Sometimes THE TRUTH is hard to recognize

Overdose deaths increased by more than one third in Western Pennsylvania, DEA says

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/10781143-74/heroin-county-drug

This is a article mostly stating FACTS except they make one statement in the article  While good statistics aren’t available … the continue to include MAY… MIGHT.. and their GOAL is to HOPEFULLY stop the increase in deaths from drug overdoses… Really not clear which drugs are the real cause of the overdoses.  Having another 3400 drug overdose deaths in 2016 would be considered a VICTORY ?  Of course, most statements are being made by the DEA or a director for a Rehab center.

If they are administering more and more Naloxone and deaths are increasing… Naloxone is NOT PREVENTING OD DEATHS… it is just postponing it !

Why hasn’t those involved with the war on drugs.. look at it like we do terrorists… we have to be 100% correct to prevent a terrorist from killing some of us.. because the terrorist only has to be correct ONCE to kill innocent people.

The Naloxone prgm – to prevent OD deaths – have to be there 100% of the time.. and when you hear bureaucrats “glad-handing” each other when they have revived a single person from dying from a OD numerous times, sometimes in a single day.

Is the Naloxone prgm just a “catch or release” process… or is it more of just a mirage of something being done to save/help people who suffers from the mental health disease of addictive personality disorder ?

Overdose deaths increased by more than a third in most Western Pennsylvania counties last year with heroin and other opioids driving the numbers, according to a new government report.

More people are dying because more people are abusing drugs, said Dr. Neil A. Capretto, medical director for Gateway Rehabilitation.

“Nearly every day, there’s more people using opioids than there were the day before…,” he said. “It’s like a tsunami of addiction.”

Statewide, drug-related overdose deaths increase by about 23 percent to 3,383 deaths in 2015, according to an analysis by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Fatal overdoses increased by 37 percent to 422 in Allegheny County and by 43 percent to 126 in Westmoreland County, according to the report.

Westmoreland County has implemented several programs in the last year such as a drug court and an early diversion program at the magistrate level, naloxone training and drug use prevention programs, said Tim Phillips, director of the county’s Drug Overdose Task Force.

“Once we get all these pieces in place, we hope to at least see it level off,” he said.

The continued increase in overdose deaths drives home the need to get naloxone, commonly sold under the brand name Narcan, in as many hands as possible, Phillips said. Rapid administration of naloxone can keep people from dying from an overdose.

While good statistics aren’t available, the increased use of naloxone by first responders has probably cut the number of overdose deaths in Allegheny County by more than 100 people, Capretto said.

In addition to an increased number of people using heroin and opioids, some of the factors driving the increase in deaths include the use of fentanyl as a cutting agent or, increasingly, as a substitute for heroin, he said.

Heroin comes from poppy plants, so drug cartels have to grow and harvest the plants before they can sell it. Fentanyl is both a stronger drug and a cheaper one that’s made in laboratories, Capretto said.

Autopsies statewide found heroin or an opioid in 81 percent of the people who died of an overdose in 2015, according to the DEA. The presence of fentanyl increased by 93 percent and this increase was “concentrated in several southwestern counties,” the report says.

“The abuse of illicit street drugs and diverted pharmaceuticals continues to take too many lives and destroys families across Pennsylvania and the nation at large,” said Gary Tuggle, special agent of the DEA’s Philadelphia Field Division, which covers the state.

The DEA is increasingly seeing fentanyl being passed off as heroin, said DEA spokesman Patrick Trainor.

While he hasn’t run into a dealer selling fentanyl as heroin, it’s frequently mixed with heroin, and there’s not much quality control in the drug trade, said Westmoreland County Detective Tony Marcocci.

Testing bags from the same batch will show that one stamp bag has a mix while another will be nearly pure fentanyl, he said.

For an individual stamp bag, “there no telling what percentage it is,” Marcocci said.

The rise of heroin and opioids is driven by peer pressure and myths, such as the mistaken belief that snorting heroin or opioids keeps people from getting addicted, he said.

