Filed under: General Problems | 5 Comments »

CDC Spending $4.8 Million to “Raise Awareness” about Prescription Opioid Abuse

nationalpainreport.com/cdc-spending-4-8-million-to-raise-awareness-about-prescription-opioid-abuse-8832374.html

One would think that the massive amount of attention to prescription opioids and the sweeping changes to guidelines and law that have come this year would be enough to raise awareness in the US. But the CDC thinks that is not enough. It recently awarded a task order of $4.8 million to ICF (NASDAQ:ICFI) develop a large scale advertising program.

According to a press release, “ICF will oversee the development of a large-scale, targeted communications campaign designed to raise awareness about the risks associated with prescription opioid abuse. Among its responsibilities under the task order, ICF will oversee development and placement of digital and social media advertisements and maintain an active social media presence for the campaign. Additionally, ICF will create online, mobile-accessible training for providers. ICF also will develop tools, training and outreach to promote adoption of CDC’s Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain by physicians and other healthcare providers. This work supports the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ commitment to address the opioid crisis as a top priority and intensify its efforts to reduce opioid misuse and abuse.”

“Prescription drug overdose affects a vast number of Americans and their families each year,” said Frances Heilig, vice president for ICF International. “Our communications work on the risks of illicit drug use has given us a solid understanding of the impact of prescription opioid abuse on our society. We look forward to working with the CDC to help dissect and communicate this complex issue to increase its visibility across a variety of audiences and reduce the incidence of drug-related deaths in the United States.”

With access to opioids becoming an increasing problem for pain sufferers who do not abuse their medication, one can expect that the onslaught of ads and promotion of the CDC’s restrictive guidelines will simple amplify the problems many face around the country.

Filed under: General Problems | 8 Comments »

CURRENT DEATH TOLL
from Jan 1, 2016 – Dec 31, 2016 (2:49:32 PM)

---

Someone just died by:

---

Filed under: General Problems | 8 Comments »

Where Synthetic Opioids Really Come From

http://www.attn.com/stories/13807/where-synthetic-opioids-really-come-from

President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to combat the opioid crisis largely focuses on drug trafficking from Mexico. But in terms of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanil — powerful narcotics that have contributed to mass overdoses across the United States in recent years — the problem appears to originate in China, according to an Associated Press investigation.

AP/Paul Faith – apimages.com

Last week, Chinese officials dismissed claims by U.S. drug enforcement officials that the country was behind the surge in synthetics. In a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), China’s National Narcotics Control Commission said the claims “lack the support of sufficient numbers of actual, confirmed cases.”

But according to the DEA, Chinese labs remain the primary manufacturers producing synthetic opioids that are sold online and mailed to the U.S., Canada, or Mexico. DEA spokesperson Melvin Patterson told ATTN: there were two factors driving the distribution channel.

“The main reason there’s a lot of synthetics [in China is] that those [drugs] are controlled in the United States,” Patterson said. “You’re going to face some sort of prosecution if you have those illegally [in the U.S.], and they’re not all controlled in China.”

Ralf Hirschberger/picture-alliance/dpa/AP – apimages.com

But Patterson added that synthetic trafficking out of China likely wouldn’t be an issue were it not for American demand. “Our appetite for those illegal substances fuels the drive in China to supply that,” he said. “You get really, really basic into supply and demand. If we didn’t have the demand, they wouldn’t supply that to us.”

There has been progress on the synthetic opioid front. In 2015, the DEA worked with Chinese officials to enact bans on 115 chemicals — including several other synthetic drugs such as K2, Spice, and Flakka — and since then, law enforcement agencies have seen dramatic declines in the use and trafficking of these substances, CNN reported. But the problem persists because chemists continue to alter the chemical makeup of synthetic opioids, temporarily avoiding prosecution until regulators enact bans on those too.

Fentanyl and carfentanil, synthetic opioids that can be significantly stronger than heroin, represent some of the most pressing challenges for drug enforcement agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this month that fatal overdoses from these substances shot up 72 percent from 2014 to 2015.

The Washington Post – washingtonpost.com

But as drug policy officials continue to collaborate on enforcement strategy, there’s hope that what happened to synthetics like K2 and Flakka will happen to fentanyl and carfentanil after China imposes new bans. It’s a temporary solution, but at least in the short-term, it could mean less deadly drugs on the streets.

