’d be flying in an area.”

Adams, the IMPD sergeant, said his department was not aware of Indiana’s warrant requirement, but would seek greater clarity before buying a drone.

“Obviously, we’d follow the law,” he said.

There may be some disagreement about that law, however. Adams noted an Indiana exception that allows officers to use drones without a warrant if there’s a “substantial likelihood of a terrorist attack.” Some gatherings Downtown, such as political marches with potential for conflict, could meet that threshold, Adams said.

Ultimately, the courts may need to clarify such uses — unless the law is updated as technology evolves.

Koch, the lawmaker who wrote Indiana’s drone laws, said he’d be willing to discuss changes with law enforcement in the future. After all, he worked to update the law in 2016 to allow officers to use drones at crash scenes, after receiving feedback from police.

But as more Indiana agencies buy drones, Koch noted that the state hasn’t seen any instances of abuse: “Maybe the bill is doing its job.”

Call IndyStar reporter Ryan Martin at (317) 444-6294. Follow him on Twitter: @ryanmartin and on Facebook.

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Indiana has strategy to fight drug abuse, but costs are yet to come

http://www.heraldbulletin.com/news/state_news/indiana-has-strategy-to-fight-drug-abuse-but-costs-are/article_77db91bd-3254-5b82-b973-4afffef1f283.html

INDIANAPOLIS — A comprehensive strategy to address the state’s drug abuse crisis was adopted Thursday, focusing on the coordination of resources and using evidence-proven treatment programs.

However, the six-page document lists no costs of implementing the strategy introduced by Jim McClelland, who was appointed by Gov. Eric Holcomb to serve as the state’s executive director for Drug Prevention, Treatment and Enforcement.

Asked to estimate a cost to implement the strategy, McClelland said, “We’re going to move as fast as we can to do as much as we can with the resources that we have and we’re going to do this the best we can to try to attract more resources.”

He said that guidelines were needed first in tackling the complex issue.

Emphasis is also given to expanding the approach to treatment by increasing the use of drug courts, diversion programs and by promoting “wrap-around” services ranging from housing for recovering addicts to seeking to “eliminate punitive policies that terminate services for people who relapse.”

The commitment to treatment was echoed by two Batesville brothers who went through addiction programs in California.

“I feel treatment is a much better option, if we have the resources for treatment, versus locking up everybody who has a drug problem,” Connor Ryan, 24, said.

Although programs were available for him in Indiana, he chose to go to California to go through the same program as his older brother, Sean.

“I feel it’s very difficult to get sober at someplace where you’ve used,” Connor Ryan said.

Sean Ryan said he had to go out of state to address his heroin addiction.

He said, “It means so much to me to be here and see that we are doing so much for this and finally addressing this because when I first got sober, I went to doctors, I went to the emergency room and there were no options. No one knew where I should go.”

The brothers are the sons of State Rep. Cindy Ziemke, R-Batesville, who was at the commission meeting.

Under the strategic plan, when treatment is not immediately available, Hoosiers could be connected with a counselor who stays in touch with the individual until treatment is ready. Emergency departments would have counselors to establish relationships with patients who overdose.

The recent General Assembly earmarked $5 million to combat substance abuse and enforcement.

In April, the state received a $10.9 million federal 21st Century CURES grant intended to combat substance abuse. Of that, $7.6 million could provide funding for between 60 to 75 inpatient beds for a year, said Kevin Moore, director of of the Division of Mental Health and Addiction. He said that amount “chips away at the iceberg.”

The policy now needs to be supported by the General Assembly, said legislators attending the commission meeting.

The plan seeks to reduce the supply of illegal drugs by targeting supply chains including interdiction efforts, reducing impaired driving and reducing pharmacy robberies.

The strategy strives to reduce the incidence of substance use disorders. To that end, the state is to encourage the use of alternative pain management treatments to avoid addictions to opioids. Hospitals will be urged to provide post-operative follow-up.

In one approach, a Medicaid waiver would have to be obtained to pay for residential treatment and recovery support mechanisms.

Paramedics would be trained to provide follow-up services for people with addictions who have been released for addiction treatment and live in under-served areas. A “hub-and-spokes” network could be created to provide an array of services in multi-county regions.

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Walgreens presents five clinical studies tracking pharmacy’s impact on adherence

http://www.drugstorenews.com/article/walgreens-presents-five-clinical-studies-tracking-pharmacys-impact-adherence

Isn’t it amazing that Walgreens is expressing a increased interest of pts taking their chronic  medication as prescribed…  because the more prescriptions they fill.. the more money they can make ?

CMS Star quality measures That will financially PENALIZE healthcare providers if they pts that they serve are not compliant with their medication to treat chronic pain diseases… right now CMS is focused on Hypertension, Cholesterol, Diabetes.

Does this suggest that Walgreens “Good Faith Policy”  regarding the filling – OR DENYING – the filling of controlled medication prescriptions by their Pharmacist is in conflict with their concerns about pts being compliant with their medications to treat chronic conditions ?  http://www.wthr.com/article/walgreens-secret-checklist-reveals-controversial-new-policy-on-pain-pills

Does this suggest that Walgreens is primarily interested in encouraging pts being compliant with their medication(s) where Walgreens stands to MAKE MORE MONEY ?

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Woman says CVS didn’t properly fill son’s seizure medication prescription

http://wvrecord.com/stories/511117429-woman-says-cvs-didn-t-properly-fill-son-s-seizure-medication-prescription

CHARLESTON – A Kanawha County woman is suing CVS Pharmacy after she claims it filled her child’s prescription with the wrong dosage, causing him injuries.

West Virginia CVS Pharmacy; CVS Pharmacy Inc.; CVS 6306 WV; Caremark; Jane Doe Pharmacist(s); and John Doe Pharmacy Technician(s) were all named as defendants in the suit.

Cliff McLean Collins maintained a prescription for 250mg of Depakote DR through his treating physician and, as prescribed, he would ingest three pills in the morning, two in the evening and three at bedtime, according to a complaint filed in Kanawha Circuit Court.

Connie Arteese claims on or before March 31, 2015, an unbeknownst to her, Collins’ treating physician had changed his prescription and sent it to CVS and, as prescribed, Collins was to receive his medication as taking two 250mg tablets at 6 a.m., two tablets at 2 p.m., and three tablets at 10 p.m.

On April 1, 2015, Arteese traveled to CVS in St. Albans to pick up Collins’ prescription and, upon arrival, she was directed that Collins should take the drug in the manner as prescribed on the bottle, however, CVS had negligently, carelessly and recklessly mis-filled his prescription, according to the suit.

Arteese claims believing the instructions to be correct, she permitted Collins to ingest the prescription in the manner prescribed on the bottle, which, instead of totaling 1,750mg, actually totaled 3,500mg.

Following the unknown, unauthorized and dramatic increase in Collins’ ingestion of Depakote, he initially showed signs of decreased energy and strength, followed shortly thereafter by a marked increase in the number of seizures, which would vary dramatically in number each day, according to the suit.

Arteese claims on April 27, 2015, she contacted CVS to request a re-fill and was advised there were no refills due to the prior dosage change, which perplexed her and she retrieved one of the bottles of the prescription, where a closer examination revealed that the instructions and the total amount of milligrams were not consistent.

When Arteese telephoned Collins’ treating physician to inquire about the incorrect prescription, the physician requested Collins be brought to Cleveland Clinic immediately for treatment and evaluation, according to the suit.

Arteese claims the defendants failed to correctly fill the prescription.

As a direct and proximate result of the breach of standard of care, and the carelessness, recklessness and negligence of the defendants, Collins ingested the incorrect dosage and sustained physical injuries; pain and suffering; mental anguish; increased costs of care, reasonable and necessary medical expenses; and annoyance and inconvenience, according to the suit.

Arteese is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. She is being represented by Robert B. Warner and Andrew D. Byrd of Warner Law Offices.

The case is assigned to Circuit Judge James C. Stucky.

Kanawha Circuit Court case number: 17-C-589

 

 

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Patients Allege Mistreatment at Montana Pain Clinic

www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2017/5/18/patients-allege-mistreatment-at-montana-pain-clinic

Filed under: General Problems | 5 Comments »

Death linked to CVS robbery, police say

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/crime/4269129-death-linked-cvs-robbery-police-say

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