“We see some individuals who begin snorting heroin, become addicted to it and start injecting it because it’s cheaper,” he said.

Injecting is cheaper because the user gets a stronger effect for the same dose, Marcocci said. Other people start on pain medications and switch to heroin for the same reason, he said.

“The sad reality is that it’s affecting more and more people from various lifestyles,” Marcocci said. “It knows no barrier.”

A focus in Allegheny County is gathering more information about the people using heroin and opioids to see how to prevent or break their addictions, said Dr. Karen Hacker, director of the county’s health department.

“What we’re trying to figure out is where the interventions are going to have an effect,” she said. A report on the issue should be coming out soon, she said.

While police departments have been reluctant to start carrying naloxone, an increasing number such as Monroeville, Pitcairn and Brentwood have done so, she said. A Pittsburgh police spokeswoman couldn’t be reached for comment.

The county is also trying to get doctors who prescribe opioids to include naloxone as a safety net, Hacker said.

Westmoreland and Allegheny counties have standing orders allowing pharmacies to sell naloxone to anyone without a prescription. Neither is sure how many people are taking advantage of that.

“Getting it out there to the people who need it is a challenge,” Hacker said.

Brian Bowling is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-325-4301 or bbowling@tribweb.com.

Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »

Often  chronic pain pts’ need for increased pain meds is blamed on “tolerance” …  some believe that the pt’s increase needs has little/nothing to do with the concept of “tolerance”.

In all likelihood this concept came from the fact that those who have abused opiates quickly develop a “tolerance” to “getting high” and keep having to take more and more in hopes of reaching a “high”.  After 1-2 yrs of an addict trying to get “high” … they can’t get high any more…  they continue to use/abuse opiates to avoid withdrawal… which they call “dope sick”.

It would seems that those who have issues with substance abusers have tried to apply this tolerance to getting high to the chronic pain pt’s need for higher doses.

What they seem to ignore the fact that as everyone ages… things stop working as well as they use to… the disease state that is causing your pain has probably deteriorated or gotten worse.

Aging also tends to slow down your stamina … you may have to push harder to get the same things done as 5-10 yrs before.. which will cause activity induced pain.. trying to gets the same/similar tasks done.

There are many factors that contribute to a pt’s need for larger doses in treating their pain as times goes by… throwing the label of TOLERANCE on that need is probably more fiction than fact.

Filed under: General Problems | 4 Comments »

D.C. Week: HHS Eases Buprenorphine Prescribing

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Washington-Watch/58977

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration raised the cap on the number of individuals for whom prescribers can prescribe buprenorphine and the FDA approves the first bioresorbable stent for coronary artery disease.

HHS Eases Buprenorphine Prescribing

The Obama administration announced a new rule that could lower the death toll from opioid overdoses, but the changes will be mostly meaningless without additional funding, officials said.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officially raised the limit on the number of individuals for whom prescribers can order medication assisted treatment, specifically buprenorphine, from 100 to 275.

“In the absence of congressional action, we’re taking every step forward that we can,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell, referring to the stalemate in Congress over appropriating adequate funding for opioids.

FDA Chief Criticizes Industry for Inaction on Opioids

The new head of the FDA accepted some blame for the agency’s role in the growing opioid epidemic, while also chiding drug manufacturers for failing to take action.

“[W]e are all sinners,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, recalling the words of his Baptist grandfather.

“I think in this case, there’s a lot of sin to go around.”

Califf spoke to provisional members of a newly formed committee charged with advising his agency on how best to balance the needs of legitimate pain patients with the societal issue of opioid addiction. At the meeting, held at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Wednesday, Califf said he’s spoken with R&D directors at most of the big drug companies and none have shown interest in investing in research on new non-addictive painkillers.

Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »

Don’t Use Oral Liquid Docusate Stool Softener in Any Patient, CDC Warns

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/865957

US health officials are continuing to investigate a multistate outbreak of infections caused by Burkholderia cepacia complex possibly linked to contaminated oral liquid docusate stool softener products.

