NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L. CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, BELINDA BROWN-PARKER, IN THE SPIRIT OF JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., INC.T. SPIRIT OF REV. IN THE SPIRIT OF WALTER R. CLEMENT BS., MS, MBA. HARVEY JENKINS MD, PH.D., IN THE SPIRIT OF C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., MBA., IN THE SPIRIT OF THE HON. PATRICE LUMUMBA, IN THE SPIRIT OF ERLIN CLEMENT SR., EVELYN J. CLEMENT, WALTER F. WRENN III., MD., JULIE KILLINGSWORTH, RENEE BLARE, RPH, DR. TERENCE SASAKI, MD LESLY POMPY MD., CHRISTOPHER RUSSO, MD., NANCY SEEFELDT, WILLIE GUINYARD BS., JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., MBA, BEVERLY C. PRINCE MD., FACS., NEIL ARNAND, MD., RICHARD KAUL, MD., 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 NJOKU, BS., RPH., IN THE SPIRIT OF DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD, BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS
Story of Pain in America
Maia Szalavitz is a contributing Opinion writer who covers addiction and public policy for The New York Times.
“For many years, I’ve written about people suffering intractable pain and how their agony and increased risk of suicide and premature death have been ignored in the rush to end the overdose crisis.
Most importantly, Ms. Szalavitz, There is no association between the number of drug arrests a state makes and the amount of drug use it has.
And people with the most serious addictions rarely get treatment as a result of arrest or prosecution: National data shows that only 13 to 16 percent of people treated for opioid addiction were referred for treatment by the justice system. When courts do refer people with opioid addiction to treatment, patients rarely get recommended medications.
I’ve told the story of a woman who hoped for a cancer diagnosis because it might mean that her chronic pain, which she said felt like “pouring acid on” her skin, would get better treatment.
I’ve written about a father who was paralyzed from the waist down, left in excruciating pain, and using a wheelchair after a car accident, who died by suicide the day a doctor cut off his medication. I’ve chronicled the story of a woman with a torturous genetic disorder who keeps a growing list of untreated pain-related suicides.”
There are countless other accounts like these. Five million to eight million Americans currently rely on opioids to treat chronic pain, and thousands need them for end-of-life pain at any given time.
Despite their risks, opioids remain the best available pain treatment for many patients — and there is little evidence that addictions are prevented or treated by denying them to those who have already used them safely for years.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and major medical organizations have expressed concerns about the harms associated with indiscriminate budget cuts.
DOCTORS BEING TARGETED
AL. J. FLANNERY UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DC CASE OF DR. DAVID BOCKOFF
“The court’s Judgment challenged our understanding of how these processes work and what must be taken seriously. The judges didn’t take us seriously, describing a document we submitted as “a series of narratives purporting to be by pain patients or their spouses briefly explaining the circumstances that led them to seek treatment from Dr. Bockoff.”
KRISTEN ODgeN’S message WARNING ON criminalization of pain care
The judgment addressed how the Court felt our petition fell short but did not acknowledge the substance or merits of our concerns. The Court saw it differently, denying our petition for review, concluding that they had given our issues full consideration and determined that they do not even “warrant a published opinion.” That said, the Judgment concludes by stating there is an opportunity to petition for rehearing.
All of the people involved were Dr. Bockoff’s patients and were affected when his DEA registration was suddenly suspended with no warning.
All of Dr. Bockoff’s patients were cut off with no plan for continued access to the essential medications that enable them to live without constant disabling pain … in other words, to have a life worth living. How is this NOT a substantial interest in the outcome of DEA vs. David Bockoff?”
“..I’m still haunted by the fact that my husband and I are both anesthesiologists and pain physicians..”
Dr. Durbhakula, an anesthesiologist and pain medicine physician from Nashville, wrote on March 22, 2024, in the Opinion Page of the New York Times.
“Even when her pancreatic cancer began to invade her spine in the summer of 2021, my mother-in-law maintained an image of grace, never letting her pain stop her from prioritizing the needs of others. Her appointment for a nerve block was a month away, but her pain medications enabled her to continue serving her community through her church until they didn’t.
Her medical condition quickly deteriorated, and her pain rapidly progressed. No one questioned that she needed opioid medications to live with dignity. But hydrocodone and then oxycodone became short at her usual pharmacy and then at two other pharmacies.
My mother-in-law’s 30-day prescriptions were filled with only enough medication to last a few days, and her care team required in-person visits for new scripts. Despite being riddled with painful tumors, she endured a tortuous cycle of uncertainty and travel, stressing her already immunocompromised body to secure her medications.
My mother-in-law’s anguish before she died in July 2022 mirrors the broader struggle of countless individuals grappling with pain. I’m still haunted by the fact that my husband and I, both anesthesiologists and pain physicians who have made it our life’s work to alleviate the suffering of those in pain, could not help her. It is no wonder that our patients are frustrated.
They do not understand why we, doctors whom they trust, send them on wild goose chases. They do not understand how pharmacies fail to provide the medications they need to function. They do not understand why the system makes them feel like drug seekers.”
MONEY BALLING D.E.A. BASEBALL SKULL DUGGERY
The Drug Enforcement Administration chains health care professionals and pharmacies in this country.
Our patients’ stress is the result not of an orchestrated set of practice guidelines or a comprehensive clinical policy but instead of one government agency’s crude, broad-stroke technique…
..to mitigate a public health crisis through manufacturing limits — the gradual and repeated rationing of how much opioids can be produced by legitimate entities. This is a wrong and ineffective strategy for solving the opioid crisis, and it’s incumbent on us to hand the reins of authority over to public health institutions better suited to the task.
PROSECUTORS AMOUNT TO JUDICIAL GANGSTER FREE TO CREATE THEIR MIS-INTERPRETATION OF MEDICAL PROTOCOLS
Since 2015, the D.E.A. has decreased manufacturing quotas for oxycodone by more than 60 percent and for hydrocodone by about 72 percent. Despite thousands of public comments from concerned stakeholders, the agency has finalized even more reductions throughout 2024 for these drugs and other commonly prescribed prescription opioids.
THE ANALYSIS U.S. ATTORNEY VIDEO
In theory, fewer opioids sold means fewer inappropriate scripts filled, which should curb the diversion of prescription opioids for illicit purposes and decrease overdose deaths — right?
OR SEND
$10, $15, $20, $25,$50, $75, 175, $500. OR MORE TO CASH APP:$docnorm
ZELLE 3135103378 or Donate to the “Pharmacist For Healthcare Legal Defense Fund,”
FOR NOW, YOU ARE WITHIN
THE NORMS
” and Brother Carl Nelson, this isn’t News.”
