DHS Agents Bribed to Let Drugs, Illegal Aliens into U.S.

http://www.citizen-action.com/dhs-agents-bribed-let-drugs-illegal-aliens-u-s/article4636

While the nation was preoccupied celebrating the holidays and welcoming a new year, two disturbing news articles—reiterating what Judicial Watch has reported for years—shed additional light on the critical situation in the southern border region. The first, an investigative piece by one of the country’s largest newspapers, documents how hundreds of employees and contract workers at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have taken millions of dollars in bribes to let drugs and illegal immigrants into the United States. A few days later the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is cited in a Texas news report confirming that El Paso, long known as America’s “safest city,” is a major corridor for Mexican cartels smuggling drugs into the U.S.

For more than a decade Judicial Watch has exposed the pervasive corruption among DHS agents charged with protecting the U.S-Mexico border. They include Border Patrol officers accepting bribes to help transport illegal immigrants and contraband into the U.S. and DHS employees from various agencies collaborating with Mexican smuggling operations to allow drugs, weapons and possibly terrorists into the country. A few years ago, two veteran Border Patrol agents got convicted for operating a multi-million-dollar human smuggling business in which illegal aliens were transported into the U.S. in government vehicles. In 2013 two officials assigned to crack down on corruption at DHS got indicted for ordering the falsification of records—including active criminal probes—to obstruct an investigation into crooked federal agents suspected of participating in the illegal smuggling of undocumented aliens and/or narcotics into the United States.

The problem has gotten much worse, according to the investigative news story published a few days ago. Reporters analyzed thousands of court records and internal agency documents that show that in the last decade nearly 200 DHS employees and contract workers have accepted nearly $15 million in bribes while getting paid to protect the nation’s borders and enforce immigration laws. From the article: “These employees have looked the other way as tons of drugs and thousands of undocumented immigrants were smuggled into the United States, the records show. They have illegally sold green cards and other immigration documents, have entered law enforcement databases and given sensitive information to drug cartels. In one case, the information was used to arrange the attempted murder of an informant.” Keep in mind that DHS is the monstrous agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation from another terrorist attack so this information is extremely troublesome.

Corrupt DHS agents may have also contributed to the DEA’s distressing revelation that El Paso is a major corridor for Mexican drug traffickers. Judicial Watch has long reported this as part of an ongoing investigation into the dangerously porous southern border. The DEA’s recognition a few days ago, is among the first public confirmations by a government agency that the region is a key route for drugs that get disbursed throughout the country. El Paso is a major stop on the trade route for the Mexican drug cartels moving their product, the news report states, citing a DEA agent. “The drugs get smuggled into in this area and then transshipped to places like Chicago, Indianapolis, New York, Boston where there is a big user market,” according to the DEA special agent in charge of the El Paso sector. The special agent confirmed that “the biggest criminal drug threat is still the Mexican cartels.”

This has been well documented over the years in a variety of government audits and, more recently, as part of a broad Judicial Watch investigation into cartels, corruption and terrorism on the Mexican border. Drugs aren’t the only thing being smuggled in through El Paso. Islamic terrorists are also making into the U.S. with the help of Mexican drug cartels and ISIS has a training cell just a few miles from El Paso in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. In 2014 Judicial Watch exposed a sophisticated narco-terror ring, operated by two of the FBI’s most wanted, with roots and financing in El Paso, illustrating that the area is a hotbed of crime despite being promoted as one of America’s safest cities.

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https://youtu.be/gVRXT_j9sCQ

Doctors are cutting opioids, even if it harms patients

www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/02/doctors-curtail-opioids-but-many-see-harm-pain-patients/z4Ci68TePafcD9AcORs04J/story.html?

This article is very disturbing in that it plainly points out what is going on in our country and it is being done at the directive of many in both the Fed/State judicial and legislative systems.  IMO.. the war on drugs has quickly evolved into a genocide over the last decade… and seems to be continuing to pick up momentum. World history suggests that this has happen in many other countries over the centuries…  A war  generally has two or more entities in battle, but when multiple entities are battling with a particular entity or group.. who is unable or unwilling to engage…then it becomes a GENOCIDE. Those in the chronic pain community have neither the physical, mental nor financial capacity to put up a fight. Unfortunately this genocide is nearly invisible as those in pain are forced to suffer in silence while being forced to become house/chair/bed confined because of denial of appropriate medical care.