In its July 8 update, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised against treating any patient with oral liquid docusate products.

According to the CDC, as of July 8, 47 B cepacia complex cases have been confirmed by molecular typing to match one of two outbreak strain types identified from healthcare facilities in five states. The CDC is also looking into reports of possible cases from additional states.

The CDC has confirmed that two samples of unused oral liquid docusate product received from one of the affected hospitals have tested positive for B cepacia complex. Further testing is underway to determine whether bacteria from these samples match the outbreak strains.

In addition, the US Food and Drug Administration is conducting tests on multiple liquid docusate products that are epidemiologically linked to reported B cepacia complex cases. To date, the CDC has confirmed one product as having B cepacia complex growth.

In a preliminary update on June 24, the CDC noted that these infections have occurred primarily in ventilated patients without cystic fibrosis (CF) who are being treated in intensive care units. At that time, and again in its June 29 update, the CDC recommended that facilities not use any oral liquid docusate products for patients who are critically ill, ventilated, or immunosuppressed.

In its July 8 update, the CDC expanded this recommendation to all patient populations. “If an oral liquid docusate stool softener is medically necessary, alternative medicines should be used,” the CDC says.

The agency urges healthcare providers and laboratories to remain alert for infections caused by B cepacia complex occurring among non-CF patients and to inform infection prevention staff immediately when these infections are identified.

In addition, although infections caused by B cepacia complex are known to occur among patients with CF, any clusters of such infections should be reported. “Cases and clusters should be reported to state or local public health authorities,” the CDC advises.

Facilities that identify infections caused by B cepacia complex among non-CF patients or clusters of these infections among CF patients are asked to sequester and save all docusate products used in the facility.‎‎

The CDC said it will update the situation by July 14. More information on the outbreak can be found on the CDC website.

Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »

Weekly meeting Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue 8 PM EDT

Goto https://www.livesupportgroup.com/ to register for the live webinar

.

Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »

Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »

This month starts the FIFTH YEAR of posting on this blog. Over those years, I have written about much, have read about much that is going on within the chronic pain community.

I have seen a lot of petition started and failed to get any serious number of people signing them

I can’t count the hundreds or thousands of new Face Book pages that have been started for pain and/or some disease where pain is a major complication or some other focus about pain destroying lives.

There are so many names that use to be strong advocates… that I don’t see posting any more.

there are days that I feel like Don Quixote, I really don’t have a dog in this fight, but it often seems like I am trying to win a battle in which I am grossly outnumbered, and there is no where to call for reinforcements.

What advocates that are left, I am reading/hearing similar thoughts. We all know that Congress started this “war on drugs ” mess back in 1914. We also know that currently 43% of Congress is Attorneys…and since they continue to fund the Dept of Justice/DEA war on drugs.. which has turned to a war on healthcare providers and pts over the last 6 + yrs.  Are all those Attorneys so dedicated to their profession and the Judicial system… that they turn a blind eye to what is going on with the war on drugs ?

We all hear/know of increased suicide among chronic pain pts that have been deprived of their medications for various reasons. We have also seen a change in the nomenclature that there are no long any junkies/addicts… just those using opiates >90 days – legally or illegally – are now labeled as suffering from a “opiate abuse disorder” and that there are no more unintentional/accidental OD’s just deaths that are a “opiate related death”… even  if the opiate is not at a lethal level… Could this be to help cover up the suicide deaths… because most chronic pain pts are going to have some opiates show up in toxicology.

Is this to cover up the consequences of the new opiate dosing guidelines of the CDC and other intimidating actions by the DEA to “cover-up” the reason for the increase in “opiate related deaths” or just to increase  number to give the DEA reasons to ask Congress for more funding ?

Is a on-going war where one side of the war there are no combatants … just causalities … isn’t that the definition of

genocide:

  the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. ?

