Opoid crisis. Why is this happening!?!

[bae]

Fentanyl is dangerous dangerous stuff. Not when correctly and carefully used - then it is a miracle of modern medicine. We carry it in the drug box on the ambulance, and use it when appropriate. (And it, and other such things in that box, are handled and accounted for with some fairly over-the-top inventory control procedures that rival those for nuclear launch keys...).

However, our first-responder nightmare comes from accidental exposure to the substance. We'd had extensive retraining this year because of incidents where responders overdosed from inadvertent contact with a patient's illicit substances. It's to the point where I carry a bag with a hazmat suit...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/health...ids/index.html


https://www.dea.gov/druginfo/Fentany...s_June2017.pdf

[Tybee]

Wow, I had no idea!

[BikingLady]

I do not have the answers. Son has recovered nearing 6 years clean.

[mamalatte]

Follow the money. As an example, CEO of nation's biggest drug distributor was paid $692 million in compensation -- over $100 million per year -- while company made buckets of dough distributing opioids all over the place and ignoring clear warning signs of suspicious quanitiies and usage patterns etc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/b...ging.html?_r=0

Not to mention the money to be made in the illegal market.

[BikingLady]

I was programed not to put blame, all those classes and counseling. BUT.....looking back and knowing no better....EVERYTIME I took son when young to the doctor or dentist he was given Vikes for simple things such as wisdom teeth, sinus infection, yes a back issue and the list goes on. When I was in the middle of the this I would think 1980 I was in a bad car wreck and smashed up in the hospital for a week, sent home and told to take Tylenol. Hernias, same treatment for me. Pain was treated differently back then I assumed, I just did not know what was happening.

SO I would love to put the blame on the Companies and the Doctors, I really would.

[JaneV2.0]

Yeah, that was my question--whatever happened to prescribing NSAIDS? I suspect there are kickbacks of some sort involved; I'm cynical that way.

[catherine]

Yeah, that was my question--whatever happened to prescribing NSAIDS? I suspect there are kickbacks of some sort involved; I'm cynical that way.

No kickbacks--just a different level of efficacy, and different mechanism. If people have cycled through NSAIDs with little response, doctors will switch to a different class. And many people do fine on them--just like not everyone who picks up a drink becomes an alcoholic.

[Williamsmith]

This "event" with opiods may touch off a firestorm of litigation. The only entity capable of forcing change is the punitive action of civil penalties issued by juries. The law profession is swarming with eager capitalists.

Take a company I am familiar with...Mylan. Global Headquarters is in my back yard. It's now the second largest generic and specialty pharma in the world. Last year their price gouging of the EpiPen cost them $465 million in penalties to the US dept. of Justice. Heather Bresch , CEO is the daughter of US senator Joe Manchin. Bresch is a totally ordinary person with an underwhelming business resume....if you take out the falsities. But she is connected. Somehow she started out as a clerk for Mylan after an influential lobbyist for the company got her the job. And somehow she rose through the ranks to be CEO. I am sure it had nothing to do with her influential father, the US Senator. (I am rolling my eyes).

The truth is ugly. So many people are dying now ....sons and daughters of very influential people, not just junkies in the back alleys of urban war zones. Now that the gig is up......Heads may roll.

[Tammy]

When the joint commission decided to make pain the fifth vital sign, everything started changing. Pain control - it's whatever the patient says it is and they have the right to have it treated. The joint commission is now backing away from that idea because of this crisis. Things are shifting back slowly to the way it was before, but patients didn't get the memo and become very angry when we don't get them every narcotic they request. Violence ensues against hospital workers because of this dynamic.

[Williamsmith]

When the joint commission decided to make pain the fifth vital sign, everything started changing. Pain control - it's whatever the patient says it is and they have the right to have it treated. The joint commission is now backing away from that idea because of this crisis. Things are shifting back slowly to the way it was before, but patients didn't get the memo and become very angry when we don't get them every narcotic they request. Violence ensues against hospital workers because of this dynamic.

Opiods chemically change people. As long as they have it, all is well. Take it away and an otherwise decent human being will turn into a thief, a burglar, an robber and I know of more than a few instances I personally investigated.....a murderer. That is why the easy and cheap availability of cut heroin actually alleviated violent crime. But now it's killing people at alarming rates. Well, that is cheaper than incarcerating them but it sure isn't moral to make money off them...besides it's not in the best interest of business to have your customers dying from the product you hope to sell hem for a lifetime.