What the Michael Jackson Trial Really Says About American Health

Imagine that you are not just wealthy but super rich and incredibly famous. You travel the world, know influential people and can basically have anything the planet has to offer. Now, if I also told you that you harbored some common chronic medical problems, and that you would die young, what would you think? My guess is you would question why all of your wealth couldn't give you access to the necessary resources to help you live longer and healthier. Ironically, I would add that your money not only didn't help you but paid for medical care and a lifestyle that brought on your demise.

Naturally, if you are following the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, who is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson -- and by the way, nobody puts on a better court drama story than the city of Los Angeles, lest we forgot -- then the scenario above could easily apply to Mr. Jackson's untimely ending. Like many of us, he dealt with some chronic pain issues, worked too hard at times, was under a lot of stress, slept poorly, and he also had a documented history of addiction to prescription medications. As a physician who treats these types of problems every day, it is just downright disappointing to me to see someone who lived amidst such abundance to not get the type of medical care that would have improved his health and quality of life as opposed to the exact opposite.

Problems like pain, addiction, stress and insomnia all feed off of each other. It is a vicious cycle, where each one escalates the severity of the other. When such cases end in a premature death, the culprit is often an overdose of a mixture of pain killers and sometimes tranquilizers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we have 26,000 fatal overdoses a year, at a rate of 7.8 per 100,000 people, and it is the second leading cause of unintentional deaths behind motor vehicle accidents. These types of challenging medical problems involve complex interactions between the brain and the physical body. Overcoming the challenges of pain and addiction come not from fancy pharmacology but through the rewiring of how our bodies and minds communicate with each other and support each other's well-being.

What may not be obvious is that the seemingly bizarre events surrounding the death of Michael Jackson are an allegory of the current state of the doctor-patient relationship in America. Before we cast too many stones at Michael Jackson's doctor, let's recognize the glass house that we are tossing them from. In 2010, the most prescribed medication in the U.S. was the painkiller hydrocodone with acetaminophen, at a whopping 131 million prescriptions, according to an April 2011 report released by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Infomatics. In their list of most prescribed medications by therapeutic category, antidepressants and narcotic-based pain medications came in at number two and number three, respectively, just behind lipid regulators at the top of the list.

At a fundamental level, this data tells us that a primary reason people go see the doctor nowadays is to get a prescription to change the way they feel. Be honest, how many of you can say that you have never gone to the doctor and demanded a prescription at least once, even if it was for antibiotics? As a society, we are still among the wealthiest in the world and certainly, by far, have the most medical resources at our disposal. Yet we don't use this advantage to create better health for ourselves. Instead, we demand more medications and tests while continuing to drown ourselves in rising health care costs as opposed to seeking lasting solutions that can better our well-being.

It wasn't vexing medical problems like chronic pain and addiction that killed the King of Pop, but rather the way they were treated. But he isn't alone, and his story is really our problem to solve. I can only hope that his publicized ending can serve as a powerful wake-up call to help change how and what we seek from our medical providers, and likewise, motivate doctors to reach beyond quick fixes and into the realm of creating greater lasting health.

 

 

 

Comments

[angrymanspokane]

07:34 PM on 10/05/2011

The title "Doctor" doesn't always translate into competency. Someone has to graduate at the bottom of their medical school class

[History Is Subjective]

05:51 PM on 10/04/2011

I'm afraid Lily P, that the autopsy report doesn't bear the 'addict' theory out. No liver damage.

At all.

[Lily P]

03:57 PM on 10/04/2011

Sorry, but long story short, MJ used about 15 different drugs he should not have. He used his power and money to pay off a Doctor to give him these drugs. Who the hell used profofol to sleep? NOBODY, because it's off label use, that's why.

He was no better than the addict you see on the street. I'm surprised he made it this long. I love his music, he was a great dancer, but he was, a drug addict.

[Kitty Valentina]

04:09 PM on 10/04/2011

Which drugs were they? He died only because of propofol, no painkillers in his house or in his system.

[yasunari]

05:23 PM on 10/04/2011

I don't even understand how a regular MD can get access to propofol.
In france, only anesthesiologists and certified registered nurse anesthetists have the right to use it.

[Rebecca Bent]

03:09 PM on 10/04/2011

No matter what, the doctor was responsible for the patient--not the other way around. So while we may all reform ourselves and decide not to throw stones from our glass houses, unless the fundamental relationship between doctor and patient changes, Dr. Murray is facing the appropriate charge.