More than half of doctors across America are curtailing opioid prescriptions, and nearly 1 in 10 have stopped prescribing the drugs, according to a new nationwide online survey. But even as physicians retreat from opioids, some seem to have misgivings: More than one-third of the respondents said the reduction in prescribing has hurt patients with chronic pain.

The survey, conducted for The Boston Globe by the SERMO physicians social network, offers fresh evidence of the changes in prescribing practices in response to the opioid crisis that has killed thousands in New England and elsewhere around the country. The deaths awakened fears of addiction and accidental overdose, and led to state and federal regulations aimed at reining in excessive prescribing.

Doctors face myriad pressures as they struggle to treat addiction and chronic pain, two complex conditions in which most physicians receive little training. Those responding to the survey gave two main reasons for cutting back: the risks and hassles involved in prescribing opioids, and a better understanding of the drugs’ hazards.

The results also suggest a substantial minority of physicians may believe the pendulum has swung too far, depriving pain patients of needed relief.

Now, Lillie said, keeping track of evolving science and state and federal guidelines add to the complexity. “For some people, they are simply having to say, ‘It’s too much. I can’t be all things to all people,’ ” she said.

As policy makers sought to tackle the abuse problem, “the physicians were an easy group to target,” said Dr. Joseph Audette, chief of pain management at Atrius Health, a large Massachusetts medical group. But the regulations won’t solve the addiction problem, he said. Instead, they make doctors reluctant to prescribe opioids.

“A lot of primary care doctors feel like they can’t comply. They’re overwhelmed,” Audette said.

The four-question survey was conducted Dec. 15 through 22, sent by e-mail to doctors across the United States by SERMO, an online community that enables physicians to anonymously share ideas and concerns. SERMO periodically taps into its worldwide membership of more than 600,000 to conduct opinion polls; for the Globe’s survey, the company randomly selected 25,000 American doctors. Nearly 3,000 replied.

Just over half of all respondents had cut back on opioid prescribing within the past two years or so, while more than two-thirds of family medicine and internal medicine doctors had done so.

The percentage who believed patients had been hurt by reductions in prescribing differed little among specialties: 36 percent of all specialties, 38 percent of family doctors, and 34 percent of internists.

Still, nearly three-quarters of respondents believe chronic pain patients have adequate access to treatments other than opioids. Cindy Steinberg, a national advocate for pain patients, speculates that doctors probably don’t follow up after referring patients to other care, and may not know that many can’t afford it.

Although it’s unknown whether those who chose to reply to the survey are representative of physicians overall, the findings align with other data showing a reduction in opioid prescribing.

Dr. Stefan G. Kertesz, a professor at the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Medicine, has witnessed the downside of that trend: chronic pain patients who have essentially been abandoned by their doctors in the stampede away from opioids.

Kertesz recently published an article in the journal Substance Abuse showing that physician prescribing no longer plays a major role in sustaining the opioid epidemic, which is now driven by heroin and illicit fentanyl.

“But public discourse has been contaminated by aggressive and inflammatory language that frightens doctors,” he said in an interview. Even specialists in addiction, while agreeing doctors should be cautious about prescribing opioids, also “fear that doctors are pulling back in a chaotic way that could be harmful to patients,” he said.

Dr. Laura J. Simpson, a family medicine physician in Marblehead, sees benefits in the publicity about opioids’ harms: It paves the way for doctors to discuss why they won’t write a prescription for every pang.

“People now understand. They don’t see it as you just not helping them,” she said.

And Dr. Rebecca Andrews, a University of Connecticut medicine professor and internist practicing in Farmington, Conn., predicts that eventually the concern over opioids will lead to improved care, by deepening doctor-patient conversations about managing pain and pointing to the need for alternative treatments.

The decline in opioid prescribing is steady and nationwide, according to data from athenahealth, a Watertown company that provides electronic medical records.

In Massachusetts, doctors and nurse practitioners using athenahealth software, who already prescribed lower amounts than their peers nationally, made even steeper cutbacks.

