Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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BBC NEWS wrote: The Heroin Ravaged City Fighting Back
Huntington, West Virginia is targeting the drugs companies that it blames for its epidemic.

Some numbers from the video:
Town population: less than 50,000
County Population: roughly 96,000
Prescription Doses for Opiods in a 5 year period: 40 MILLION.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Flagg »

It's so great that people like me are constantly getting bent over and assfucked due to the irresponsibility of those we have no control over. Have to go to the ER because your entire jaw is infected (also due to big pharma) and getting treated like some junky off the street because you're on pain meds? Sucks for you!

The saddest part is that if I were a doctor in the ER I'd make the same assumption.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Khaat »

That's "only" 88.8 doses per person per year for the whole county. If you take one dose every eight hours, that's only 29.62 days a year where everyone in the county is high on opioids.

Obviously, these are some "bad hombres", and there should be a wall around the county. :D
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Esquire »

What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
See the young man attending the Yoga for Addicts. He spells it out for you -- Go to the doctor, or the pain clinic. Tell the doctor or nurse practitioner that you have back pain, or some other chronic pain. The doc writes the prescription without bothering to see if there's anything else that can be done, or if you are taking more drugs than is 'safe'. Go to the drug store, fill the prescription, and that's that.

The last five years several WV Counties have cracked down on pain clinics and doctors who have been over-prescribing opiods. Drug Stores have been shut down for over-filling prescriptions. Huntington and Cabell County are just the first to try attacking Big Pharma over it.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Flagg »

Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
Pill mills. Basically doctors willing to write if you can pay out of pocket or have Medicaid. They are cracking down on them so hard that it's effecting everyone who needs opiats for actual pain.

This is leading to addicts turning to heroin. Because black markets are good for the DEA. They can seize more property and money that way.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Flagg wrote:
Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
Pill mills. Basically doctors willing to write if you can pay out of pocket or have Medicaid. They are cracking down on them so hard that it's effecting everyone who needs opiats for actual pain.

This is leading to addicts turning to heroin. Because black markets are good for the DEA. They can seize more property and money that way.
Exactly. (except for the DEA burn)
It was easier and more profitable for a doc to hand out pills to someone in pain than to actually fix what was wrong. Since opiods are not only addictive, you also build up tolerance, more pills were needed to block out the pain, and it snowballed.

As for why there's so many needing pain pills? Coal miners and other blue-color workers injured on the job. Veterans with war wounds. Car wreck victims. Or people in Flagg's situation, where the body just starts breaking down. Add in the large elderly populace in WV, and it's a perfect storm.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Flagg »

LadyTevar wrote:
Flagg wrote:
Esquire wrote:What's going on in Huntington that leads to that level of opioid prescription, is my question. The chronic pain advocacy groups have certainly lowered the requirements for pharmaceutical pain control precription, but not to the point where you can get opioids without a good reason.
Pill mills. Basically doctors willing to write if you can pay out of pocket or have Medicaid. They are cracking down on them so hard that it's effecting everyone who needs opiats for actual pain.

This is leading to addicts turning to heroin. Because black markets are good for the DEA. They can seize more property and money that way.
Exactly. (except for the DEA burn)
It was easier and more profitable for a doc to hand out pills to someone in pain than to actually fix what was wrong. Since opiods are not only addictive, you also build up tolerance, more pills were needed to block out the pain, and it snowballed.

As for why there's so many needing pain pills? Coal miners and other blue-color workers injured on the job. Veterans with war wounds. Car wreck victims. Or people in Flagg's situation, where the body just starts breaking down. Add in the large elderly populace in WV, and it's a perfect storm.
I'm the last person who would claim there is not an issue with overprescribing pain meds. But they went from one pole (pain meds for all!) to the other (fuck you, junky!) in a matter of months. I lay a ton of the blame on the clinics themselves.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Esquire »

I am... skeptical that it's actually that simple. My experience is that physicians are, broadly, intelligent and well-meaning people; besides which they are by definition highly educated regarding medication side effects, appropriate diagnostic and prescription criteria, etc. Overprescription compared with some ideal figure due to uneven lobbing pressures in recent decades and an evolving understanding of addiction patterns and other relevant factors, sure; overprescription due to laziness, not so much, unless there's a better evidence base available than I'm familiar with.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Simon_Jester »

It only takes a few corrupt or foolish physicians to turn one place into the prescription-spam capital of the state if not the region. How many prescriptions can one doctor hand out in a day, if they hurry? Multiply a bit and you see the problem.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Esquire »

Fair enough - but for any specific instance, I'd like better data before assigning causality for something as multifactorial as opioid addiction to simple malpractice.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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LadyTevar wrote:It was easier and more profitable for a doc to hand out pills to someone in pain than to actually fix what was wrong. Since opiods are not only addictive, you also build up tolerance, more pills were needed to block out the pain, and it snowballed.
Sometimes you can't fix what's wrong - but opiates are far from ideal for chronic pain. Thing is, it's a hell of a lot easier (and cheaper) to hand out opiates that try all the alternatives first, which is time consuming and requires input from a doctor and other personnel, all of which must be paid.

There are a lot of reasons people wind up addicted.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by mr friendly guy »

Broomstick has already filled me in a previous thread that the US doesn't have much in regards to chronic pain clinics, but for acute pain, is it easier for doctors to prescribe opiods instead of say anti-inflammatories with paracetamol / acetominephan (or however you guys call paracetamol :D ).