Filed under: General Problems | 2 Comments »

Patient-brokering charges against treatment center CEO ramped up to 95

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/patient-brokering-charges-against-treatment-center-ceo-ramped/LKkmoHAeJq4kMCF1fRSOeL/

Already arrested on a handful of patient brokering charges in October, addiction treatment center executive James Kigar is now facing a total of 95 separate criminal counts linked to cashing in on recovering addicts.

The spate of extra patient-brokering allegations were filed Dec. 20, according to court records, less than a week after a ninth arrest was made in connection with what prosecutors describe as a cash-for-patients scheme.

Kigar has pleaded not guilty, “and will continue to do so,” said his attorney, David Frankel.

Prosecutors say Kigar’s Whole Life Recovery center in Boynton Beach ginned up business by paying sober home operators to send him their residents for outpatient treatment. The payments were labeled as “case-management fees.”

Kigar had changed how payments were made to sober homes after Whole Life Recovery operator Christopher Hutson attended a meeting of State Attorney Dave Aronberg’s Sober Home Task Force. But Chief Assistant State Attorney Al Johnson, who heads the task force, emphasized as recently as September that any “bonus, rebate or kickback” to sober home operators was illegal — a third degree felony — no matter how it was structured.

The payments exist because an addict with good insurance can be worth big bucks. In addition to whatever the insurer will pay for treatment, urine drug tests used to detect the presence of drugs have been wildly lucrative.

Corner drug stores sell $25 tests that will immediately indicate the presence of a wide array of drugs.

But some treatment centers routinely ship urine samples to labs that perform more sophisticated, and far more expensive, testing. In some cases, just one test for one person could yield up to $5,000.

In Palm Beach County, the out-sized profits have spawned an interconnected network of sober homes, labs, treatment centers – and, say prosecutors, fraud.

The Post found in 2015 that sober homes have paid “junkie hunters” to find insured addicts. Addicts would be enticed to live in sober homes with offers of free rent, as long as they attended treatment — and submitted to drug testing. Labs owned by the sober homes could then do the tests, and collect the cash. In other cases, sober home operators would be the junkie hunters, paid by treatment centers for a steady supply of addicts seeking help.

In addition to brokering charges brought against Kigar and Hutson, a convicted felon and Whole Life’s operations consultant, the list of those charged in connection with referrals to Kigar’s Whole Life reads like a sober home directory.

John Dudek, co-owner of Southern Palm Oasis sober home, was charged with six counts of patient brokering after police say he accepted weekly checks from Whole Life, ranging from $500 to more than $1,000. In Lake Worth, Ehab Iskander, who worked at Integrity House sober home, was also charged with a half dozen counts of patient brokering. Alex Vandervert, who owns Saje House sober home in Lake Worth, faces charges in the case; so does Howard James Fowler Jr., who is affiliated with Anchorage Sober Living. Brothers Bryan and Patrick Norquist of The Halfway House sober home in Delray Beach each face 16 counts of patient brokering.
Read The Post’s coverage of sober homes here

And 25-year-old Amanda LaFrance, who started Saved by Grace Recovery sober home in Delray, is facing 13 counts of patient brokering.

LaFrance had moved to South Florida, her mother said, to shake her drug addiction.

---

What The Post Found

The addiction treatment industry, Palm Beach County’s fourth largest, is fraught with corruption and fraud.It was all built on urine testing and now, police are charging owners and operators with patient brokering.

Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »

Online Petitions Take Citizen Participation to New Levels. But Do They Work?

www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/us/online-petitions-activism.html

Online petitions are all over the place.

Some are political (like one asking members of the Electoral College to vote for Hillary Clinton as president instead of Donald J. Trump); others are unearthly (like one asking that “Star Wars: The Old Republic” series be shown on Netflix).

That first petition drew 4.9 million signatures on Change.org. Nonetheless, members of the Electoral College voted for Mr. Trump on Dec. 19. The second petition drew over 123,000 names.

There has been a proliferation of these petitions — Change.org has more than 100 million users in 196 countries — but are they effective? Do the intended recipients, often policy makers or elected leaders, pay attention?

