If you look at the most recent comment period on the CDC proposal on limits on opium prescribing as typical of what goes on in Washington DC. First of all you are dealing with UN-ELECTED BUREAUCRATS/REGULATORS… their ONLY job is to create regulations from the 300 odd new laws that Congress pass every year and/or re-interpret existing regulations and/or expand existing regulations.
Before that CDC comment period, it has been reported that the CDC included in the advisory committee a fair share of so called “experts” with a vested interest in the opiate rehab/recovery industry and/or just plain anti-opiate mindset. They had “closed door meetings”… which is against the law… and to the best of what was divulged about the committee… there was NO INPUT from the chronic pain community and/or chronic pain experts.
They were FORCED to have a open line comment period… which was limited to 3 minutes per person and total comment period was ONE HOUR or so.. no questions could be asked… nor would they be answered…
In the final outcome…. the CDC final publication of “guidelines” were pretty much the same as before any comments made by the public. You can place your own value the CDC placed on comments made by the public that was being directly affected by these new guidelines.
Did anyone in Congress or this Administration know or care about what the CDC was doing and how they were doing it ? If they did, they apparently agreed with what they were doing or decided to turn a “blind eye” to what was going on. Either way, those in the chronic pain community is going to get SCREWED… while those in charge were not about to get involved ?
It was recently reported that the Federal government took in the MOST REVENUE EVER and yet Congress spent 500 BILLION more than they took in… all that money goes to allow these un-elected … unbridled bureaucrats/regulators continue to impose their belief system – via Federal regulations – on 330 million people in our country.
The only way that these regulators can be reigned in.. is for Congress to start cutting the budgets of these agencies.. they can’t continue to create “boat loads” of new regulations if their budgets/staffing numbers are CUT.
There are 435 House members and 31 Senators running for re-election… they all will have Face Book pages, Websites, Twitter accounts… plus the two Presidential candidates. Also there are highly visible reporters in every major TV market which may be able to be reached via the same internet resources.
You DO NOTHING… you SAY NOTHING…. you GET NOTHING… Pain never killed anyone.. UNTREATED PAIN.. is causing pts to DROP LIKE FLIES… and the number are only going to increase… will you be one of the CAUSALITIES ?
Filed under: General Problems
Look at CNN HEALTH last week erasing how many educated, well versed comments…8 I think? There was nothing inappropriate in the posts I saw before they were erased. So frustrating is all I’m saying…not stopping just frustrated! I would love to complain to CNN but was unable to locate a link. Ridiculous!
No CDC didn’t give a $hit, and I doubt Califf does either now that he’s been confirmed in his position leading FDA, but they don’t need to be able to use the excuse that no one commented when they streamroll over us. Also when you write elected officials, you (or at least I) want to be able to show them that patients care and are working hard on the issue. I definitely agree that we MUST get involved with elections and let our senators and representatives know where we stand and that we will vote accordingly. “If you do nothing, you get nothing” has never been more true than now. I want to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE so that if I go down, I do it swinging with a switchblade, taser, and pepper spray!
Sing it sister!!….Only reason I am trying my best to learn the in’s & out’s of FB….for I never want anyone to say that to me, or me to say it in the mirror to myself…it will be, I went down swinging and hopefully got atleast one good punch in….totally agree steve
Great post. Agree that their budgets need cut dramatically. PROP spent over 1 million on lobbying over a 5 year period to get these guidelines passed.
The non partisan non profit organization called http://www.represent.us is doing great work to get legalized corruption out of US politics. Check them out.