All in the Name of $$$ Oxycontin Makers Pushing for FDA to Ok Use for SIX YEAR OLDS

reply to post by kyviecaldges

Privately held Purdue learned from focus groups with physicians in 1995 that doctors were worried about the abuse potential of OxyContin. The company then gave false information to its sales representatives that the drug had less potential for addiction and abuse than other painkillers, the U.S. attorney said.

Not one person. "The Company".

Considering there have been over 140 lawsuits brought against Purdue, you'd have to have more than half a brain to think this isn't from the top down, aka - THE COMPANY and it's executives, you know, the ones who make company policy - but then again, unless you read wikipedia on corporate structure, you really don't know anything, do you?

CJ

Reply to post by epsilon69

a child dying of bone cancer could use some Oxycontin to supplement their Fentanyl patch.

Of course children shouldn't use narcotics unless it's a dire situation where that child is in agony. That said, there are children in fact in agony. What are you going to do? Give them a children's Tylenol and a kiss to make feel better?
Some of you are seriously deluded and insensitive.
You all hear or read the word "Oxy" and you automatically start thinking synthetic heroin and junkies. There are people who use it legally.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by ColoradoJens
reply to post by kyviecaldges

 

Privately held Purdue learned from focus groups with physicians in 1995 that doctors were worried about the abuse potential of OxyContin. The company then gave false information to its sales representatives that the drug had less potential for addiction and abuse than other painkillers, the U.S. attorney said.

Not one person. "The Company".

Considering there have been over 140 lawsuits brought against Purdue, you'd have to have more than half a brain to think this isn't from the top down, aka - THE COMPANY and it's executives, you know, the ones who make company policy - but then again, unless you read wikipedia on corporate structure, you really don't know anything, do you?

CJ

Oh no...

Don't use an article clearly biased against Purdue Pharmaceuticals against me.

Riddle me this batman... If this big bad company (and its executives... your words not mine) was so bad, then why isn't this company in jail?

Oh yeah... that's right... it doesn't exist.

It's a fiction that represents a collective idea.

As I have said too many times now....

If you CHANGE the structure that governs the COLLECTIVE IDEA, then you CHANGE the idea.

reply to post by spinalremain


I don't think anyone posting in this thread has said there are no situations where children can't be given oxi for pain. It's about if oxi should be mainstreamed by Doctors for children. Of course children in severe pain should have access to whatever they need to ease pain. But adding oxi to the category of regular meds prescribed to children for say, a sore throat, needs much more consideration. jmoho

Des

Originally posted by kyviecaldges
reply to post by kabfighter

 

I used the term 'crack baby' in an improper context. However, the baby was born addicted to coc aine and was going through neonatal abstinence syndrome; the morphine was used to treat the withdrawal symptoms.

Babies are not born addicted to coc aine.

Cocaine does not created a physical dependency.
Although crack coc aine has shown to alter brain chemistry in a limited fashion during post acute withdrawals, this is not passed onto babies.
I will repeat, crack babies are a myth.

Cocaine does not cause physical dependence.

You either do not know what you are talking about or you don't know what you are talking about.

In the link that you posted it said that morphine and methadone MAY be used, but they are certainly NOT used for anything coc aine.

Seriously, you are only digging your hole bigger and proving to me that you are a fraud.
You and I know the truth.

No need to be rude, buddy. I didn't memorize the toxicology report and social history of every patient I had in school. The baby's meconium test came back positive for several illicit drugs, and I'm not sure from which one he was withdrawing. Regardless, I maintain that I did administer morphine in response to his neonatal abstinence score, so from the research I'm doing now it looks like mom must have been on narcotics. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Not a fraud, just mistaken. Big difference. We weren't taught any extraordinary amount of material on illicit drug use or neonatal withdrawal in school. My specialty is medical-surgical, not labor and delivery or psych.

The poster I responded to said something to the effect of "what doctor or parent would conceive of ever giving a 6 year old Oxycontin?"

