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June 8, 2009

Should OxyContin Be Banned? The Evidence Says “YES”

Filed under: Big Pharma, FDA, drug addiction, pharmaceutical giants, pharmaceutical sales, pharmaceuticals, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 12:39 pm

Since Purdue Pharma began producing and selling it in 1995, OxyContin has been implicated in many times more U.S. deaths than were caused by 9/11 and the Iraq War combined.

OxyContin is molecularly almost identical to, and acts in the body in the same manner as, the illegal street drug heroin.

Heroin — the target of billions of our tax dollars in drug-war funding, as any school kid knows, is the main source of income for Afghanistan’s tens of thousands of rural opium poppy farmers and their Taliban supporters.

So the question must be asked: “If heroin is illegal, why is OxyContin legal?”

In fact, that was the $64 million question asked of FDA officials at a Maryland public hearing recently on the dangers of the OxyContin. Not one of them could — or would — answer the question.

In 1898, heroin was introduced by the Bayer company as a substitute for morphine, which unlike morphine, said Bayer, was not addictive. It was widely promoted as an effective treatment for coughs and colds and even treatment for morphine addicts.

After various Acts and laws affecting it, heroin finally became an illegal drug in the United States in 1924, with passage of The Heroin Act. (The Bayer company, in 1913, had long since stopped manufacturing it.) The Act spawned a thriving black market, which persists to this day in one form or another.

It had taken a while for scientists to discover that heroin metabolizes into morphine in the body, and is devastatingly addictive. But tens of thousands of people had already learned how viciously addictive it is, thousands of them fatally, during the preceding decades. The Heroin Act was too little, too late.

OxyContin, from Purdue Pharma, has had an almost identical history: Made by a prominent drug company, which promotes it as non-addictive compared to other narcotics, but it soon becomes known as an addictive killer. More than a decade passes, while nothing is done, and thousands die.

And ironically, OxyContin becomes the drug of choice among heroin addicts, when their heroin supply is interrupted. In fact, thousands prefer it, because it offers pharmaceutical purity and predictability. And although it’s available at any pharmacy for someone with a gun or a knife, it’s also available in vast quantities on the street for a decent price — just high enough to ensure drug crime becomes a way of life for addicts.

In 2007, as we all know, Purdue and three top execs pled guilty in to misleading the public about the addictive nature of OxyContin. The company paid fines totaling over $634 million, including the individuals, who were also assigned hundreds of hours of community service.

But no Purdue exec went to jail, the U.S. Attorney allowed a Purdue affiliate to take the fall and be barred from doing business with the federal government, the FDA has allowed OxyContin to remain on the market, and thousands continue to fall victim to OxyContin addiction and abuse, injury, and early death.

Anyone with a shred of good sense and compassion should pop over to the Ban OxyContin petition website and sign the petition, and while there, browse the tales of tragedy associated with the drug shared by hundreds of visiting petitioners.

OxyContin is a viral epidemic that has infected every community in America. There are plenty of other drugs that work just as well than OxyContin, essentially just legal heroin, at controlling chronic pain, that do not cause widespread addiction and death.

Ideally, the FDA should remove OxyContin from the marketplace entirely. At the very least, OxyContin should be reclassified and prescribed only for chronic end-of-life pain.

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February 23, 2009

FOX News Tampa Urges Florida Prescription Monitoring Program

Filed under: Novus Medical Detox, drug addiction, medical drug detox, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 7:29 am

“Novus Medical Detox clinical director Steve Hayes discusses prescription drug addiction with Tampa Bay’s Fox News 13 medical reporter Dr. Joette Giovinvo.”Addictions and deaths from controlled prescription drugs are soaring, and Florida legislators are being pressed to sit up and pay attention.

Since 2002, nearly 40 states have taken advantage of an annual federal grant program to assist the establishment of, or enhance existing, state-level prescription drug monitoring programs, and most remaining states are planning such programs.

A few, notably Florida, have repeatedly failed to pass legislation establishing prescription drug monitoring. Legislators cite privacy concerns, saying their constituents are worried that their private patient information could somehow be compromised. Others worry a drug monitoring registry might keep meds from patients who need them. Yet to date, there’s been no credible evidence for such concerns.

Prescription drug monitoring programs track doctors’ prescriptions by licensed pharmacists, recording the identity of patients, drugs, physicians, dates and a few other details. Information is accessible only to pharmacists, doctors, and some regulatory agencies. It is designed to be shared by participating states and the feds. The program has already proven helpful in reducing “doctor shopping”, one of the most significant factors enabling prescription drug abuse across the country.