Edit or tramadol or the new flavour of the month tapentadol instead of opiods. And yes I know they have some opiod effect as they can also affect the same receptor but they are generally weaker.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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LadyTevar wrote:See the young man attending the Yoga for Addicts. He spells it out for you -- Go to the doctor, or the pain clinic. Tell the doctor or nurse practitioner that you have back pain, or some other chronic pain. The doc writes the prescription without bothering to see if there's anything else that can be done, or if you are taking more drugs than is 'safe'. Go to the drug store, fill the prescription, and that's that.
I threw my back out, almost had a ruptured disc, in so much pain I couldn't drive to the doctor, I had to walk since that was easier, I got ibuprofen and paracetamol (acetosomething in the us) and a referral to a physiotherapist to work up my back muscles and such.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Therapy is generally better but more long term than just eating a pill. America has been trained for the last 50 years that pills solve everything. It's an up hill battle and a generational thing that needs a lot of education thrown at it.

And we call it acetaminophen.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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It's not just that we've been trained to eat pills (although we have), it's that our health insurance is more willing to cover a prescription than labor-intensive individual work-ups, treatment plans, and long-term physical therapy. The costs are such that even if a patient wanted the more effective, non-opiate option it would be nearly impossible for ordinary mortals to pay out of their own pocket for it when the insurance company turns them down.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Simon_Jester wrote:It only takes a few corrupt or foolish physicians to turn one place into the prescription-spam capital of the state if not the region. How many prescriptions can one doctor hand out in a day, if they hurry? Multiply a bit and you see the problem.
This. The pain clinic I went to had one or 2 doctors handing them out like candy. One of them owned the place and had 18 patients OD. I got treated like a criminal with a piss test every visit.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Granting all of the above... suing the pharmaceutical companies? Really? They just make the stuff, and it is medically necessary for some patients. They have zero duty of care with respect to how opiates are prescribed and used, nor is there a mechanism by which they could reasonably act to reduce ODs even if they DID have such a duty of care.

It is like suing the auto-industry for drunk driving fatalities for which there is no design flaw or manufacturing failure in the vehicle.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Alyrium Denryle wrote:Granting all of the above... suing the pharmaceutical companies? Really? They just make the stuff, and it is medically necessary for some patients. They have zero duty of care with respect to how opiates are prescribed and used, nor is there a mechanism by which they could reasonably act to reduce ODs even if they DID have such a duty of care.

It is like suing the auto-industry for drunk driving fatalities for which there is no design flaw or manufacturing failure in the vehicle.
The pharmaceutical companies went around marketing shit like OxyContin to doctors as a new wonderdrug that was not addictive but worked as well or better than other opioids. I think history alone has shown that to be bullshit. I don't know if these people have a case, but it wasn't the doctors alone.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Broomstick wrote:It's not just that we've been trained to eat pills (although we have), it's that our health insurance is more willing to cover a prescription than labor-intensive individual work-ups, treatment plans, and long-term physical therapy. The costs are such that even if a patient wanted the more effective, non-opiate option it would be nearly impossible for ordinary mortals to pay out of their own pocket for it when the insurance company turns them down.
When my back first went out, my insurance company ok'd 22 visits to a therapist... in a One Year Period. Now, 22 visits goes by quick when you're seeing them twice a week, and by the time my insurance co stopped paying, I was just starting to show improvemnt, but couldn't afford to go back.

The insurance company also had a 20visit limit to my psychologist after my mental breakdown shortly before Martin died, so it's not just physical therapy that gets shafted.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

Post by Flagg »

LadyTevar wrote:
Broomstick wrote:It's not just that we've been trained to eat pills (although we have), it's that our health insurance is more willing to cover a prescription than labor-intensive individual work-ups, treatment plans, and long-term physical therapy. The costs are such that even if a patient wanted the more effective, non-opiate option it would be nearly impossible for ordinary mortals to pay out of their own pocket for it when the insurance company turns them down.
When my back first went out, my insurance company ok'd 22 visits to a therapist... in a One Year Period. Now, 22 visits goes by quick when you're seeing them twice a week, and by the time my insurance co stopped paying, I was just starting to show improvemnt, but couldn't afford to go back.

The insurance company also had a 20visit limit to my psychologist after my mental breakdown shortly before Martin died, so it's not just physical therapy that gets shafted.
Yeah, the biggest winners under Obamacare just got the champion fucking title under President Pussygrabber so that's likely going to get worse for everyone. I'm scared shitless my new Medicaid insurance will make me change doctors.
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Re: Town Sues Big Pharma over ODs

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Broomstick wrote:It's not just that we've been trained to eat pills (although we have), it's that our health insurance is more willing to cover a prescription than labor-intensive individual work-ups, treatment plans, and long-term physical therapy. The costs are such that even if a patient wanted the more effective, non-opiate option it would be nearly impossible for ordinary mortals to pay out of their own pocket for it when the insurance company turns them down.
Taking that into consideration, if the mass suicide note known as the AHCA were to actually become law, we would probably see problems with opioids get even worse, because more people are going to be forced to turn to opioids, prescription or otherwise, because they lose their insurance and can't pay the 5-6 figure cost for the therapy or surgery that might actually fix the problem.
Simon_Jester wrote:It only takes a few corrupt or foolish physicians to turn one place into the prescription-spam capital of the state if not the region. How many prescriptions can one doctor hand out in a day, if they hurry? Multiply a bit and you see the problem.
I've mentioned this guy before, but there was a doctor from my state (which, while not as bad as WV, has one of the highest rates of drug abuse in the country) who ran a pill mill and was recently convicted of millions of dollars worth of fraud for charging Medicare and Medicaid for procedures that he didn't do. His clinic in the next state over wrote more prescriptions for painkillers than every other hospital in that state combined. In a state with a fairly large number of hospitals for its size.

It really doesn't take much for a small group of people to cause a lot of problems.
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