Im on my mobile so I cannot use the quote tools and such. I was just trying to explain to him/her that there are dying kids who feel tortuous pain and agony.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by ColoradoJens
I stopped reading at page six because I just can't continue reading some of the posts without adding my own thoughts. There are a lot of misconceptions on the subject of pain and more-so, the treatment of (it). Obviously, all pain is subjective so no one can tell another person that their pain is worse (or less) than the next persons pain. Regardless of their injury/illness. This is not directed toward you ColoradoJens.

I see no reason for a child taking any medication/s that they need, but I do see a problem with this particular company (Purdue) and their way of going about making themselves appear they are taking some grand gesture in the treatment of pain for young children, when I know that what they are really doing is trying to make more profit. Nothing wrong with a Co. making profit, but there is most certainly something wrong with this particular Co. trying to make their profit using children as the way to further their agenda. One only needs to look at the way they do business to really understand what I mean here.

But, Ive also read some probably well intentioned folks here give some not so good advice in treating pain. Telling (or advising) a person to take three (3) (high dose?) over OTC APAP instead of (something else) for pain relief is sheer ignorance. APAP can be (is) seriously harmful to your liver, especially in those who are taking it round the clock for chronic pain relief.

Marijuana is not a natural cure for pain, not when the pain is moderate to severe. There are other very good medical uses for the drug, but for most people, pain isn't one of them. Maybe if the pain were low, but then one wouldn't really need an Rx for little pain. ( There are good uses for M, but that isn't the subject here).

Anyone in moderate-severe pain should be treated by a physician. Drs give advice to those who are prescribed strong pain medications such as opiates/oids. Of course there are a few Drs who prescribe willy nilly, but those are the exceptions and not the rule. And yes, there are people who use illegal ways to get access to strong pain medication. Some people die because they abuse or become addicted to (said) medications, however studies show that people who are prescribed pain medications for CP(chronic pain) are very unlikely to become addicted to their prescribed medications.


Most people who die from OD to strong prescription medication are (for the majority) not taking their medication properly, taking other medications (even OTC meds) along w/their RX's, drinking alcohol along w/their medications, and getting medications from different pharmacies (thereby they cannot always know if they are mixing wrong meds). Very very few people who take their medication as prescribed and use the same pharmacy (or keep the other/s in the loop) die from their medications. Of course there are always exceptions.

I've known quite a few people who died because of these strong medications, including two brothers only a year apart, and of them all.. not one was taking their medications as they were prescribed.

Common sense and responsibilty go a long way in prolonging our lives, and our quality of life. Whether we have chronic pain or not.

reply to post by getreadyalready


So you believe in personal responsibility on politics but instantly lose that outlook when it comes to opiates?

A doctor knows how much to prescribe a milligram that will not kill the person taking it. If they patient takes more and dies then that is a personal responsibility issue. All medication comes with a fact sheet every time you get it filled from a pharmacy. If people accidentally overdose that is their problem. They didn't take the time to read the known drug interactions on the fact sheet. They specifically say do not take with other CNS depressants.

Peeling a bandage from an oozing 3rd degree burn? Until youve been in a childrens Burn-Trauma Unit at 4 in the morning when they are changing the sticking-to-the-wounds/burns ...as the poor kids SCREAM a scream thats horrifyingly upsetting to anyone nearby...you wont get it. I have...for 12 years.

Its not to be given to 6 year olds in your local school...they'd have to be incapable of WALKING and hospitalized to decide to use that instead of a Morophine drip...and in extreme pain.

Remember...this is to let it be an OPTION...instead of Morophine, Dilaudid etc...and not for the neighborhood 2nd grader with a skinned knee.

Originally posted by RealSpoke
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

So you believe in personal responsibility on politics but instantly lose that outlook when it comes to opiates?

A doctor knows how much to prescribe a milligram that will not kill the person taking it. If they patient takes more and dies then that is a personal responsibility issue. All medication comes with a fact sheet every time you get it filled from a pharmacy. If people accidentally overdose that is their problem. They didn't take the time to read the known drug interactions on the fact sheet. They specifically say do not take with other CNS depressants.

