THE ABERRANT FRAUD BEHIND THE UNITED STATES CDC, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATIONS OPIOID PRESCRIPTION GUIDELINES “A SHAMEFUL DISASTROUS CHAPTER IN AMERICA MEDICAL HISTORY”: WHEN PHYSICIANS, PHARMACISTS, AND THEIR PATIENTS STOOD UP AND FOUGHT BACK

REPORTED BY

NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L.CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, BELINDA BROWN-PARKER, IN THE SPIRIT OF JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., IN THE SPIRIT OF REV. C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., MBA., BEVERLY C. PRINCE MD., FACS., WILLIE GUINYARD BS., JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., MBA,  LEROY BAYLOR,   JAY K. JOSHI MD., MBA, ADRIENNE EDMUNDSON, ESTER HYATT PH.D., WALTER L. SMITH BS., IN THE SPIRIT OF BRAHM FISHER ESQ., MICHELE ALEXANDER MD., CUDJOE WILDING BS, MARTIN NDJOU, BS., RPH., IN THE SPIRIT OF DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD, BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS

Sherry and Joe Madison XM 126, Urban View:

“…when you do nothing, nothing happens, and doing nothing gets nothing done and nothing will ever get done…when you do something you change things…”

BY

JAY K. JOSHI MD., MBA

Healthcare laws should be defined through the experiences of those who experience it, in a balance between the individual experiences – whether that is physician and patient, or hospital administrator and medical supplies distributor.

Healthcare laws derived from experience recognize the natural rights of those in healthcare as individuals, while maintaining the appropriate oversight necessary to establish a balance of individual rights and social good that define the Bill of Rights in the Constitution – laws that distribute societal burdens among all equally.

Josh Bloom, Ph.D. Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science American Council on Science and Health, New York, NY;

“…a shameful and disastrous chapter in American medical history, which has resulted in millions of un- or undertreated pain patients in addition to a stark increase in overdose deaths as fentanyl has “filled the gap..”

TO BE SILENCE

Accordingly, we must avoid laws that may appear logical, but place undue harm on individuals based upon the experience they go through. When seen in this manner, experience and logic become concepts to balance against one another, like assumed burdens of a legal risk.

Laws that place the presumed risk of a healthcare complication over the actual risk of good clinical care would be one example. It makes sense to avoid complications, but not if avoiding that complication incurs undue harms upon select individuals losing access to good clinical care as a result.

A chronic pain patient Jklingenhofer writes:

“Thank you for speaking up on behalf of chronic pain patients, and also acute pain patients. Another important side effect of this war on opioids is that surgical and post-surgical pain is being under-medicated by our doctors in no hospitals, including some of our best hospitals in the country. 

I am a chronic pain patient with a lifelong disease requiring many surgeries in my lifetime. I remember when the pain wasn’t managed well, the short period when it was given the importance of a vital sign, back to being under-medicated. I live in terror of having to have another surgery, and have put off a needed surgery for well over a year now.“

TO BE PROFILED

At any given hospital, any two physicians may produce different working diagnoses for a patient who presents initially with the same set of symptoms. And neither physician may necessarily be wrong, as healthcare is complex, and concepts that are fundamentally complex have substantial uncertainty within it.

It is precisely within this uncertainty that diverging opinions may form within medicine. A patient who presents with elevated blood pressure, dizziness, and fatigue could be evaluated for a cerebrovascular accident, such as a bleeding or hemorrhagic stroke, or could be evaluated for myocardial infarction, a heart attack.

TO BE DE-HUMANIZED

The diagnosis may not be immediately known, but the steps to ascertain the diagnosis are – meaning a physician can order a series of tests and images to glean the probable cause of the symptoms. But even within these standard steps, different opinions or conclusions can form – some correct and some incorrect.

TO BE DENIED

Errors are inherent to medicine, as they would be to any complex system. Which makes the designation of a crime all the more difficult to standardize. 

This means laws that prioritize a presumed logic or based upon an assumption of how patients will act, should not place undue burdens upon select patients once that law is experienced by those affected. In a sense, the logic of law should balance against the experience of the law. In much the same way the presumed risk of a law balances against the actual risk of law.

In this manner we can conceive laws that would optimize healthcare equity as it is experienced among different patient populations, balancing the experiences of healthcare among different populations and individuals based upon the burdens imposed upon them.

TO BE ARRESTED AND FIGHTING BACK

THE PRINCIPLES OF EQUAL TREATMENT

We need healthcare laws based upon experience because healthcare is an experience – sometimes logical, and sometimes illogical.

In recent times, many who push for equity have advocated for greater government intervention. But we can achieve equity simply by improving our understanding of healthcare laws, revising the laws to better reflect the experiences of healthcare.

TO BE INVISIBLE

This approach embodies the Enlightenment principle of equal treatment for individuals of different backgrounds. The very principles America’s Founders drew upon when they declared independence, stating it was self-evident that all men are created equal. But the Founders were at their heart, rebels.

They eschewed government intervention, and sought a balance between liberties and equalities – not through government intervention, but through rule of law, creating a system of law based upon an agreed set of principles.

TO BE VICTIMIZED

This belief is why claims for equal treatment are so deeply rooted in American history. It was the experience they went through that defined their beliefs, an experience of rebellion that led to the Constitution.

An experience we now fail to understand in healthcare, as we now have healthcare laws that distill healthcare experience into logic. Ultimately, they are different concepts, to be held in a balance. We cannot reduce experience into logic and expect the same framework of law.

Margaret Drumheiser a chronic pain patient writes:

ripper1491@verizon.net

“absolutely surgical patients are left suffering also given nothing but Tylenol, despite the type of surgery and how painful. Cancer pts are also being denied which is bullcrap considering their supposed to be exempt. but I also shouldn’t be denied even though I don’t have cancer, but I do suffer from some type of horrific pain neuropathy !!! from illnesses, I didn’t ask for or cause.

I have chronic painful illnesses CRPS(RSD) fibromyalgia, small nerve multifocal neuropathy severe osteoarthritis, DJD, etc. with no cure-all that can do is treat symptoms one being horrific debilitating intractable chronic pain. after many years of trying nonopioid tx. Opioid pain meds were started and I finally found the right dose and meds Finally I had my quality of life back and tolerable pain for 10 of the 20 + years

I’m suffering from debilitating intractable chronic pain then the CDC guidelines came out in 2016 and my meds were immediately cut in half then 2 months after taken away my effective meds. I’m still on a different opioid but on the way lower doses and less effective opioid now I’m suffering again horrific pain 24,/7 365 days a year no longer tolerable and decreased quality of life. It’s just not right.

They wouldn’t take away a diabetics med or heart med and certainly wouldn’t give everyone the same doses or meds. Then why discriminate against us and due it to those with legitimate pain. some people have died many from insulin or heart meds. They don’t stop their meds even when some die from not taking them correctly. still, wouldn’t stop giving pts insulin or heart meds Then again why do it to those with legitimate debilitating intractable chronic pain !!!

Get!!! government out of our dr offices and medical care !!

FOR NOW,

YOU ARE WITHIN THE NORMS