Worldwide, Change.org users claim one victory per hour, A.J. Walton, a spokesman for the online petition forum, said in an interview.

Among them: persuading Arlington National Cemetery and other military cemeteries to bury members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, female aviators in World War II, and getting Florida transportation officials to install barriers between roads and lakes, ponds and canals to reduce the number of crashes that result in drownings.

In the case of the Electoral College petition, Mr. Walton said the person who started it, Daniel Brezenoff, was able to generate widespread interest and raise more than $250,000 for his cause.

That a petition did not produce the desired outcome does not mean it failed, he added.

“Was he victorious? No,” Mr. Walton said, referring to Mr. Brezenoff. “Was he successful? I would say yes.”

Those who start a petition can deliver printed copies to the intended recipient. Those targeted do not receive emails every time a person signs, but they are often alerted by email that there is a petition directed at them.

The biggest benefit from a petition is raised awareness, Jason Del Gandio, a professor of communications and social movements at Temple University in Philadelphia, said in an interview. “In some ways it’s just the updated version of the letter-writing campaign to a representative that has been going on for years,” he said.

Successful petition drives do not exist in a vacuum, he added in an email.

“No president is going to do an about-face on a major policy because of 20,000 signatures,” he wrote. “But coupling that petition with other tactics like protests, rallies, phone calls, face-to-face lobbying, a well-organized media plan and community outreach creates an environment in which the goals of the signatories can become reality.”

Beyond seeking change, petitions serve other important functions, such as mobilizing supporters and reinforcing views, Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist and director of the Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives at the State University of New York at New Paltz, said in an interview.

The effectiveness of a petition drive depends on how many signatures are collected, who is signing and whether those being petitioned are in a position to make changes, he said. A petition with 300 signatures, for instance, would carry greater weight if it was aimed at a city council member, who would have fewer constituents than a member of Congress.

Mr. Payne, who also worked as an organizer for NationBuilder.com, a software company that among other things helps clients gather supporters and donors, said congressional staff members knew that if petitioners did not get a response, they could take their case to the news media.

A decade ago, when he worked for Representative John Hall, a Democrat from the Hudson Valley, the office received 5,000 emails and letters a week. Online petitions can take that level of communication to a larger scale by amassing signatures quickly and easily.

“Congressional offices are seeing a river of mail coming into their offices,” Mr. Payne said. “Petitions add a garden hose to that.”

Digital petitions are popularly used to build databases of names, emails and phone numbers of those who can be called on to act or donate. “It’s moved from an organizing effort to an intelligence-gathering operation,” he said. That granular level of detail also allows organizations to direct ads to supporters on Facebook.

Jeb Ory, chief executive of Phone2Action, which relies on technology to help those who want to reach their lawmakers, said digital participation has helped amplify the voices of citizens.

“All it takes is a handful of tweets and Facebook posts for lawmakers to realize there are real people in the community who care about these issues,” he said. “I think technology has done an amazing job of making these decision-makers and policy-makers accessible to the average person.”

Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »

Opioid drugs make pain tolerable, most long-term users say

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/12/20/opioid-drugs-make-pain-tolerable-most-long-term-users-say/

At the center of the nation’s opioid crisis is a simple fact: Large numbers of Americans experience serious pain, and the vast majority of those who have used strong painkillers for a long period say they work.

That’s one key takeaway from a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation national poll of long-term opioid users, people who have taken the drugs for at least two months during the past two years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has discouraged doctors from prescribing opioid painkillers for chronic pain treatment after a sharp rise in overdose deaths related to opiates ranging from prescription painkillers to heroin and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl. CDC Director Tom Frieden recently told The Post that “prescription opiates are as addictive as heroin,” and the agency’s guidelines have noted that there is limited evidence that the drugs are effective in treating long-term pain. The Post-Kaiser survey finds that about 1 in 20 Americans have taken the drugs to treat pain for at least two months over the past two years, representing a significant barrier to curbing the country’s reliance on the drugs.