You also fail to mention here that Dr. Murray not only inappropriately administered drugs to Mr. Jackson, but also behaved in a criminally negligent manner, from leaving his patient unmonitored, to hiding evidence, withholding critical information from other medical personnel, and making an audio tape of his patient talking while going under, for cryin' out loud! The defense may be desperate enough to attempt smearing Dr. Murray's victim, but I'd say Dr. Murray had reached the final stages of professional malfeasance. He'd embarked along an unethical path any basically responsible physician would never have taken even one step upon and now he must face the consequences.

[Valmai Owens]

10:52 AM on 10/04/2011

Good article overall, but may I point out that this is not the Michael Jackson trial. It is the Conrad Murray trial. Please change the wording of your title to reflect that.

[lmat]

10:21 AM on 10/04/2011

Note #2: I see there is a capitalization correction in your title. However, it is still incorrect as this is
the Conrad Murray Trial. Headlines such as this one which seem to permeate media outlets, creates a
subtle and false impression. Please change it.

[Wayne Caswell]

10:19 AM on 10/04/2011

So if healthcare is provided with taxpayer money, maybe we should weigh the value each person will contribute to society in the future. If they're old and retired and no longer earn a living but have become a drain on society, then no transplant or expensive proceed for them. If they're uneducated and make little money and have little spending power, they won't contribute much either. And, of corse, if they don't take care of themselves and are overweight or smoke or drive aggressively, then why should society pay to keep them alive? 'So sorry; it's economics. While I'm kidding, in a way this shows how many people feel. There's a huge difference in care between the very rich and powerful and those who aren't.

[History Is Subjective]

09:50 AM on 10/04/2011

Dr Murray is, of course, entitled to a full and rigourous defense, and I certainly hope he gets one. But what people, especially those not familiar with just how pervasive media is, fail to realize is this:

The law, its practise and its workings do not exist in some impenetrab­le vacuum. Like everything else, law exists and is influenced by the human politics that suffuses all our lives.

So when Dr Murray's defense puts forward patently ludicrous falsehoods about Mr Jackson -- not only in the court room but through highly visible interviews and statements to the press -- lets not pretend they do it with points of law and a respect for due process. To think so would be grossly naive.

Murray's defense is banking on over 20 years of false accusation­s, lies and skewed economics that gave rise to the brutalizat­ion that marked Jackson's life -- and now overshadow­s his death. Chernoff and co have been playing to the gallery for far longer than a week, throwing out theories like a scandal machine, hoping that in 5 weeks or so schadenfre­ude and 12 fractious jurors will come together to dispense a cosmetic decision. One hopes they won't.

The jury, America and the world needs to pay attention to what they think they're watching. Because it isn't really Michael Jackson or even Murray on trial here. This obscenity began much further back than 2009.

And it began with a lie.

[History Is Subjective]

09:44 AM on 10/04/2011

A good article. If I may add to it. None of this, of course, should be relevant to Conrad Murray's trial but let me reiterate:

Michael Jackson was innocent in 1993 and 2005. Both of the circumstan­ces of those cases were answered and disproved -- emphatical­ly -- in the 2005 trial. The wealth of evidence that supports this is everywhere -- in the transcript­s, statements by those involved and yes, even the 1994 settlement agreement, which specifical­ly stated the Chandlers had a right to pursue criminal proceeding­s -- if a case was proven to exist.

Except it never was.

Evan Chandler's extortion is a matter of fact, not suppositio­n. The transcript reads like a criminal plan for extortion and that is, in fact, exactly what it was. Evan's extortion was shall we say 'inadequate­ly' explored by the LAPD at the time.

People should also know the pictures of Jackson, explicitly did NOT match Jordan Chandler's descriptio­n, and it should be noted that Jordan refused to speak to both his parents after the falsely stated events of 1993 and in fact his father tried to attack him in a serious incident in 2005. Jordan also refused to testify in 2005.

The continued besmirchin­g of Jackson's name during a case that is meant to be decided on the facts leading to June 25, 2009, is both cheap and without substance. In short: If you wouldn't like it done to you or your family member -- don't do it to another's.

[lmat]

09:35 AM on 10/04/2011

Very well written article with important insights. Conrad Murray was an experienced physician and appears to have functioned well in his usual practice. However, he stepped far past his boundaries for reasons only he knows while caring for Mr. Jackson, his ONE patient. Perhaps financial difficulties, celebrity infatuation and not a little arrogance motivated his extreme substandard care of Mr. Jackson, resulting in his death. It is jaw dropping that he would not provide basic safety measures while administering an anesthetic in a bedroom, for sleep. And then to leave the room in that scenario is certainly medically, and IMO legally reprehensible.

Note: This is the Conrad Murray Trial, not the Jackson Trial.