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And we don’t really know how many of those 16K are actually suicides.. we don’t know how many are from Heroin because Heroin is metabolized into Morphine in the body..
If 16 K is a EPIDEMIC… what is the 450 K from tobacco products ? a NON ISSUE ?
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http://fox59.com/2014/10/20/dea-serving-search-warrant-at-medical-office-in-muncie/
The DEA’s state search warrant is being served at the medical office of Dr. William Hedrick. The Centers for Pain Relief clinic is located at 3301 W. Fox Ridge Lane, about a half mile from the Ball State University campus.
Dr. Hendrick is accused of over prescribing painkillers to patients as well as possible forgery and fraud. No one was arrested and no criminal charges have been filed in the ongoing investigation.
The warrant search is part of an ongoing investigation of Dr. Hedrick, who operates Centers for Pain Relief clinics at 11 other locations in northern Indiana. The Muncie location opened in July 2013 and is the 12th such clinic.
The Attorney General’s Office filed a petition with the Indiana Medical Licensing Board Monday seeking a summary suspension of Dr. Hedrick’s license to practice, alleging Hedrick represents “a clear and immediate danger to the public health and safety.”
The warrant application notes eight drug overdose deaths of patients who received prescriptions from either Dr. Hedrick or one of his nurse practitioners from January 2013 through July 2014. Those factors were grounds for authorities to request a search warrant to obtain and review various records from the Muncie clinic.
If you notice in this press release… it doesn’t state that those 8 people died of a prescription drug overdose… or some mixture/cocktail of legal/illegal drugs. Imagine that.. 12 clinics that are treating pain pts… who normally suffer from depression and anxiety and twice as likely to commit suicide .
Let’s do the math… let’s presume that each clinic has three prescribers and each saw 30 pts a day and saw the pts every 30 days.. That would means that the collective clinics would be taking care of 21,600 pts.
According to this group https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures
the suicide rate for the general public is 12.5/100,000 … extrapolating the 8 deaths in this patient pool, over 18 months would come up with abt 24 suicides/100,000.. which is TWICE the expected suicide rate … however.. we are dealing with a chronic pain group.. which has TWICE the rate of suicide of the general population..
So … using these numbers… the suicide rate for this pool of people should have been expected.
So is AG Zoeller… basically “blowing smoke” to get headlines ? Maybe that is why he calls his program “Bitter Pill ” http://www.in.gov/bitterpill/
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Drug Maker Warns That OxyContin Suit Could Be ‘Crippling’From the article:
No one rises as Circuit Judge Steven Combs enters his courtroom in Pikeville, Kentucky.
Combs wears a white shirt and yellow tie, no robe. Lawyers approach the bench as their cases are called, shake the judge’s hand and exchange small talk before getting to business. Today’s docket includes a woman convicted of public intoxication, an accused trafficker of painkillers, and a procedural matter involving Purdue Pharma LP, a multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that’s effectively accused of laying waste to this Appalachian coal town.
In this remote county courthouse in southeast Kentucky, the company faces a potential legal reckoning that its own chief financial officer called “crippling.” Purdue has already lost initial procedural decisions that may force it to go to trial with its “arms tied behind its back,” the company said in pretrial arguments.
The lawsuit, once dismissed as a quixotic mission, has become Purdue’s legal nightmare — one that the company says could result in a catastrophic $1 billion judgment against it, based on the state’s allegations as well as the potential for punitive damages and pre- and post-judgment interest. With other lawsuits filed this year in Illinois and California against Purdue and other opioid makers, the Kentucky case could trigger more litigation along the lines of the suits that cost Big Tobacco billions in the 1990s.
Normally in our legal system… the “deep pockets” hires the best attorneys and are able to walk away… Purdue Pharma’s legal team may have met their match in this little back water Eastern Kentucky town..
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deaths keep rising in KentuckyIf I remember correctly, KY was the first state to have a prescription monitoring program (PMP) called KASPER and I believe the cost of developing this was funded by Purdue Pharma. This was in the early- mid 90’s.. Initially, the database could only be accessed by law enforcement.. only when they have a active investigation … the law creating this PMP prohibited the PMP from doing any data mining to try and isolate those that were doctor/pharmacy shopping. Needless to say, it was reported .. that law enforcement averaged requesting ONE REPORT PER WEEK.
It was eventually opened up to healthcare professionals to have access to it. Like every other state that has started a PMP.. utilization by healthcare professionals requesting reports.. was dismal. In order to solve this problem, the bureaucrats passed a law in 2012.. that all healthcare professionals MUST pull a report before prescribing or dispensing a controlled med. Needless to say.. the number of reports requested WENT UP DRAMATICALLY !
From the article:
FRANKFORT – Heroin overdose deaths in Kentucky continued to surge in 2013 though the number of all drug overdose fatalities stayed steady, according to a report issued Thursday by the Office of Drug Control Policy.