[One-third of long-term users say they’re hooked on prescription opioids]

The survey of adults who have used opioids for at least two months in the past two years found more than 4 in 10 saying that their health is “only fair” or “poor” (42 percent), more than double the share of all Americans who rated their health as negatively in a November Kaiser Family Foundation poll (18 percent). And 7 in 10 long-term opioid users say a disability, handicap or chronic disease keeps them from participating fully in work, school, housework or other activities.

Roughly 4 in 10 long-term opioid users say chronic pain was the reason they first started taking the drugs, while about one-quarter each cited pain after surgery or following an accident or injury.

But opioid users say the painkillers make a significant difference — 92 percent say that prescription painkillers reduce their pain at least somewhat well, including over half (53 percent) say they do so “very well.” In a separate question, 57 percent say their quality of life is better than if they had not taken the medications.

When long-term opioid users are asked about the medication’s impact on five broad aspect of their lives, they rate two positively on balance, two as mixed and one negative. Opioid users report the most positive impact on their physical health, with 42 percent saying painkillers have had a positive impact on their health, another 20 percent saying it has been negative and 37 reporting no impact. Regarding their ability to do their job, just under a quarter (23 percent) say painkillers have had a positive impact, while 14 percent say they’ve had a negative impact and another 48 percent said they’ve had no impact.

Long-term opioid users split on how the drugs have affected mental health and personal relationships. About 1 in 5 say painkillers have had a positive impact on their mental health and another 1 in 5 say they have had a negative impact on their mental health, while almost 6 in 10 say they’ve had no impact. Similarly, 68 percent say opioids have had no impact on their personal relationships, while 15 percent report a positive effect and 16 percent say it has been negative.

The only measure in which long-term opioid users report more of a negative impact than a positive one was in finances: Just 8 percent say painkillers had a positive impact on their finances compared with a larger 17 percent who said they were negative. A 74-percent majority, though, said painkillers had no impact on their finances.

Two areas where long-term opioid users report significant problems are dependence and adverse side effects. Roughly one-third (34 percent) of long-term opioid users say they became addicted to or physically dependent on the drugs (separately, 31 percent say they are dependent, 23 percent say they are addicted). Physical side effects are common, with 55 percent saying the drugs have caused constipation and another 50 percent reporting indigestion, dry mouth or nausea.

The poll finds that people who live in the same household as a long-term opioid user report a more negative picture across the board — 54 percent say the person they live with is or was addicted to or dependent on painkillers. Household members are also significantly more concerned about side-effects than are opioid users themselves. A 67 percent majority say they’re at least somewhat concerned about side-effects of the painkillers, compared with 49 percent of those who use them. Household members are also more likely than opioid users themselves to say the painkillers have had negative impacts on the user’s physical health (39 percent vs. 20 percent of users) and the user’s mental health (39 percent vs. 19 percent).

[Read full poll results]

But regardless of the adverse effects, the Post-Kaiser survey results show clearly why opioid users feel the medication is necessary, and why they are worried about the impact of a crackdown on abuse of the drugs.

Two-thirds of long-term users say they are very or somewhat concerned that efforts to decrease abuse of prescription painkillers could make it more difficult to obtain them. Nearly 6 in 10 say that as it is, prescription painkillers are difficult to obtain for medical purposes.

Allaying those concerns represents a big task for those seeking to combat the worst effects of opioids and one that’s not likely to go away soon.

This Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 3-Nov. 9 among a random national sample of 622 adults age 18 and older who say they have taken strong prescription painkillers for a period of two months or more at some time in the past two years other than to treat pain from cancer or terminal illness and 187 household members of someone meeting the previous requirements. The results from the sample of personal users have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points and the sample of household members has an error margin of plus or minus nine percentage points.

Filed under: General Problems | 17 Comments »

Six facts about dying young

www.abqjournal.com/917739/six-facts-about-dying-young.html

Over the past year, The Washington Post has explored a historic increase in premature death among white Americans, particularly middle-aged women living in small towns and rural areas. Here are the key findings from The Post’s “Unnatural Causes” series:

1. The nation’s health is deteriorating, with no end in sight. Since the turn of the century, white women have been dying prematurely in a slow-motion crisis driven by decaying health in rural and small-town America, a Washington Post analysis found. While rates of early mortality have continued to fall for women of other races, and have flattened out among white women in big cities, death rates among rural white women in their early 40s, for example, have shot up 47 percent since 1999.