We know were the problem originates from:  CONGRESS… 80% of  Congress is up for re-election Nov 8th.. Last time I looked, your vote is anonymous.  If you are one of those who must pull the <R> or <D> straight ticket without further consideration.  During the Obama’s administration, Congress has taken turns being under the majority of each party .. and what has changed  and how is that working for you ?

Maybe it is time for a NEW T.E.A. party (Tortured Enough Already)

Filed under: General Problems | 7 Comments »

Many of us know… and many of us don’t know the fact that our court system in 1917 determined that opiate addiction was NOT A DISEASE but a CRIME.

At that point, it became ILLEGAL for a prescriber to treat/maintain a addict. Bottom line… some attorneys decided that the mental health issue of addictive personality disorder, when it came to the addiction involved opiates, it was no longer a treatable disease.

We have spent since The Controlled substance Act of 1970 was enacted 1.5 Trillion in fighting the war on drugs and continue to spend 51 billion/yr on this nearly HALF-CENTURY WAR. There is actually a smaller per-cent of the population now abusing some substance other than the two drugs Alcohol and Nicotine, but we now have a full-fledged epidemic on our hands and we now have what seems like a “bum’s rush” to get Naloxone into just about everyone’s hand.. just in case…

Just think about it… reviving/saving a person from a opiate OD.. unless there is some sort of follow up therapy.. you just put them back into the environment they came from… how much good are you doing the person ? Epiphanies in the opiate addiction community are not all that common. Most are in a death spiral… I have heard of bureaucrats congratulating themselves on “saving the same person” .. TEN TIMES IN ONE DAY… are we actually “savings” these people or just postponing the inevitable outcome in their uncontrollable seeking a new/higher high ?

What happens if the bureaucrats/DEA decides to start looking into who is prescribing/selling Naloxone.. It is ILLEGAL to treat a addict… so if a prescriber writes a Rx for a pt taking a opiate – just in case – could the judicial system look at that as the prescriber knew or should have known they were treating an addict… and thus prescribing opiates for a non-medical reason… their own pt medical records will demonstrate that they are guilty.

Could the same hold true for Pharmacists that fill Naloxone Rxs and/or sell Naloxone OTC and/or standing order and/or via a collaborative agreement ? Even if the pt is only doing it as a precaution and never used the Naloxone to revive from an overdose.

The DEA has raided and taken down prescribers and pharmacies on a lot less sturdy/probably cause evidence.

Once that TROJAN HORSE is inside the gates… there is no UN-RINGING THAT BELL ?

Filed under: General Problems | Leave a Comment »

15 Years Later, Where Did All The Cigarette Money Go?

http://www.npr.org/2013/10/13/233449505/15-years-later-where-did-all-the-cigarette-money-go

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it’s unclear how state governments are using much of that money.

So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement.

Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center.

“So go ahead and take a minute or two to write down reasons why you want to quit and we’ll talk about them in just a bit,” Luisa Santa says at the start of a recent session.

Every year since 1998, this program has been funded by money from the tobacco settlement. The five-part class is free for anyone living or working in Orange County. When they sign up, participants get a “quit kit” full of things like toothpicks and gum. And, if they come for at least three of the five sessions, they get a free two-week supply of nicotine patches.

Making Big Tobacco Pay

In the mid-1990s, Mississippi was the undisputed leader on the tobacco issue. In 1994, Mike Moore, the state attorney general, filed the first state lawsuit against big tobacco.

Individual lawsuits by smokers failed because courts held people responsible for their decision to smoke, but Moore argued that Mississippi shouldn’t be forced to pay the costs of treating smoking-related diseases.

“Things such as lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, low-birth-weight babies and others, we have to pay,” Moore told NPR in a 1994 interview. “The state is obligated to pay for those for our citizens that are not covered in other ways, and we feel like they’re caused by the tobacco products.”

Moore argued that tobacco companies should pay for medical bills, and eventually the courts agreed. That agreement said no ads and no targeting youth. Popular advertising characters like Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man were killed off as a result.

