Working from home under surveillance

Working from home surveillance software for your boss – The Washington Post – by Drew Harwell – Apr 2020

This is in the category of “sad, but true”…

digital marketing director James Luce decided to replicate the office experience entirely online.

Employees were told to create a digital avatar and spend their workday in a virtual office, replete with chat room cubicles and a gossip-ready “water cooler.” They were also instructed to keep their home webcams and microphones on and at the ready, so a spontaneous face-to-face chat was always only a click away. 

I can’t believe people have to work under such incredibly stressful and demeaning conditions, especially during this pandemic which already puts so much stress on families quarantined together.  

Profit Motive as Cause of Previous Over-Prescribing

I keep reading about studies that show opioids to be no more effective for pain than non-opioid medications or other therapies. I still cannot believe that.

At first, I was convinced the studies had been corrupted, then I thought that the statistics were improperly manipulated, then I thought the patients had been poorly selected, but now I’m running out of excuses to insist those studies are wrong.

Still, it makes no sense to me that the only medication or treatment or therapy that has reliably reduced my pain for decades can be “proven” to be no better than drugstore pills (NSAIDs). 

Stopping Rx Opioids Associated with Death

Study: Stopping Long-Term Opioid Prescriptions Associated With Veterans’ Deaths – Filter Magazine – By Staff – Mar 2020

For years, pain patient activists have been sounding the alarm about the consequences of abruptly halting people’s access to opioid analgesics…

And we have not just been whining and complaining about our increased “biopsychosocial” pain. The physical and mental impact of experiencing unrelieved, constant, chronic pain can be overwhelming. The danger of forced tapers is an extremely serious and urgent problem, which is increasingly…

…supported by much research.  

‘Opioid Epidemic’? Misperceptions Versus Facts

Misperceptions about the ‘Opioid Epidemic:’ Exploring the Facts – July 2019 – Pain Management Nursing

Thank goodness for nurses! In this lengthy document, they meticulously prove that the ‘Opioid Epidemic’ is a complete fabrication, hyped by anti-opioid activists and spread into our society and even our medical system despite reams of evidence to the contrary from science and government data.

This thoroughly referenced article itemizes and thoroughly debunks the anti-opioid misperceptions (if not outright lies) that have swept through the medical profession and corrupted clear, logical thinking about the rising rate of illicit drug overdoses (not from prescribed opioids).

This is the most sensible document I’ve ever read about the so-called “opioid crisis”. Supported by numerous scientific references, it makes all the arguments we pain patient advocates have been making for years. 

Scrutiny Of Painkiller Distributors Harms Patients

Scrutiny Of Painkiller Distributors Harms Patients – Sally Satel,  Contributor – Dec 2019

Anyone following the opioid problem knows about the delinquent practices of some drug distributors, the companies that deliver painkillers from manufacturers to pharmacies. 

By transporting “suspicious orders” – regulatory code for unrealistically large shipments — to rogue pharmacies, they helped fuel the crisis of addiction and overdose.

This is like a history lesson from 10 years ago when this was happening. By now the overdoses are no longer from pills because they’re too difficult to get and too expensive. Instead, they use some powdered street drug (heroin, meth, cocaine) that’s been laced with undetermined quantities of fentanyl, frequently enough to kill them. 

How Stigma Against Addiction Devastates Pain Patients

How Stigma Against Addiction Devastates Pain Patients – by Elizabeth Brico @elizabethbrico – Feb 2019

Here’s yet another story of what would qualify as malpractice if it were any other drug than opioids.  A doctor suddenly stops prescribing opioids necessary for the “activities of daily living” and sends their patient into the agony of physical withdrawal and an unnecessarily limited life without medical care.

There’s no concern for Quality of Life when politicians responding to media-hype and PROPagandists are controlling our pain care.

First it was a hip replacement. Then it became complicated by a MRSA infection. Eventually, Dee Giles, formerly an ER nurse, had to endure amputation of her right leg and the right half of her pelvis.

Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence.

The Opioid Crisis Requires Evidence-Based Solutions, Part I: How the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction Misinterpreted Scientific Studies | Bill of Health | law.harvard.edu – By Mason Marks – Dec 2017

Despite the Opioid Commission’s justifiable recommendations, it drew many conclusions that lack empirical support or are contradicted by scientific evidence.

the Opioid Commission was convinced that pain-related questions are driving inappropriate prescriptions.

PROP has really outsmarted all of us patients and doctors who rely on opioids to ease pain. Early on, they framed the discussion as a simplistic opioid addiction issue and ever since, we’ve been stuck trying to defend ourselves against this ignorant tide of drug-war-based policies. 

Moral Failure And Health Costs

Moral Failure And Health Costs: Two Simplistic Spending Narratives – Jeff C. Goldsmith – Oct 2015

This article brings up interesting ideas about the interrelated (and dysfunctional) pieces of the American healthcare system, but I can sum up the crux of the situation easily.

The medical care of our society has been taken over by corporate conglomerates which, by definition, are exclusively designed to create profits for their shareholders.

What to do about the seemingly inexorable rise in health spending has been the central health policy challenge for two generations of health economists and policymakers.   

Only 1.3% of Overdose Victims Had Opioid Rx

Study Finds Only 1.3% of Overdose Victims Had Opioid Prescription — Pain News Network – By Pat Anson – Oct 2019

It’s long been a popular belief that prescription opioids fueled the nation’s opioid crisis and play a major role in overdose deaths. The CDC’s 2016 opioid guideline says as much.

But a new study by researchers in Massachusetts has turned that theory on its head. Prescription opioids are not usually involved overdoses.

And even when they are, the overdose victim rarely has an active prescription for them – meaning the medications were diverted, stolen or bought on the street.  

Stanford Doc Says Opioids Necessary Sometimes

Here’s a very supportive Twitter posting from the leader of Stanford’s Pain Management efforts: Sean Mackey, MD, PhD.   (@DrSeanMackey) on Oct 22, 2019

This is a breath of fresh air! Coming from an influential leader in the pain management field at a high-status University, I have hope that it will get through to some of our tormentors.

1) I’d like to share this brief story about a patient who’s currently taking opioids.

2) We’ve been treating a patient at Stanford who has a lower extremity injury. He came to us on high-doses of opioids through fentanyl patches.  

His primary care doctor wanted him weaned off. He has tried every treatment imaginable.

And why did his primary doctor want him weaned off? The rest of this little story shows that there were no medical reasons to take the patient off opioids.