Heavy drinking, suicide and drug overdoses – primarily from opioids – are driving the phenomenon. And though rates of premature death are rising fastest among white women, the effects of ill health are widespread: In 2015, overall life expectancy in the United States dropped for the first time in more than two decades.

2. Prescription drugs play a powerful role in the crisis. And it’s not just opioids. A third of white women who have died of opioid overdose since 1999 also had anti-anxiety drugs known as benzodiazepines in their bloodstreams – a potentially deadly combination, The Post found.

White women who take opioids are particularly likely to be prescribed additional drugs to manage the symptoms of long-term opioid use, The Post found. In addition to anti-anxiety medication, they might get drugs to help them sleep or to ease a condition known as “opioid-induced constipation.” A Post analysis found that nearly 6 in 10 working-age women who take opioids have three or more additional prescriptions.

Meanwhile, The Post found that the suicide rate has risen alongside prescriptions for anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs, which are often ineffective. “Multiple drugs overload the system in ways we can’t predict,” said Rene Muller, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins.

3. Doctors could be doing more to prevent opioid addiction. A third of Americans who have taken prescription opioids for at least two months say they became hooked on the powerful painkillers, according to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey. But more than 6 in 10 said doctors offered no advice on how or when to stop taking the drugs. And 1 in 5 said doctors provided insufficient information about the risk of side effects, including addiction.

4. The federal government could be doing more, too. The Drug Enforcement Administration initially tried to combat the opioid epidemic by targeting wholesale distributors accused of leaking hundreds of millions of pills a year into the hands of illicit dealers. But in 2012, the drug industry fought back. The DEA virtually abandoned its campaign, shifting to other forms of enforcement. And this year, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed a measure to take away the DEA’s most potent weapon: The authority to immediately shut down suspicious distribution centers.

Meanwhile, the drug companies have hired some of the best and brightest DEA regulators. At least 42 DEA personnel have taken jobs in the pharmaceutical industry since the campaign against distributors began.

5. But heavy drinking is also a major factor. The rate of alcohol-related deaths for white women age 35 to 54 has more than doubled since 1999, The Post found, accounting for 8 percent of all deaths in this age group. Liver failure has risen alongside dangerous drinking among white women, who report a 40 percent increase in binge drinking since 1997.

Unlike suicides and drug overdoses, alcohol-related liver failure is increasingly striking white women in big cities as well as in rural areas, The Post found.

6. The epidemic of substance abuse is damaging entire communities while destroying individual lives.

In Tecumseh, Okla., where Anna Marrie Jones died at age 54 of cirrhosis, family members buried her alongside friends and relatives who had died in the past decade at ages 46, 52 and 37. Jones had buried her fiance at 55. She had eulogized her best friend, dead at 50 from alcohol-induced cirrhosis.

In Jasper, Ala., opioid painkillers are so enmeshed in the local economy that they’re traded for lawn mowers and school clothes.

In McCreary County, Kentucky, there has been a 75 percent increase in the mortality rate for white women age 35 to 59, one of the highest increases in the nation, The Post found. Separate research at the University of Washington found that McCreary County women are more likely to be obese and to engage in life-shortening behaviors such as binge drinking than in previous generations.

In Farmington Hills, Mich., in the 11th year of her opioid addiction, Amanda Wendler decided to pursue one of the newest treatments for heroin: A monthly shot of a drug called naltrexone, which blocks the effects of opiates on the brain and makes getting high impossible – but also comes with dangerous side effects.

In Chillicothe, Ohio, and surrounding Ross County, 40 people died of overdoses last year, almost all of them opioid related. That number has tripled in the past three years. “It’s the Zombie Apocalypse,” said the local coroner. Read more about Chillicothe.

And in South Charleston, W. Va., officials are starting to focus more resources on “opiate orphans,” who have lost their parents to drugs. Three of the most recent ones live in a small house in South Charleston: Zoie, 10, who believed that her parents had died in their sleep; Arianna, 13, who was just starting to wear her mother’s old makeup; and Zaine, 17, who had been the one to discover his parents dead of a heroin overdose that morning in 2015, and whose grades had been dropping ever since.