In Massachusetts, the number of athenahealth patients receiving an opioid prescription dropped from a high of 6.9 percent in early 2015 to 5.3 percent as of Dec. 1. Nationally, prescriptions declined during that period from 8.7 percent to 7.8 percent.

But despite low prescribing rates in Massachusetts, the state has one of the highest rates of overdose deaths. Those deaths continue to increase — the vast majority resulting from illicit drugs.

Thus the effort to further restrict opioid prescribing amounts to “a case of generals fighting the last war,” said Dr. Stephen A. Martin, a family physician in Barre and University of Massachusetts Medical School professor publicly calling for a recalibration of attitudes toward the drugs.

Opioids are often a poor choice for treating chronic pain, and most specialists agree that past prescribing practices were too lax. But opioids work for some patients who can safely take a steady dose, and rely on the drugs for daily functioning.

Steinberg, who leads a chronic pain support group in Arlington, knows many such people whose doctors are taking them off opioids against their will. One member of her group has a severe spinal injury and now faces the loss of the one daily Percocet she relies on to sleep.

“In many cases, doctors are walking away completely. They don’t even want to see patients in chronic pain,” said Steinberg, the policy council chairwoman for the Massachusetts Pain Initiative , a nonprofit concerned with improving the lives of people in pain.

She implores doctors who curtail opioids to “partner with your patients and stay with them to help find other options.”

“It’s frightening,” Steinberg said, “to be living in that kind of pain and not have help.”

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25,000-Signature Goal Set For Petition Asking President-Elect Trump To Stop DEA’s War On Kratom

https://www.yahoo.com/news/25-000-signature-goal-set-petition-asking-president-162200630.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Less than three weeks remain for supporters of kratom to sign the petition at www.PetitionTrumpForKratom.com urging President-elect Donald Trump to either halt the DEA/FDA push to criminalize kratom or to reverse any 11^th hour ban that might be imposed in the waning days of the Obama Administration. A target of 25,000 signatures was announced today by the American Kratom Association (AKA), which launched the online petition on Monday, December 19th.

In the first two weeks since its launch of December 19^th, the PetitionTrumpforKratom.org Web site has attracted nearly 8,000 petition signers. In late November, AKA released a report by one of the world’s leading addiction experts who concluded that kratom has as low or even lower potential for abuse and dependence as nutmeg and St. John’s Wort.

AKA is focused intently on getting as many people as possible who have benefited from kratom to share their opposition to any classification by the DEA of the coffee-like herb as a Schedule I drug. The official deadline for signers to add their names to the petition is 11:59 p.m. EST on January 22, 2017.  The list of those signing www.PetitionTrumpForKratom.org will be presented to President-elect Trump in his first full business day in office: Monday, January 23, 2017.

American Kratom Association Director Susan Ash said: “We need a strong message sent from the kratom community to the new White House that the attack on kratom producers and consumers must end.  There is no room in an Administration committed to limited government and allowing responsible adults to live free lives for the DEA’s regulatory overkill response to kratom. We urge everyone who wants to keep kratom legal to go to www.PetitionTrumpForKratom.org and sign their name.”

The petition at www.PetitionTrumpForKratom.org reads in part:

“President-elect Trump:

Your promise to end excessive government regulations and restore the limited role of government in the lives of Americans is the reason that we are appealing to you today.

The three-five million Americans who choose to use the natural herb kratom to maintain their well-being desperately need your help.   We are concerned that the Drug Enforcement Administration may soon choose to curb access to this herb.  If such an ‘eleventh hour’ step is taken during the waning days of the Obama Administration, we ask that you reverse it upon taking office.  If the DEA has not acted by January 21^st, we ask that you put an end to regulatory proceedings targeting kratom.

The DEA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have openly declared war on kratom consumers, and these agencies are blatantly abusing their powers to criminalize both those who produce and sell kratom products, and those who purchase and consume them.  These federal regulators are doing all they can to deny American consumers their freedom to make individual choices on the safe products they want to use to maintain their health and well-being.

Despite credible evidence proving kratom is no more addictive than a cup of coffee, and its use presents no threat to the public health, the DEA and the FDA are continuing their efforts to classify kratom as a dangerous drug – with the same classification as heroin or cocaine.