Recently, Tampa Bay’s FOX 13 News carried an item describing the situation in Florida, where narcotic painkillers are killing record numbers of citizens every year. Deaths from drugs like oxycodone and fentanyl have more than tripled in the state since 1998, Fox News said. You can watch the news video here.

The station’s Dr. Joette Giovinco, popularly called “Dr. Jo” by viewers, focused on the plight of Brent Brown, a Florida realtor who became dependent on Xanax, prescribed for ‘restless leg syndrome’ and trouble sleeping. As his drug tolerance went up, more drugs from more doctors left him wired on at least four different medications. The years-long nightmare finally ended after a brief stay at Novus Medical Detox in Pasco County, Florida, where easing patients through drug or alcohol withdrawal is accomplished using state-of-the-art medical protocols.

Dr. Jo visited Novus, where clinical director Steve Hayes confirmed the rising death toll across the country from methadone, oxycodone, OxyContin, fentanyl and other prescription narcotics, what he says are basically “legal heroin.”

“A lot of our patients that come in here talk about how easy it is to go out and get these drugs,” Hayes told Dr. Jo, alluding to the widespread practice of doctor-shopping by addicts, and also the fact that far too many doctors are too quick to prescribe narcotics.

Hayes described the benefits of a computerized registry that allows doctors to see if a patient has already received a prescription for narcotics somewhere else, and when.

Although Florida’s legislation has been repeatedly voted down, albeit by narrow margins, a county pilot program is underway and looks promising. There is hope among many lawmakers now that when the bill is reintroduced in May, it will finally receive approval. If so, it could take effect as early as July this year.

Because of his successful recovery at Novus Medical Detox, Brent Brown has been completely drug free for over a year, said Fox News, is back at work, and is helping others become free from prescription drug addiction.

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February 12, 2009

FDA’s Planned Narcotic Regulations Should Include Broader Education

Filed under: Big Pharma, FDA, OxyContin addiction, drug addiction, pharmaceutical giants, pharmaceuticals — Rod Malcolm @ 12:31 pm

Soaring death and injury rates from dangerous opioid painkillers are being caused by physicians’ inappropriate over-prescribing, along with Big Pharma’s aggressive, illegal marketing. What’s needed is more education, and alternate forms of therapy.

A New York Times article reports that new rulings expected from the FDA will limit or remove many physicians’ rights to prescribe several of the most addictive and dangerous narcotic painkillers.

But is this really the only solution to a dreadful situation?

Reiterating that situation, The Times states that “hundreds of patients die and thousands are injured every year in the United States because they were inappropriately prescribed drugs like OxyContin or Duragesic [a brand of fentanyl] or they took the medicines when they should not have or in ways that made the drugs dangerous. The agency has issued increasingly urgent warnings about the risks, but the toll has only worsened in recent years.”

FDA Black Box warnings and Public Health Advisories in recent years have accomplished little, since the numbers of narcotic painkiller prescriptions continue to soar, and addictions, injuries and deaths are growing apace. The 24 versions of narcotics on the FDA’s list were prescribed 21 million times in 2007, for nearly 4 million patients.

The drugs being considered for restricted uses are listed on the FDA web site, and include various brand and generic versions of fentanyl, methadone, morphine, oxycodone, hydromorphone and oxymorphone. The products listed are made by 15 different drug companies. The FDA is calling for meetings with manufacturers, patients’ groups, consumer health activists and the public beginning in early March, seeking ideas about how to implement the new regulations.

But it’s a complicated situation, because many physicians and patient advocate groups continue to complain that chronic, serious pain is under-treated in America. Simply cutting the availability of the drugs isn’t a solution, they say, since it does less than nothing for those whose lives are ruined by genuine chronic pain, and could increase their numbers.

It seems to me that what’s needed is more, and better, education about pain, narcotics, and pain relief in general. And not just for doctors, but also for patients.

Physicians need more and better education on the realities of opioid use and abuse, including the scientific fact that, in the long run, many opioids actually cause more pain than they relieve. And doctors should also have their closed minds opened to every alternate form of pain therapy that has ever shown any efficacy or promise.

Patients need to be better informed too — and much more closely followed — when they’re prescribed opioids. And they should also be offered alternative forms of pain therapy whenever possible — anything is better than a narcotic if it will do the same job.