Doctors make mistakes, but the common patient doesn't realize that.

Yes, in 99.9% of the threads on ATS, I am right there harping on personal responsibility, and natural selection, and natural consequences, and I am very seldom empathetic to idiots that get themselves killed, but in this situation it is different. Doctors have an air of authority, and people trust doctors, but half the doctors don't deserve that trust.

I just see far too many innocent people dying from naivety. This is a rare occasion where I don't believe the death penalty is appropriate for naivety. Yes, people should have personal responsibility, but too many of them don't realize it. They think doctors are trustworthy. Too many people were raised to think they can go to the doc and get a pill for whatever ails them. They were raised wrong, and the media portrays the situation wrong, and the doctors office sets them up wrong, and they die before they ever had the opportunity to realize it was a stupid mistake.

Originally posted by mysterioustranger
Peeling a bandage from an oozing 3rd degree burn? Until youve been in a childrens Burn-Trauma Unit at 4 in the morning when they are changing the sticking-to-the-wounds/burns ...as the poor kids SCREAM a scream thats horrifyingly upsetting to anyone nearby...you wont get it. I have...for 12 years.

Its not to be given to 6 year olds in your local school...they'd have to be incapable of WALKING and hospitalized to decide to use that instead of a Morophine drip...and in extreme pain.

Remember...this is to let it be an OPTION...instead of Morophine, Dilaudid etc...and not for the neighborhood 2nd grader with a skinned knee.

I've been there myself. I've had the debriding, the scrub brushes, the bleach bubble bath, and the oozing bandages stuck to me. I've had the gangrene infection, and I've had to peel myself off the bed. I've also seen kids going through the same thing, including a kid that was burned from the inside out from grabbing onto a powerline in a tree. That is the reason I became a Mason and a Shriner.

The morphine pump barely dulls the pain, and the nightmares it causes are worse than the pain. The docs are already prescribing Oxy and other meds for these kids, and it doesn't really help all that much. They don't need a new study, or special FDA consideration to prescribe Oxy in those situations.

For those that haven't experienced this kind of pain, there is a threshold to where it doesn't even matter any more. You stop feeling it. It is there, and your body sometimes reacts unconsciously to the pain. I literally levitated above the whirlpool tub suspended on by just my hands like a gymnast, and 4 male nurses couldn't push me back in, but I didn't do it on purpose, and I wasn't aware of any pain.

For those people in that amount of pain, the meds are worthless anyway. On a good day, they help to numb the pain enough to get you out of bed and to the therapy room, but once you're there, nothing helps, and at the same time you aren't really consciously aware of it anyway. Might as well forego all the complications that come with the pain meds, and just get through the pain and healing process.

reply to post by Dreine


Oh yes it is just awful that children don't suffer from polio anymore, or mumps and measles. Let's not forget how wonderful smallpox are! Seriously, our ancestors suffered from debilitating diseases that today are preventable and curable. It's not like the 1900's came about and pharmocology magically advanced to what you see today. You benefit from the advancements in medicine whether or not you like it

reply to post by kabfighter


If you were an RN at the time and I may be mistaken but you can't administer drugs without doctors orders, so you just followed orders correct?

Originally posted by denynothing
reply to post by kabfighter

 

If you were an RN at the time and I may be mistaken but you can't administer drugs without doctors orders, so you just followed orders correct?

In a care ward they can like hospice or long term care; I think they have a blanket prescription. Doctors aren't around much in those places. There are Nurse Practitioners that can prescribe, much the same as a Physician's Assistant (alot of your clinic visits are conducted by them).

reply to post by getreadyalready


Doctors rarely make mistakes with oxycontin. It goes in a database and if caught prescribing them irresponsibly they can have their medical licenses suspended. Plus oxycontin only comes in around 5 different mg of doses. It is highly unlikely a doctor would make a mg mistake... You're making it sound like it happens all the time when it just doesn't.