Who are we?

We are veterans … and lawyers … and factory workers … and school teachers … and health care professionals.  We are mothers and fathers … and grandparents and senior citizens. 

We are the real face of America.  Our choice to consume kratom does not make us “drug abusers” any more than drinking a cup of coffee would …”  

The American Kratom Association is proud to be playing an instrumental role in helping to coordinate the broad-based national opposition to the DEA’s attempt to effectively ban kratom.  In addition to creating www.PetitionTrumpForKratom.org, AKA also:

• Led the charge when the DEA opened a public comment period running through December 1, 2016.  Of the more than 23,000 comments submitted before the deadline closed, the KratomComments.org Web site created by AKA was responsible for 16,379 comments – roughly 71 percent of total comments received at Regulations.gov. (The campaign Web site is now inactive.)
• Issued on November 30, 2016 a long-awaited analysis by Dr. Jack Henningfield, Ph.D., vice president of Research, Health Policy, and Abuse Liability at PinneyAssociates, concluding that there is “insufficient evidence” for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to ban or otherwise restrict kratom under the Controlled Substances Act.  According to the comprehensive Henningfield analysis, kratom’s potential for abuse and dependence is as low or lower than such widely used and unscheduled substances as “nutmeg, hops, St. John’s Wort, chamomile, guarana, and kola nut.”  
• Conducted in November 2016 an online survey of 105 emergency room (ER)/trauma health care professionals that found zero reported cases of deaths related to kratom. The new poll of America’s front-line medical professionals also uncovered precisely zero percent support among those surveyed for a DEA ban on the coffee-like herb kratom.
• Encouraged a set of two letters sent on October 1, 2016 by a politically diverse group of 11 Senators, including Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), calling on the DEA to halt the proposed scheduling and allow for a regular rulemaking process permitting the public, scientific experts, and Congress to provide input. 
• Facilitated letters to the DEA and the Office of Management and Budget sent on September 2, 2016 by a bipartisan group of 51 U.S. House Members urging a halt to the DEA’s push to ban kratom.
• Worked with the Pain News Network on a September 2016 survey of 6150 kratom users about their experience with the herb.
• Promoted a successful and widely publicized September 13, 2016 “March for Kratom” in September at the White House.
• Circulated  a “We The People” petition targeting the White House that accumulated more than 142,000 signatures.

ABOUT AKA
 
The America Kratom Association, a consumer-based non-profit organization, is here to set the record straight, giving a voice to those suffering and protecting our rights to possess and consume kratom. AKA represents tens of thousands of Americans, each of whom have a unique story to tell about the virtues of kratom and its positive effects on their lives. www.americankratom.org

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I have created a new twitter account @painedlives and painedlives@gmail.com. There is a methodology of creating “lists” within Twitter so that you can send a tweet to a large number of people with a single tweet. Dr Linda Cheek has done a lot of work generating a spread sheet with contact info for the members of Congress.

But they have to be moved to the Twitter lists one at a time… with a simple cut/paste… I have created the 100 Senators list… but there are many lists that can be created… including the media.. which there is a web page with all this information www.usnpl.com   but again it needs to be cut/paste to a twitter list.

I have created a Google spreadsheet – in the cloud –  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DpY4MNPiHxFUdVJPpnQxdq7wCduIHC9Y5AOmm0ZPgc0/edit#gid=1001220689 that can be worked

That can be worked on my multiple people at the same time to organize these Twitter names.

Using Twitter in this methodology… all tweets can be sent out anonymously.

I have posted a couple of times in the last week + and have only a couple of people contact me to help with this project…. BUT… not the first new addiction to the spreadsheet or Twitter list has been done.

The new Congress is up and running… we have a new President in 16 days. The Head of the CDC has already submitted his resignation.  The Surgeon General recently announced that addiction is a “brain disease”.. which strongly suggests that the legal prescribing of opiates CANNOT cause a “brain disease”.

It is reported that Marijuana is 30% of the DEA’s budget and they are losing oversight of it state by state… we now have > 50% of the states have legalized it is some way… but.. they are not going to “go down” without a fight… they have tried to change the status of Kratom and CBD..  their jobs, budgets are more important to them than the quality of life of any of our citizens.