Continuing Medical Education (CME) on opioids should be mandated right away — it’s been talked about for years, and is long overdue. Meanwhile, medical schools need to expand education in narcotics, and they should add classes on the many alternate approaches to pain relief that exist, and are in common use all over the world.

In other words, dangerous pharmaceuticals are not the only answer to a lot of the pain out there. Medicine has got to unbend and really start caring for patients.

And speaking of Big Pharma, it should be kept several arm-lengths away from all education on the subject. We know where Big Pharma is coming from — it’s mostly about marketing, with little left over for patient safety, and zero for alternative therapies.

Doctors, who are supposed to be dedicated to patient health and the old “do no harm” dictum, are too quick, even fatally so, to prescribe narcotics, ignoring potentially helpful therapies — some that have demonstrated efficacy for thousands of years — that don’t carry risks of addiction, injury and death.

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May 30, 2008

New Book On Big Pharma Reveals Industry Motivated Only By Profits

Filed under: Big Pharma, FDA, drug addiction, pharmaceutical giants, pharmaceutical sales, pharmaceuticals — Rod Malcolm @ 9:39 am

Big Pharma’s “cash-filled coffers” have given it a stranglehold on medical science, says the author, and reforms are needed to recover real consumer protection.

Here’s a book title that grabs attention: “Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs”.

The book’s author knows whereof she speaks. Melody Petersen covered the pharmaceutical industry for The New York Times for four years. Now she has gathered all her research and resources into one whiz-bang of a book that rips the lid off Big Pharma’s terrible transition from a health-care industry to a share-price-care industry.

As long ago as 1990, a former pharmaceutical executive told a Senate hearing that drug companies have “institutionalized deception.” Petersen’s fact-filled report provides the details and the proof of Big Pharma’s deceptions, ranging across every aspect of business practice and even worse, its medical research and development practices. Big Pharma cheats, bribes, cajoles and PRs everything, from its research results to its fudged financials.

For example, Petersen reveals the real truth about Big Pharma’s claims that research and development costs gobble up all their profits. In fact, she says, drug companies put most of their profits into influencing medical science and marketing. It’s true that drug R&D takes a lot of dough, but the figures are “obscenely inflated” by including marketing costs, and get this — money that could have been made if the R&D money had been invested in interest-bearing accounts instead.

“With their hoards of cash,” Petersen writes, “the companies have readily handed money to patient groups, hospitals, universities, physician societies, government agencies and just about any organization they want on their side … the industry’s cash-filled coffers have given it a stranglehold on medical science.”

Many of the topics Petersen addresses have been discussed in several excellent earlier books. One particular good one is, “The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It”, by Marcia Angell, former editor for` The New England Journal of Medicine. Angell’s book, says Publisher’s Weekly, “… presents a searing indictment of big pharma as corrupt and corrupting: of Congress, through huge campaign contributions; of the FDA, which is funded in part by the very companies it oversees; and, perhaps most shocking, of members of the medical profession and its institutions.”

Petersen takes many of these issues to another level, however. For instance, she actually names many prominent doctors who are “on the take” from Big Pharma. And Petersen is particularly put off by “ghostwriting” of medical journal articles, a topic we took up in an earlier blog.

If you’ve ever taken a prescription medication — and who hasn’t — you need to read this book. The old saying caveat emptor — let the buyer beware — applies here, and in spades. Your health and even your life are at stake.

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January 21, 2008

Drug Detox May Be Needed for Addictive Prescription Drugs, but Correct Information on the Other Drugs You’re Taking Could Save Your Life

Filed under: drug addiction, drug detox, drug detox program, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 4:41 am

Why are prescription drugs dangerous? According to a recent study, the problem is often caused by patients giving their doctor incorrect information about what drugs they’re taking. You might need medical drug detox if you’re taking drugs that can cause addiction and dependency but, for other drugs, just knowing the names of the drugs you’re taking could prevent serious side effects and even death.

As an example, a recent study showed that between 40 and 65% of patients taking blood pressure medication don’t know what drugs they’re taking. If patients don’t know the names of their blood pressure medications, there’s a good chance they also don’t know the names of their other drugs. Consequently, they give doctors incorrect information and the doctor can easily prescribe additional drugs that could interact with their current drugs in ways that could be fatal.

Prescriptions drugs could be a lot safer if you take the right action: it’s important to remember that your medical records are not always correct, complete or available. To avoid problems with your prescription drugs, make sure you always take your bottles to the doctor to show him what you’re taking so any other drugs he prescribes will not be dangerous in combination with the drugs you’re currently using.