Most of the people that die from them are just idiots that don't have common sense or any personal responsibly. If you take a bunch of downers combined, you MIGHT stop breathing..DUH. You get a fact sheet every time you get a prescription, they have no excuse.

So you support the prohibition of alcohol then? I mean if your mix alcohol with downers you can easily die. Same concept. More deaths. More addictions.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I was at The University of Michigan Hospital for 12 years. I loved my job...a lot....but that Trauma Burn Unit was the worse. Even though I'd like to say Im knowledgable, understanding and compassionate...that was the worse.
I have occasional nightmares over those little kids...some died...and in terrible pain.

The Oxycontin approval Im sure is only for those children in need where Morophine does even cut it, and that why this thread is misleading.

It wont be a call from school to say "Your child fell off the swing so we gave him/her an Oxycontin".

reply to post by RealSpoke

Doctors rarely make mistakes with oxycontin. It goes in a database and if caught prescribing them irresponsibly they can have their medical licenses suspended. Plus oxycontin only comes in around 5 different mg of doses. It is highly unlikely a doctor would make a mg mistake... You're making it sound like it happens all the time when it just doesn't.

This is what I do for a living, and yes it does. The database for my state just came online last year, we didn't have one before that, and there is no requirement that a doctor look in the database. It is there for their use, but it is not a requirement that they look at it. Actually prescriptions don't even go in the database, the only time they hit the database is when the pharmacy fills the prescription, so if a person has several doctors appointments in one day, and they wait and fill them all at one time, then the database is useless.

Yes, doctors can get in trouble for over-prescribing meds, but the potential to make money usually outweighs the risk.

It does happen all the time. I know people hate it when someone says "trust me," but you'll just have to trust me, it happens multiple times every single day.

Plus, there are no shortage of doctors doing it on purpose!

Operation Pill Street Blues

and an earlier operation.

And those are just 2 of the dozens of crackdowns over the past 2 years.

It all started with the Pill billies.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I am assuming that you live in Florida, and you are correct that the state has a problem with shady "pain management" clinics with in house pharmacies.

However...

This is the minority.

You are confusing anecdotal evidence for prevalence and this is simply not the case.
The vast majority of doctors in the US who prescribe pain medication do so on a limited basis.

You may see a supposed epidemic happening in your state, but that does not equate to a national epidemic.

This type of insular thinking leads to destructive knee jerk reactions.
Reactions that end up limiting a supply to suffering individuals who legitimately need pain relief.
People who abuse drugs and their suppliers will find a way to get what they need regardless of the law.
We have 40 years of an ineffective drug war to validate this belief.

The problem is with corrupt doctors who are illegally prescribing controlled substances to corrupt patients.
The problem is personal responsibility.
The problem cannot be blamed on the pharmaceutical companies.

reply to post by mysterioustranger

The Oxycontin approval Im sure is only for those children in need where Morophine does even cut it, and that why this thread is misleading.

It wont be a call from school to say "Your child fell off the swing so we gave him/her an Oxycontin".

No, the study and approval is just to extend the patent another 6 months. There is no other need for specific FDA approval for children. The doctors are already free to prescribe to children where they deem it appropriate. And the Oxy would not be used in place of Morphine, the morphine pump is still better, the Oxy script would be to take home when they are leaving the hospital, and that is where the trouble would start. Using the Oxy in the hospital setting is no problem.

The school won't even give an aspirin. They aren't the problem, but what about a well-meaning in-law, or grand-parent, baby-sitter?

Also, by getting the FDA approval for children, it makes the doctors that much more difficult to prosecute. As RealSpoke said above, and what I do for a living, we do monitor the doctors prescribing habits, but if the doctor is supposedly following the accepted protocol (no matter how loosely), then it is more difficult to prosecute them. We don't want to give the doctors a wider berth for prescribing, because they are already abusing the berth they have! If we give them wider FDA approval, then it will be even more difficult to shut down the pill mills and pill billies, and there will be even more accidental deaths.