The settlement left the tobacco industry immune from future state and federal suits, but the agreement said nothing about how states had to spend the money. Looking back on it, Moore remembers it was a long slog.

“It was not an easy task,” Moore tells NPR’s Arun Rath. “When we filed our case here in 1994, my governor actually sued me to try to stop the tobacco case.”

The tobacco companies sued Moore as well, he says, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. “It took me two years before I even had five states who would agree to join the efforts.”

Moore now serves on the board of directors of the American Legacy Foundation, a group created by the tobacco settlement. The organization’s mission is to create national anti-smoking campaigns, like the famous Truth ads.

The tobacco settlement included money specifically to fund public service announcements, but Moore says most of the settlement money came with no strings attached, and that has made it impossible to hold states accountable.

In Mississippi, where the settlement money was put into a trust fund, a lot of it was spent on things other than smoking prevention and health care, Moore says.

“What happened as the years went by, legislators come and go, and governors come and go … so we got a new governor and he had a new opinion about the tobacco trust fund,” he says. “So a trust fund that should have $2.5 billion in it now doesn’t have much at all, and unfortunately that’s one of my biggest disappointments.

And it’s not just Mississippi; Moore says that all across the country hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to states, and the states have made choices not to spend the money on public health and tobacco prevention.

It’s not all bad news in Mississippi, however; Moore says money that was spent on tobacco prevention has helped reduce teen smoking by more than 50 percent in just five years. Adult smoking has been reduced by about 25 percent, and he says it is that way around much of the U.S. as well.

“We need to continue the vigilance,” he says. “We have new products coming out — e-cigarettes and the like — we just need to talk the states into spending the money to do something about it.”

The Settlement Aftermath

Myron Levin covered the tobacco industry for the Los Angeles Times for many years and is also the founder of the health and safety news site Fair Warning. He says talking states into spending settlement money on tobacco prevention is a tough sell.

To show the settlement was not just a big money grab, Levin says, there was definitely a feeling that states had a moral obligation to spend at least a sizeable chunk of money on programs to help people quit smoking and to prevent kids from starting.

“So it was understood without being codified into the agreement that states would make a big investment in this,” he says. “They haven’t.”

To help guide state governments, in 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that states reinvest 14 percent of the money from the settlement and tobacco taxes in anti-smoking programs. But most state governments have decided to prioritize other things: Colorado has spent tens of millions of its share to support a literacy program, while Kentucky has invested half of its money in agricultural programs.

“What states have actually done has fluctuated year by year … but it’s never come close to 14 percent,” Levin says. “There are some fairly notorious cases of money being used for fixing potholes, for tax relief [and] for financial assistance for tobacco farmers.”

Levin says some states don’t have any money coming in anymore because they securitized their future payments with an investor in order to receive a lump sum. That lump sum often went into their state’s general fund.

“When you are supplying the most widely used addictive product in the world, you have certain advantages,” he says. “Their cash flows remain enormous.”

One indirect effect of the settlement, Levin says, is legislation that gave the Federal Drug Administration control over tobacco products. President Obama signed the law in 2009.

“Something that could happen, although I wouldn’t put a lot of money on it, is they could ratchet down the allowable levels of nicotine in cigarettes to a level that is essentially nonaddictive,” he says. “That would be a total game changer.”

Nonaddictive cigarettes would indeed be a game changer for people like Susan Hallock, an attendee at the class in Orange County, who says she desperately wants to quit.

“I feel ashamed,” she says. “I feel like I have to hide my hand with the cigarette in it.”

But the nicotine keeps her coming back, over and over. “I’ll smoke like six to eight months and quit. Or a month and quit. It’s just different every time.”

She’s hoping that this time, with the help of the free class, she’ll be successful. And she has a real chance: The program has a 50 percent success rate for adults like her.

Filed under: General Problems | 3 Comments »

Lives stolen: Arachnoiditis patients to gather in Helena for pioneering conference

http://m.ravallirepublic.com/news/local/article_c0585854-44a9-11e6-b06b-5f994f714031.html

Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »