Posted on 10/26/2017 6:38:07 PM PDT by markomalley
Federal authorities arrested the billionaire founder and owner of Insys Therapeutics Thursday on charges of bribing doctors and pain clinics into prescribing the company’s fentanyl product to their patients.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged John Kapoor, 74, and seven other current and former executives at the pharmaceutical company with racketeering for a leading a national conspiracy through bribery and fraud to coerce the illegal distribution of the company’s fentanyl spray, which is intended for use as a pain killer by cancer patients. The company’s stock prices fell more than 20 percent following the arrests, according to the New York Post.
Kapoor stepped down as the company’s CEO in January amid ongoing federal probes into their Subsys product, a pain-relieving spray that contains fentanyl, a highly-addictive synthetic opioid. Fentanyl is more than 50 times stronger than morphine, and ingesting just two milligrams is enough to cause an adult to fatally overdose.
The series of arrests came just hours after President Donald Trump officially declared the country’s opioid epidemic a national emergency. Drug overdoses led to 64,070 deaths in 2016, which is more than the amount of American lives lost in the entire Vietnam War.
As the opioid crisis has developed, more and more states have begun holding doctors and opioid manufacturers accountable for over-prescribing and over-producing the highly-addictive painkillers.
“We will be bringing some major lawsuits against people and companies that are hurting our people,” Trump said Thursday. He also spoke about a program similar to Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” initiative.
“More than 20,000 Americans died of synthetic opioid overdoses last year, and millions are addicted to opioids. And yet some medical professionals would rather take advantage of the addicts than try to help them,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “This Justice Department will not tolerate this. We will hold accountable anyone – from street dealers to corporate executives — who illegally contributes to this nationwide epidemic. And under the leadership of President Trump, we are fully committed to defeating this threat to the American people.”
But I still stand by my original argument that this drug should only be used sparingly, and not prescribed willy nilly, and this person needed to be arrested. Doctors that are found to be script mills are arrested, and rightly so.
According to the president's The New WAR On Drugs; or, The DEA is Losing the WAR on Drugs So We're Going To Go After Mr. and Mrs. America and the Pain Pills Their Doctors Have Prescribed For Them For Years And Make Everyone A Criminal and Make Street Drugs America's New Pastime...
According to Trump (who has finally done something that makes me mad) Fentanyl will no longer be made in the US. Ok, fine. So, when my metastatic breast cancer spreads to my bones, I will be given not the most effective drug (Fentanyl), but a less powerful one-morphine. And that will make you happy, cos it's just me and not you who is in the bone-crushing pain. Someone called you an idiot, I prefer to think of you as one who speaks knowledgeably about something of which you know nothing.
The real problem is not the legally manufactured fentanyl (when it comes to the overdose deaths), it is the street-manufactured Fentanyl. There is no quality control. Coroners are finding a lot of overdose deaths being caused by heroin that is laced (stepped off) with street level fentanyl. But, because the government thinks we are not smart enough to notice the details and differences, they are declaring a war on opiates...all of them. Listen to the news, soon you will be hearing about the wave of deaths being caused by opiates. The govt, playing to the lowest common denominator, will just say "Oxycontin, Vicodin, Fentanyl" because those are common drug names, ones we are familiar with. They can cast a wide net using those words.
If you're a betting man, get ye to Vegas and put some money down on the unpredicted severe uptick in drug overdoses...when Mr. and Mrs. America have to go to the corner dealer to get their pain pills...because the DEA can't stop the heroin coming in and the mad scientists working on the Fentanyl.
Now, for future reference: Cancer patients get a bye on narcotics. Pain is different for everyone. You need to be careful with your all-knowing attitude. (oh and in case you're wondering, nope, I don't need those drugs...yet. But there are plenty of people who do. Try a little empathy.)
Lots of drugs that kill those who abuse them have very valid and useful purposes when used by medical people and in the arena they are intended to be used in....
I will concede and say you is absolutely correct. I will also admit that I was not aware just how widespread & pervasive the illegal manufacture of fentanyl is. This of course is undoubtedly the main source of & cause of the overdose problem experienced in this country. Because there are no controls on the the strength being produced.
I will also concede that I spoke with too much emotion, and gave little rational & logical thought. I attribute that to this pharma manufacturer bribing doctors to dispense it even more, as well as, the doctors who are willing to do so with little regard to the ramifications of their complicity in the opioid problem facing this country. Taking a further examination & a little more research & discovering the problem of the illegal manufacturing of the drug made me realize that completely banning the drug does nothing to stop that portion that will still find a way into our society.
I am not unsympathetic to those who truly need the drug to manage chronic pain that includes those with cancer, but in no way is limited to just cancer associated pain. I assumed that after the initial announcement of the ban that this would be rectified. I believed then & still believe that will be the case My research led me to this: A fentanyl product has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for breakthrough cancer pain called Onsolis. It uses a drug delivery technology called BEMA (fentanyl buccal soluble film) on a small disc placed in the mouth. Unlike many other fentanyl products, the drug cannot be abused by crushing and inhaling, which to me sounds very encouraging at stopping the illegal usage of prescriptions of this drug. That enables the drug to continue to be available for those with chronic pain.
Sometimes our first blush with an idea is influenced too heavily on emotion, and my emotion is because of the damage of parents who are abusing the drug and the effects on the children. However, like the banning of alcohol it never is the cure for the ailment, as it really just adds to the ailment while creating additional problems.
So let me stand corrected and accept my apology for not thinking through this with rational logical thought, and reacting with too much emotion. I still do applaud the arrest of this manufacturer though, as his motivation was purely stimulated by profit, with little concern for the problem of over prescribing any substance which he was all too willing to do with his bribes.
“the biggest issue is we have a weak,self absorbed populace who think any pain at all needs to have a drug...”
Valid point.
I too applaud the arrest of this guy. I am horrified that doctors turn out to be so fallible. I am dismayed that where once pain was considered the fifth vital sign, now pain will be disregarded in favor of the physician's fear of the DEA.
This was your statement, correct?
You have no idea what you're talking about, as this statement demonstrates. Strength of drugs is largely irrelevant IN PRESCRIPTION FORM as the manufacturer just adjusts dosage based on potency/strength to achieve a desired effect.
Subsys is only to be prescribed to patients ALREADY on CHRONIC narcotic therapy for cancer pain management as an adjunct for those patients that are already narcotic tolerant (addicted). It's 'strength' allows a small, and APPROPRIATE dose to be given sublingually to be absorbed across the mucosa making it almost immediately available.
How is it different if the patient takes a single 100 mcg dose of Fentanyl or a 10 mg (10000 mcg) oxycodone tab? There isn't one in effect as the doses of each are equipotent...so the 'strength' of Fentanyl isn't really relevant
Your article makes the shrill warning cry that 'just 2 milligrams of Fentanyl can kill you' in it's OMG!!! moment I suppose...but using their math example, how many '100 mcg accuations' is needed to achieve a lethal dose of Fentanyl? Answer is 20 (which probably assumes narcotic naivety) which is no different than popping a full bottle of some other opiate like Oxycontin.
It's stuff like this that leads to government over intervention in medicine which never has a good outcome. Five years ago every government agency was emphasizing pain..the 5th vital sign and demanding patient's pain be 'treated' to their satisfaction (gotta get a satisfaction survey don't ya know) and now their calling Docs 'dealers' LOL...you can't make this stuff up I tell ya.
See my post #64.
Very gracious, sorry I didn’t read that first.
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