For drugs that do cause addiction or dependency, consult with a doctor, in liaison with a medical drug detox program professional, to find out how to stop taking them but, for all other drugs, making sure that both you and your doctor are fully informed could save your life or the life of someone close to you.

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January 11, 2008

Drug Detox Q &A: Is There Anything Drug Companies Say That I Can Believe?

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug detox, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 10:58 pm

Are you confused about prescription drugs? If so, it’s not surprising. The word is getting out that they are dangerous. There’s even a commercial on television about it – a man sitting on a bench says that he doesn’t like living in pain, but he’s afraid he’ll get addicted to painkillers. A kindly man then replies that the drug he’s pushing isn’t addictive, so it’s not a problem. How can you tell if a drug is dangerous or not? How can you tell if you’re likely to need drug detox or rehab to get off them? One thing for sure, you can’t listen to the drug companies.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair, you can listen to some of what the drug companies tell you – there is some truth in their information about side effects.

However, until recently, even the side effects were downplayed: Drug companies used to choose which clinical trials they would disclose to the public, and even to the FDA when they requested approval. Obviously, they chose trials that presented the drug in the most favorable light. Fortunately, a new law now requires the side effects be disclosed. And those side effects should be enough to make deciding whether or not to take the drug a no-brainer.

The list of OxyContin side effects, for example, is very long – there’s at least 80 of them – and they cover such diverse reactions as anorexia, nervousness, abnormal dreams, thought abnormalities chest pain, amnesia, depression, migraines, . anaphylactic or anaphylactoid reactions – which basically amount to, among other things, a sudden drop in blood pressure accompanied by difficulty breathing and, if not treated, death – and withdrawal symptoms ‘with or without seizures’. That’s where the medical drug detox comes in.

If the side effects are that bad even after the drug company has done everything possible to make the drug look good, you can imagine how bad it really is.

The long and short of it – don’t take prescription drugs unless you have a life-threatening situation. And if you’re already taking them, get into a medical drug detox program that will help you get off the drugs before the drugs themselves threaten your life.

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January 9, 2008

Drug Detox is Not Only for the Young

Filed under: drug addiction, drug detox, drug detox program, drug rehab, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 5:42 pm

Are you in your ‘60s or ‘70s and having a problem with prescription drug addiction or abuse? A recent pilot project conducted in Sarasota, Pinellas, Broward and Orange counties, Florida, found that 23% of the 3,497 people screened needed some form of treatment for prescription drugs. Although some of the people referred only required a little education on things like combining prescription drugs with alcohol, I’m sure some of those people actually need drug detox to get them safely off the drugs they’re taking. And they might even need drug rehab to help them overcome addiction.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), about 17 percent of adults over the age of 60 (that’s about 2.5 million people) have substance abuse problems. Some have problems with alcohol, some with prescription painkillers, but since seniors often drink or take drugs alone – it’s not a social event as it is for some young people – no one even knows they have a problem. Consequently, they don’t get into drug detox or rehab so the problem can be addressed.

Fortunately, the Florida pilot project is going to be extended to 18 Florida counties overall so seniors in other parts of the state will have more help available to them. Lee County’s treatment program, for example, will receive a grant to help find seniors who are abusing alcohol or drugs and get them the help they need.

If you or someone you know needs help with alcohol or drug abuse, contact Novus Medical Detox to find out about drug detox in Florida. Although many people use drugs and alcohol to help them cope with life’s problems, they really just make the situation worse. Get help now through a medical drug detox program.

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January 4, 2008

Drug Detox Alternatives – Can You Overcome Pain Without Drugs?

Filed under: drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug addiction treatment, drug detox, drug detox program, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 6:23 am

When you’re in a lot of pain it’s hard to resist getting a prescription for OxyContin or methadone from your doctor. I believe part of the problem is that too many people are uneducated in the various disciplines and alternative therapies that could help them handle the pain without drugs. Unfortunately, they pay for it in the end because they can end up dependant on the drugs or addicted to them and need to get through a medical drug detox program, and sometimes rehab, to get off them.

What are these alternative therapies? There are hundreds of them. Everything from chiropractic, acupuncture (which can work wonders for pain) and physical therapy to herbal and homeopathic remedies. It’s amazing how well some of these things work.

A friend of mine recently had neck and shoulder pain so severe he could barely move. And even when he wasn’t moving, it was killing him. His doctor gave him a prescription for OxyContin but knowing what he might have to go through to get off them, maybe even drug detox, he took one and threw the rest out.