Of the 722 overdose deaths autopsied by the Kentucky Medical Examiner last year, 230, or 31.9 percent, were attributed to heroin, compared to 143, or 19.6 percent, in 2012, according to the report. It also states there were 1,007 overdose fatalities in 2013, compared to 1,004 identified in the 2012 report.
As recently as 2011, only 3 percent of the 1,023 overdose deaths in Kentucky were attributed to heroin.
Experts pointed out that the numbers may actually underestimate heroin overdose mortality, since many deaths ascribed to morphine are likely overdoses from heroin that has metabolized in the victim’s body
The newspaper investigation also found that the number of heroin trafficking charges in Louisville went from a single inmate in 2011 to 53 in 2012 and 71 in 2013, and 100 from January to May this year (2014). And it found that heroin addicts are straining agencies across Kentucky, filling jails, courts and treatment centers.
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The Idaho case involves Donald and Evelyn Knapp, both ordained ministers, who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel. Officials from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, told the couple that because the city has a non-discrimination statute that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, and because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Idaho’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the couple would have to officiate at same-sex weddings in their own chapel.
The non-discrimination statute applies to all “public accommodations,” and the city views the chapel as a public accommodation.
On Friday, a same-sex couple asked to be married by the Knapps, and the Knapps politely declined. The Knapps now face a 180-day jail term and $1,000 fine for each day they decline to celebrate the same-sex wedding.
A week of honoring their faith and declining to perform the ceremony could cost the couple three and a half years in jail and $7,000 in fines.
This post is not intended to open a discussion on who can marry who.. and anyone making comments in this regard… will be DELETED !
This is about how our legal system addresses some types of discrimination… some they impose fines.. such as this issue and in other issues .. and condoning others such as denying those with subjective diseases to get treatment without any consequences.
Wasn’t there something in our Constitution about Freedom to practice our Religion ?
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There are other videos on this site that you may wish to watch concerning this same subject http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ending-life-barbara-mancini-end-of-life-debate/
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http://youtu.be/3G2ca3WNCz0
more videos available on http://www.leap.cc/ (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)
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From the Harrison Narcotic Act…
The provision protecting physicians, however, contained a joker hidden in the phrase, “in the course of his professional practice only .” 7 After passage of the law, this clause was interpreted by law-enforcement officers to mean that a doctor could not prescribe opiates to an addict to maintain his addiction. Since addiction was not a disease, the argument went, an addict was not a patient, and opiates dispensed to or prescribed for him by a physician were therefore not being supplied “in the course of his professional practice.” Thus a law apparently intended to ensure the orderly marketing of narcotics was converted into a law prohibiting the supplying of narcotics to addicts, even on a physician’s prescription.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu8.html This article makes some very interesting reading..
The ICD9 coding system is owned and maintained by The American Medical Assoc… that is what helps make them so powerful.. they get royalties off of this coding system… that the whole medical system uses for billing… and thus have no financial dependency from of any other group, unlike most other associations.
http://www.icd9data.com/2012/Volume1/290-319/300-316/304/default.htm
I know that not much with our bureaucracy makes sense… and I don’t know if that is intentional or unintentional… but.. If our healthcare system has decided that addiction is a disease and the Americans with Disability Act makes discrimination a civil rights violation…. Is that part of the war on drugs that deal with physicians treating addicts… ILLEGAL…? Particularly since the original determination that addiction is NOT A DISEASE… was made by LAW ENFORCEMENT.
Perhaps, this is the same philosophy behind the fact that we have an ATTORNEY as Ebola Czar .. a medical crisis…
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One of my fellow bloggers posted some stats on what appears to be the FUTURE OF BEING A PHARMACIST
High school guidance counselors: please take notes! Demand for pharmacists is down. The number of pharmacy graduates is up. Starting salaries are down while average student loan debt is greater than $100,000.
The number of pharmacy schools in the year 2000: 80
The number of pharmacy schools in the year 2012: 127
The number of PharmD graduates in the year 2001: 7,000
The number of PharmD graduates in the year 2011: 11,931
Projected number of graduates in the year 2016: 14,000-15,000
Salaries in some areas of the country has already dropped 40%-50%.. and graduation rates have still not peaked !
Student debt is projected to increase to a average of 150,000 while pay scale is dropping dramatically. Debt will be 2-3 times annual starting salary.
My student debt at graduation in 1970 was 500.00 and I had a starting salary of $12,200. Making mine 2-3 weeks of salary vs 2-3 yrs today… and I had a job lined up BEFORE graduation… not a 20% chance of not finding a job.
If you are thinking about going to pharmacy school… talk to a few new grads .. that are working for the major chain pharmacies.. See if their expectations mess with reality…
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The next CDC Public Health Grand Rounds will discuss how expanding the role of Pharmacists will position them to have greater impact in health care and public health. Join us Tuesday, October 21st at 1pm ET for the live webcast. Follow @CDC_eHealth on Twitter and participate in the event using the hashtag #CDCGrandrounds. http://go.usa.gov/fWem
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