Filed under: General Problems | 5 Comments »

The CDC is being influenced by corporate and political interests

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/301432-the-cdc-is-being-being-influenced-by-corporate-and-political#

Concerns about the inner workings of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been mounting in recent months amid disclosures of cozy corporate alliances. Now a group of more than a dozen senior scientists have reportedly lodged an ethics complaint alleging the federal agency is being influenced by corporate and political interests in ways that shortchange taxpayers.

A group calling itself CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research, or (CDC SPIDER), put a list of complaints in writing in a letter to CDC Chief of Staff and provided a copy of the letter to the public watchdog organization U.S. Right to Know (USRTK). The members of the group have elected to file the complaint anonymously for fear of retribution.

“It appears that our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests… and Congressional intent for our agency is being circumvented by some of our leaders. What concerns us most, is that it is becoming the norm and not the rare exception,” the letter states. “These questionable and unethical practices threaten to undermine our credibility and reputation as a trusted leader in public health.”

The complaint cites among other things a “cover up” of the poor performance of a women’s health program called the Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for Woman Across the Nation, or WISEWOMAN. The program provides standard preventive services to help 40- to 64-year-old women reduce their risks for heart disease, and promote healthy lifestyles. CDC currently funds 21 WISEWOMAN programs through states and tribal organizations. The complaint says there was a coordinated effort within the CDC to misrepresent data given to Congress so that it appeared the program was involving more women than it actually was.

“Definitions were changed and data ‘cooked’ to make the results look better than they were,” the complaint states.  “An ‘internal review’ that involved staff across CDC occurred and its findings were essentially suppressed so media and/or Congressional staff would not become aware of the problems.”

The letter mentions that Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, who has been a proponent of the program, has made inquiries to CDC regarding the data. A spokesman for her office, confirmed as much.

The complaint also alleges that staff resources that are supposed to be dedicated to domestic programs for Americans are instead being directed to work on global health and research issues.

And the complaint cites as “troubling” the ties between soft drink giant Coca-Cola Co., an advocacy group backed by Coca-Cola, and two high-ranking CDC officials – Dr. Barbara Bowman who directed the CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention until retiring in June, and Dr. Michael Pratt, senior Advisor for Global Health in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) at the CDC.

Bowman, retired after revelations of what the complaint called an “irregular” relationship with Coca-Cola and the nonprofit corporate interest group set up by Coca-Cola called the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). Email communications obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by USRTK revealed that in her CDC role, Bowman had been communicating regularly with – and offering guidance to – a leading Coca-Cola advocate seeking to influence world health authorities on sugar and beverage policy matters.

Emails also suggested that Pratt has a history of promoting and helping lead research funded by Coca-Cola while being employed by the CDC.  Pratt also has been working closely with ILSI, which advocates for the agenda of beverage and food industries, emails obtained through FOIA showed. Several research papers co-written by Pratt were at least partly funded by Coca-Cola, and Pratt has received industry funding to attend industry-sponsored events and conferences. Last month, Pratt took a position as Director of the University of California San Diego Institute for Public Health. Next month, ILSI is partnering with the UCSD to hold a forum related to “energy balance behavior,” planned for November 30 to December 1 of this year. One of the moderators is another CDC scientist, Janet Fulton, Chief of the CDC’s Physical Activity and Health Branch. Pratt is on annual leave from the CDC during his stint in San Diego, according to the CDC.

The forum fits into the messaging of “energy balance” that Coca-Cola has been pushing. Consumption of sugar-laden foods and beverages is not to blame for obesity or other health problems; a lack of exercise is the primary culprit, the theory goes.

Experts in the nutrition arena have said that the relationships are troubling because the mission of the CDC is protecting public health, and yet certain CDC officials appear to be close with an industry that, studies say, is linked to about 180,000 deaths per year worldwide, including 25,000 in the United States. The CDC is supposed to be addressing rising obesity rates among children, not advancing beverage industry interests.

CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harben would not address what the agency might be doing, if anything, in response to the SPIDER complaint, but she said the agency makes use of a “full range of federal ethics statutes, regulations, and policies” that apply to all federal employees.”

“CDC takes seriously its responsibility to comply with the ethics rules, inform employees about them, and take steps to make it right any time we learn that employees aren’t in compliance,” Harben said. “We provide regular training to and communicate with staff on how to comply with ethics requirements and avoid violations.”

The SPIDER group complaint ends with a plea for CDC management to address the allegations; to “do the right thing.”

Let’s hope someone is listening.

Carey Gillam is a veteran journalist, formerly with Reuters, who directs research for U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit consumer education group focused on food safety and policy matters.  

Filed under: General Problems | 2 Comments »

Opioid Denial: My Own Harrowing Experience

http://acsh.org/news/2016/12/29/opioid-denial-my-own-harrowing-experience-10655

Talk about irony. Who could have possibly known that one week after my New York Post op ed warned that our new, deeply flawed strategy to combat the opioid overdose epidemic would end up harming innocent patients, that I would become one of them?

I have asthma, and it can get pretty bad, especially following an upper respiratory infection, which I contracted a month ago. This time it was really bad, which means exactly one thing: prednisone, the go-to drug for serious asthma. But it’s not fun to take, and not all that safe either. Recently I explained why (see: Prednisone:Satan’s Little Helper). Prednisone carries with it an astounding array of side effects, one of which is dangerously high blood pressure. After three weeks on the drug, my normally-textbook readings hit 190/90. You bet I was scared. Still am.

And if there’s one thing that asthmatics know it’s that coughing is bad news. The coughing exacerbates the asthma, which in turn causes more coughing, forming a very unhealthy cycle. And guess what else coughing does?

It raises your blood pressure. 

Fortunately, coughing can be controlled, and I ended up with a bottle of vile but effective syrup that contained codeine, an opioid. Opioids are known cough suppressants, and it worked quite well. Until it ran out before the cough did. What follows may be difficult to believe, but it was all too real. 

Both my pulmonologist and GP were away, and were unable to refill the prescription because of new procedures that are required for prescribing controlled substances (1). No one in either office would or could do so. I even tried a very good friend—one I’ve known for 20 years, who is a physician at a New York Hospital. He’s called in prescriptions for me from time to time. Not this time. He could only do this for patients who had medical records on file at his hospital, and suggested a walk-in clinic.

This is where things got really crazy. 

I was able to manage the cough for a few days after the syrup ran out with Vicodin, (hydrocodone) which is considerably stronger than codeine. I hate it, but it worked. If you’re asking “where did he get the Vicodin?” that’s easy: leftovers from old dental procedures. No—I did not turn them in like the DEA wants you to, because you could see this coming a mile away. More accurately, three years ago. In 2013 The Post published my first op ed on the topic, which warned about the consequences of the escalating opioid crackdown  (see: New painful casualties of the drug war). 

The physician at the walk-in clinic was competent and caring, but not allowed to write prescriptions for any controlled substances. Alice in Wonderland. She gave me a prescription for something else. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. Damn good thing I kept the Vicodin, no?

Let’s summarize and see if there is even one iota of logic here:

1. I am ill, already on a dangerous drug that has raised my blood pressure to a high enough level to cause a heart attack or a stroke.

2. Coughing makes it worse. 

3. Instead of using a weaker opioid (codeine) cough syrup, I was forced to use a stronger one leftover from years back. You might want to think about that on the next “drug give-back day.”

4. This took place in the middle of New York City, where you can get top notch health care. Or at least you could, until the CDC stuck its incompetent nose into your personal life, scaring the hell out of doctors, and tying their hands as physicians. This has already caused immense harm to people who legitimately need powerful medicines, but can no longer obtain them because of the abuse by others (1).

5. I would like to stay alive long enough to get well. Better not cough. 

6. This could be you some day. Coughing yourself to death because of a ill-conceived, simplistic, and barbaric policy that won’t even do what it was clumsily intended to. I Think I’ll hang onto those pills a little while longer. 

Notes:

(1) These vary from state to state. New York requires electronic filing.

(2) The CDC regulations are completely misguided, and will do essentially nothing to curb addiction, since the overwhelming majority of people who become addicted become so by using opioids recreationally, not therapeutically. Sorry, it is wrong to say that the restrictions have done nothing. They have driven addicts from pills to heroin and fentanyl, and they are dying in record numbers. Nice job. 

Filed under: General Problems | 11 Comments »