Then he tried Arnica – a natural remedy made from the Arnica flower that has been used to treat inflammations, promote circulation and soothe sore muscles and joints. It’s usually taken in homeopathic dosages – very small amounts that could not cause toxicity. It took a while but, within a few days, the pain was virtually gone.

Arnica may not work for your situation but there’s a very good chance that something will.

If you’re not taking any prescription drugs, it would be a very good idea to educate yourself in drug-free alternatives so if you ever are in a position where you are tempted to take prescription painkillers, you’re already familiar with other methods that may help you out. If you can avoid drugs, you can also avoid dependency, addiction, and the need for drug detox.

If you’re already taking OxyContin or some other type of painkiller, look into a medical drug detox program that can help you get off the drug safely and start your research into alternatives. Living without drugs is healthy, and could save your life.

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January 3, 2008

Drug Detox Alternatives – Find Out What’s Really Wrong With You Instead of Just Taking Drugs to Relieve the Symptoms

Filed under: drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug addiction treatment, drug detox, drug detox program, drug rehab, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 6:17 am

Sometimes I wonder why people seem to take prescription drugs so lightly. Millions of people are getting prescriptions for dangerous drugs from their doctors, millions are becoming dependent or addicted, and millions more are abusing them. And even though more people are showing up in drug detox and drug rehab centers to get off them, for every person who does get treatment, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who don’t.

Although the drugs themselves cause physical addiction and dependency, there’s another, underlying, reason why people continue to take them. Put simply, they make you feel better.

Years ago I had to take steroids for a while because of a severe allergic reaction. Honestly, the steroids made me feel great. It was completely clear to me why someone would want to take them.

I knew they were dangerous and knew I couldn’t stay on them for long, but I wanted to feel that way forever.

So, I spent the week I was taking them researching how they worked so I could figure out how I could feel that way without drugs. Fortunately, I had a family doctor who didn’t like to prescribe drugs and was also interested in how I could feel good without them.

Together, we discovered that I had a thyroid condition called Wilson’s Syndrome. It was dragging me down until I had absolutely no energy and was also causing both mental and emotional symptoms. My doctor put me through a program and, within less than three months, I felt better than I had in years. And I didn’t have to take any dangerous prescription drugs to do it.

The moral of the story? Find a doctor who is oriented towards ‘wellness’ rather than ‘illness’, who believes you can feel better without drugs, and enlist his help to find the physical causes of the problem you’re trying to solve. You could feel better, naturally, and avoid having to ultimately do drug detox to get off whatever drugs you’re taking. And if you’re already taking drugs that you may not need do a drug detox program to get off them, then search for a real solution to the real problem.

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January 2, 2008

Will More Drug Detox Be Needed With Patients Getting 90-Day Prescriptions for Dangerous Drugs?

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug addiction treatment, drug detox, drug detox program, drug rehab, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 6:17 pm

Yesterday I read a blog about a new ruling from the DEA regarding prescriptions for Legal narcotics and stimulants that have a high potential for dependence and abuse – i.e. Schedule II drugs. Many groups and individuals are speaking out against this ruling and a petition to rescind it is circulating on the Internet. The ruling allows doctors to give out 90-day prescriptions rather than just 30 days. Will this ruling increase the already alarming need for drug detox and drug rehab for prescription drugs? Yes, I think so.

The list of Schedule II drugs includes many of the drugs we read horror stories about daily: methadone, morphine, OxyContin – which, along with other prescription drugs of their type cause more drug overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined – and Ritalin, normally prescribed for kids and identified by the DEA as one of the foremost contributing factors to later cocaine dependence and addiction.

So if a person is taking these drugs already what’s wrong with them being able to go to the pharmacy and renew their prescription a couple of times? Well, it means that no one is monitoring how they’re doing on the drug. And it means that anyone taking these drugs has an even greater chance of addiction and dependency than they had when their prescription lasted for only a month.

According to the DEA, this shouldn’t be much of a problem because doctors will only give the 90-day prescriptions to patients they know are going to need repeat prescriptions anyway.

However, judging by the number of people who’ve already died or gone into treatment at drug detox and drug rehab facilities – and the fact that many of those people start taking the drug when they were given a prescription by their doctor – I don’t see that doctors are any more able to predict prescription drug addiction, abuse or dependency than their patients.

Your safest bet, really, is to just not take these drugs at all or, if you absolutely have to, take them in the lowest dosage possible and for the shortest time possible. And get yourself into a drug detox program at the first sign of not being able to get off them.

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