Folks want to pretend this is not wide spread, but it is the most dangerous thing facing the country at this moment. More people are dying from this than car accidents and cancer! It is the number 1 killer in the country, and it is rarely the habitual abusers or junkies, it is often just regular folks!

Whitney Houston, Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith, and many, many more.

70 deaths per day nationwide, 7 per day in my state alone, 373,000 overdoses per year.

Folks, this is as serious as it gets!

CDC calls it an Epidemic: A death every 19 minutes

CDC also says there is a 91% increase in poisoning deaths of teens!

Drug Deaths exceed Traffic Deaths

I sent a copy of the OP article to some of my co-workers and bosses, and I got back a lot of "OMG!" If they get approval by the FDA to prescribe to children, it will be something the state leaders panic about, I can guarantee you that!

And on the near horizon are narcotics 10x stronger than the current Oxy and Vicodin! This is going to get worse!

reply to post by kyviecaldges


I sent you a PM.

You are wrong by the way. It is a nationwide problem. The source of the drugs for the last couple of years was Florida, but now it is New Mexico, Georgia, and other states, while the deaths were often occurring in Tennessee, Kentucky, Maine, etc. A busload of people could spend $250 for 480 pills, and sell those pills for $7 to $15 each up north. Put 30 people on a bus, and that is a profit of almost $150,000 for each busload of pill carriers, and they are in no danger of getting in trouble during the transport, because they have legit prescriptions. A ton of profit, with little risk. It doesn't even become illegal until they resell them back in their own rural areas, and those areas don't have big narc taskforces. It was just too sweet of a deal for organized crime to ignore.

There is even a popular television series, "Justified" about the racket of buying drugs in Broward County, FL, and selling them in Kentucky and Tennessee!

Last year, 485 people died of prescription drug overdose in Kentucky, one of the main pipeline states for oxy from Florida (and also where Justified is set). A Kentucky sheriff told NBC News: "We are drowning in a sea of prescription medication."

Some of it is the pharmaceutical companies, although I agree with you that the doctors are the ones creating the problems, there is also some responsibility on the manufacturers.

When the George Brothers were arrested at the beginning of this Pill Mill crackdown in Florida. They had trashbags full of money and 55 gallon drums full of narcotics in their backrooms. They were said to be making $200k per week! And they were not even doctors. Surely the manufacturers and wholesalers new something was up, but they were too greedy to say anything.

To move large amounts of prescription painkillers in America, you need somebody to write the prescriptions. You need doctors. Hiring doctors to sell drugs is easy, says George. He found his doctors by posting ads on Craigslist. At their peak, when they were running the largest pill mill operation in the U.S., the George twins had roughly a dozen doctors working for them.

George says not a single doctor he interviewed ever turned down a job offer. Although he was always younger than the doctors he was interviewing—he was in his late twenties at the time—George says he made a professional impression. “I had such a big office; it was an easy sell,” says George. “They didn’t walk into some hole-in-the-wall place. The hours were good. The pay was good.”

What the jobs lacked in prestige, they made up for in wages. According to George’s indictment, doctors at his clinics were paid a flat fee for each opioid prescription they wrote—typically, $75 to $100 a pop. To help maximize their efficiency, doctors were given prescription stamps they could use quickly, over and over. It was common for physicians at American Pain to see 100 patients a day, he says. At that rate a doctor would earn roughly $37,500 a week—or $1.95 million a year.

Eventually, hunting around online, George found a list of businesses in Florida that had DEA registration numbers. The list didn’t specify which were retailers and which were wholesalers. So George had an employee sit down, call every business, and ask whether they sold controlled substances to medical clinics—and if so, under what conditions. Before long, George had identified a couple of potential regional dealers. From there, says George, it was surprisingly easy. “All I had to do when I started was call up a wholesaler, say I had a medical office, and fax in the doctor’s DEA registration and medical license,” says George. “Then I would basically tell them what I wanted, send in the order forms, and they’d ship to me. They didn’t know who I was. They didn’t talk to the doctor. I could have been someone with a doctor’s stolen information. There is really little due diligence.”