Our new Vice President is – IMO – opiophobic – Indiana is one of the four states that has made Kratom ILLEGAL.. Indiana has been NUMBER ONE in pharmacy robberies, it has been at the top of the list for Meth lab busts, it is where – in one small county, (population of 25,000) had abt 170 new HIV +, HEP B&C and only reluctantly did Pence initiate a clean needle program.. and ONLY IN THAT ONE SMALL COUNTY… the other 91 counties where on their own.  They no longer talk about Opiate OD’s or Heroin use… best guess … is it because the numbers are so badly increasing.

There seems to be like this new Congress is going to be very active.. and healthcare, cost of healthcare and repealing/replacing Obamacare is going to be front and center. The chronic pain community can be part of that discussion… or they can continue to whine, bitch, moan to each other on Face Book pages… which will accomplish … ABSOLUTELY NOTHING… except to allow the current downhill path adversely impacting the quality of life of those in the chronic pain community.

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This showed up as a post in another “CLOSED”  FACE BOOK  “pain group”. There are only FOUR STATES where KRATOM is illegal ( WI, IN, TN, VT), but it would appear that some prescribers have decided to start testing for this SUPPLEMENT and promising/threatening pts with discharge if they have KRATOM show up in urine testing.  What substance is next… Nicotine… Alcohol…Caffeine …. Soda… Sugar… Chocolate ?

Hello everyone! I hardly ever post, but I do read everyone’s posts and keep up to date…. so I thought I’d share something that happened to me while at my pain management specialist yesterday…. I thankfully got my refills, and was UA’d. I was UA’d last month, but he dropped a bomb on me…. I have tried kratom to see if it helps me with my pain, it helps to a point, but helps more with my anxiety. Well, my Doc informed me that he found it in my urine. He also informed me that they are starting to test patients for it, because it will be illegal soon. Now, I know there are a few people on here that will argue with me that it won’t be, but I’m just telling you what he told me. He informed me that I needed to stop taking it immediately, because if I kept taking it, he would take me off all meds… and I don’t know about you, but I sincerely need my medication to even get through the day. This really sucks… I asked him “why though? It’s over the counter and it’s herbal” he then said “yes, so is Marijuana, and that’s a no no here”
So just for warning you all, be careful guys, I’m sharing this with you all because I care! Super bummed about it though….

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New Law Cracks Down On Pharmacy Thefts

http://www.newschannel5.com/news/new-law-cracks-down-on-pharmacy-thefts

Back in the early 70’s Congress passed a law that it was a FEDERAL FELONY – just like robbing a bank – if anyone stole controlled substances from a pharmacy. If case no one has noticed… the FBI… seldom – if ever – bothers showing up when a pharmacy is robbed and controlled substances are involved.. So apparently the state of TN decided to put in a state law because the FEDS must consider the robbing pharmacy a virtual NON-ISSUE and maybe because there are so many… doing their job investigating pharmacy robberies would over whelm their manpower capabilities. After all, the more controlled substances on the street… the more “criminals” our judicial system/cops have to chase after. Just watch, the age of the robbers in TN will start to drop… “hired” by diverters to rob pharmacies because the kids will get nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

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Missouri patients ring in New Year with “step therapy” law

https://patientsrising.org/daily-rise/missouri-patients-ring-new-year-step-therapy-law

New Year, New Law against Step Therapy in Missouri

New Year’s Day means parades, football and celebrations. It’s also time for new laws.

Patients in Missouri can ring in the New Year by celebrating a new law to combat step therapy. Back in June, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon signed into law House Bill 2029, which established “new rules for step therapy.”

What is step therapy? Also called “fail first,” step therapy is where health plans require patients to attempt treatment with one or a series of less expensive therapies in order to show that they are ineffective before the insurance company will agree to pay for the medication prescribed by their doctor. [For more, check out our handy guide, “Step Therapy Explained” and other posts explaining the harm in forcing patients to fail first.]

Missouri state lawmakers agree with that definition. Under HB 2029, state law officially states “requiring a patient to follow a step therapy protocol may have adverse and even dangerous consequences for the patient who either may not realize a benefit from taking the prescription drug required by the step therapy protocol or may suffer harm from taking an inappropriate drug that was so required.”

