When prosecutors want to convict a doctor of "drug dealing," they often sow suspicions by alerting the media. But in a Kansas case, they appear to be fighting dirty by trying to prevent the other side from speaking out.
The pattern can be seen most famously in coverage by the New York Times of Oxycontin. Before the doctors at a South Carolina clinic were convicted of any crime, the Times reported that law enforcement called the clinic "the epicenter of OxyContin abuse," in the area. In loaded language, the same story described Oxycontin as the "clinic's drug of choice," and labeled the medical center "an apparent hotbed of abuse."
The story described lines outside the clinic and relied on law enforcement sources to portray it as a source of illegal drugs, not medical care. No patients or pharmacists who supported the doctors were quoted -- only pharmacists who were suspicious and a patient who sued the clinic, blaming it for her addiction.
The physicians at that clinic were ultimately either convicted of narcotics sales or pled guilty to avoid lengthy prison sentences. One committed suicide rather than testify against his colleagues because he believed they were innocent, according to his brother.
But in another case against a doctor, Siobhan Reynolds and her Pain Relief Network got to the media early. When prosecutors tried to portray Paul Heberle as a "pusher with a pen," Reynolds organized his patients to tell their stories of pain relief, not addiction. Heberle was exonerated.
Reynolds has just organized patients of Kansas physician Stephen Schneider and his wife Linda, who are facing similar trafficking charges. The AP has covered the story as one with two sides -- including the legitimate need for access pain relief, not just focusing on the prosecution's storyline of evil doctors pushing patients into addiction.
And the prosecution doesn't like this -- so it has asked the judge to place a gag order on not just the physicians' lawyers, but on Reynolds. When the public learns that these cases aren't simply about doctors selling drugs -- and when they realize that they themselves may someday need access to pain medications, which is blocked when doctors fear prosecution if they prescribe -- these cases have very different outcomes.
When people see legitimate patients suffering because their doctor has been arrested and other doctors fear prescribing to them, when they see addicts trying to make money by suing doctors for causing their addiction (Oxycontin's manufacturer hasn't lost a single one of the hundreds of such cases that have been filed, primarily because most addicts can be shown to have been using drugs long before they ever got a pain pill from a doctor), the cases don't look the way the prosecution wants them to appear.
It is an outrage against democracy to suggest that an activist be gagged to keep them in the dark to support a misguided drug war.
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This new war on Rx drugs (and even the war on illicit drugs to a large degree) creates an adversarial relationship between doc and patient with the physician being either fearful to treat chronic pain or looking for tells that might indicate a lying patient. The flip side is patients being fearful to mention addiction to illicit substances and therefore compromising care.
I, for one, long for the day this whole war on any drug is forfeited by our government and police agencies. It's too costly in lives and dollars to punish people for deviating from a bureaucrat's (often misguided and usually flat out wrong) ideas of health and medication- it should be a personal, private health issue.
You make no reference to the opioid’s effect of rebound pain. It is real pain, but it is caused by the drug. Opioids can also heighten the user’s awareness of pain. It’s a cyclical experience that can spiral quickly out of control.
My husband took pain medicine after multiple surgeries. There were no prior addictions. When concerned with making his dosage last to the next script, his doctor said that he needed a higher dose. As soon as he mentioned his own worries about addiction, the doctor faxed over a letter saying that he could no longer be a patient, cancelled his next appointment, and told him to take one less pill a day until he was no longer taking the drug.
As for the gag order, I do think people have a right to be heard. Having been to pain management websites where people use opioids, I must point out that they are a very vocal group with some who have strong, violent opinions of those addicted to pain medication.
My husband was a straight-A graduate student, a CEO, he is a wonderful father, and as a result of this addiction, we are about to lose our home. His doctor, however, has moved into a large new medical building and is doing quite well.
Pain in an of itself is not necessarily a bad thing either as long as its not too intense. Often times the body is trying to tell us it is time to slow down and rest. Heart attack victims usually die during the first hour of chest pain because they either ignore the pain or they refuse to do anything about it, deciding to just tough it out. That's a mistake.
There are certain foods that will help with pain, too. if you look up inflammation you will see there is a diet to treat and prevent inflammation:
Broccoli
Hemp Oil
Wild-caught salmon
tart cherries
soaked walnuts
oinioins and garlic
Fermented Foods and Liquids
Pineaplle
Spinach
Spices: Ginger and Tumeric
avoid processed foods and sugar
Now, after rehab, he is in less pain and no longer needs narcotics but he still has degenerative arthritis of the spine.
My complaint is that his doctor over-prescribed a drug that can have serious long reaching consequences. I think many physicians did this without giving it a second thought. A pain management physician should be well aware that if one's dose keeps going up, one is most likely addicted. And to help someone get off of pain meds by dropping them as a patient does not seem terribly sensible.
My concern is that there are many people on this drug who probably don’t need to be. Once they are on it, how can they tell that the pain they feel is unrelated to pain medication, or if it is rebound pain or phantom pain caused by the drug. Obviously, there are many exceptions to this. It is such a danger to start that there should be supervision and questions.
I agree that there are many other non-medicinal ways to handle pain, in some cases. Thank you for your list.
In what are the walnuts soaked?
"Recordings of jailhouse telephone conversations released by federal prosecutors, however, reveal Reynolds urged the Schneiders to remain behind bars to give Reynolds "leverage." On the tape, Reynolds called her involvement in the case the opportunity of a lifetime and talked of a book or movie on the couple."
exceerpt from:
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/032808/kan_262505465.shtml
Disgraceful. Yet this poster cries "fowl" for her endeavors to represent pain patients? I don't want my condition (chronic pain) associated with people like this.
There is no "drug war" against doctors, who properly administer narcotics for pain.
The last commenter, who says they asked the doctor for "pain relief", (or did they ask for narcotics?), probably ran into a good doctor, but doesn't like the answer.
OxyContin manufacturer not losing a single case? Purdue was fined the highest dollar amount ever (634 million) in the history of pharmaceutical wrong doing. Thier 3 executives were individually fined millions for falsifying records, studies, etc.. Has agreed to settle all the "individual" cases of death and addiction as part of the agreement with the Feds. Oh, poor guys! The judge, juries, & authorities, all, must not have heard about Reynold's "crusade" battle for pain patients.
OxyContin is involved in more deaths, more addictions, more crime, more federal indictments of bad doctors, more emergency room overdose reports, more medicade scamming, than all other narcotic substances put together. Ever. Who would champion this?
Annie Ilene
Second, your claim about Oxycontin being the most deadly and most abused narcotic ever is false on all counts. A simple look at SAMHSA's website here:
http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/prescription/Ch3.htm#3.3.1
shows that far more people abuse Vicodin. And that doesn't even include heroin, which is a narcotic substance most definitely. In terms of death rates, methadone kills more.
Regarding Purdue and Oxycontin, I never said that they didn't lose any cases-- I said they never lost a single case where a drug addict sued, blaming an individual addiction on being prescribed Oxycontin. Purdue fought and won hundreds of these individual cases-- it never lost one.
This is because the data is very clear that the vast majority of people who become addicted to prescription opioids are polydrug users with pre-existing drug problems-- not innocent patients.
As for Reynolds' work-- it speaks for itself and the smear tactics being used against her show just how threatened people are when the other side actually gets a chance to make its case.