Fox 2 Now reports that “the measure requires health insurers to establish a process to allow patients to request not to do step therapy. Patients who have already undergone step therapy could remain on more expensive drugs if other drugs had been deemed ineffective.”

Patients forced to pay higher insurance rates in 2017

Missouri may have achieved progress on step therapy, but it’s not all good news in the “Show Me State.”

“In Missouri, some people with individual insurance plans could see their rates increase by 40 percent,” reports St. Louis Public Radio.

One town, in particular, will be hit by devastating health insurance rate hikes. Patients in Warrensburg can expect to pay 44 percent more for health insurance next year. They’ll also have fewer choices — just two available insurance providers through the state’s health care marketplace.

So far this year, 185,413 new patients have signed up for health insurance, according to federal health officials.

Patients Rising’s Perspective: Patients Must Fight Back

In a recent piece published at the Kansas City Star, Patients Rising explained our take on the challenges facing patients in Missouri.

“Insurers are operating under the belief that it is acceptable to allow patients to fail first or become sicker on a lower-cost medication before agreeing to provide drugs their doctors had prescribed,” says Jonathan Wilcox, our co-founder and policy director. “Even more challenging, patients often accept their insurer’s judgment and don’t pursue administrative appeals.”

“People fighting for their lives don’t often look to open up another front in another war.”

“The advocacy community must lend its voice of concern to this policy problem, insist on comprehensive reform and bring an end to health care’s secret scandal. And lawmakers must listen.”

Missouri Patients Share Their Views on Health Care

According to a recently released national and statewide survey from the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease:

• 46 percent of Missouri residents have seen their health care costs increase in the past year.
• 20 percent of Missourians say the treatment their doctor recommended wasn’t covered by insurance
• 21 percent say the treatment of someone they know had the same problem.
• 88 percent of Missourians declared as very or somewhat important the need for transparency regarding how and why health plans are deciding to deny coverage of doctor-prescribed treatments.

“Insurer interference at the price of a patient’s health cannot be allowed to continue,” Paul Gileno, president and founder of the U.S. Pain Foundation, recently wrote in a piece published at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “The consequences are far too dangerous to risk. We all want our doctors to prescribe what is medically necessary and not what is perhaps the less expensive therapy.”

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FDA approves first continuous glucose monitoring system that does not require fingerstick test

https://drugstorenewsce.com/editorial-news-item/5/12420?tp=i-H55-Q5U-2Qi-3j5rF-1v-164o-1c-XKV-3iwI3-1Fvxlh&

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its first continuous glucose monitoring system that can be used to make diabetes treatment decisions without confirmation via a traditional fingerstick test. The FDA announced it expanded the approved use of Dexcom’s G5 Mobile Continuous Glucose Monitoring System to allow for replacement of fingerstick blood glucose (sugar) testing for diabetes treatment decisions in people 2 years of age and older with diabetes.

The system was previously approved to complement, not replace, fingerstick testing for diabetes treatment decisions.

“The FDA works hard to help ensure that novel technologies, which can reduce the burden of daily disease management, are safe and accurate,” said Alberto Gutierrez, PhD, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Although this system still requires calibration with two daily fingersticks, it eliminates the need for any additional fingerstick blood glucose testing in order to make treatment decisions. This may allow some patients to manage their disease more comfortably and may encourage them to have routine dialogue with their health care providers about the use of real-time continuous glucose monitoring in diabetes management.”

The G5 Mobile Continuous Glucose Monitoring System uses a small sensor wire inserted just below the skin that continuously measures and monitors glucose levels. Real-time results are sent wirelessly every five minutes to a dedicated receiver and a compatible mobile device running a mobile app. Alarms and alerts indicate glucose levels above or below user-set thresholds. The system measures glucose in fluid under the skin and must be calibrated at least two times per day using blood obtained from fingerstick tests. However, additional daily fingerstick blood tests are generally no longer necessary because unlike other continuous glucose monitoring systems, results from this device can now be used directly by patients to make diabetes treatment decisions without confirmation from a traditional fingerstick test, stated the FDA.

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Heroin Epidemic Drives Surge In Drugs Busts On DC Highways

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