The Washington-imposed economic policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor and spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual
and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also
drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes
Americans away from high-tech careers, and
sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families,
including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions. NEIL MUNRO
US Senate report details funding of patient advocacy groups by opioid manufacturers
By Brian Dixon
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill issued a report last week
exposing the financial connections between the major opioid manufacturers and
ostensibly independent patient advocacy groups.
The report, which is the outcome of a nearly
year-long investigation, was released amidst the ongoing opioid epidemic in the
United States where more than 600,000 people died from drug overdoses between
2000 and 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC). In 2016 alone, over 42,000 Americans died from opioid drug overdoses, 40
percent of which involved prescription painkillers. In other words, on average
115 Americans die every day from opioid overdoses.
Based on disclosures by the manufacturers of the five major opioid
products—Purdue Pharma, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Mylan, Depomed and Insys Therapeutics—made in
response to requests by McCaskill, the report found that these companies
donated nearly $9 million to 14 patient advocacy groups between 2012 and 2017.
These companies paid doctors affiliated with these groups an additional $1.6
million, bringing their total funding to over $10 million.
The report did not include information on other major opioid
manufacturers, such as Allergan, Pfizer, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Endo Health
Solutions.
Purdue Pharma, maker of the painkiller
Oxycontin, gave the greatest amount to these organizations, totaling
$4,153,554. Insys Therapeutics, maker of the fentanyl
product Subsys, gave more than $3 million. Both companies are known for
aggressively and deceptively promoting their highly addictive products to
doctors.
Not surprisingly, these patient advocacy organizations, whose
policy positions are given more credibility since they are supposedly
independent of drug companies, favorably promoted the treatment of pain with
opioids. Only a handful of advocacy organizations working on pain-related
issues do not accept donations from the drug industry.
“These groups,” notes the report’s executive summary, “have issued
guidelines and policies minimizing the risk of opioid addiction and promoting
opioids for chronic pain, lobbied to change laws directed at curbing opioid
use, and argued against accountability for physicians and industry executives
responsible for overprescription and misbranding.”
Opioid manufacturers are interested in these groups because
advocacy organizations can influence health policies that impact the drug
industry. According to the report, they “play a significant role in shaping
health policy debates, setting national guidelines for patient treatment,
raising disease awareness, and educating the public.”
However, the financial relationships between the drug companies
and advocacy organizations are not always transparent.
For example, one study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last
year and cited by the report found that at least 83 percent of the 104
organizations examined received industry funding and 39 percent included a
former drug industry executive on their board, but only 57 percent disclosed
donation amounts (often given in ranges, rather than exact figures).
Similarly, a study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association found
that while 67 percent of the 245 organizations it looked at received industry
funding—12 percent received more than half their funding from industry—only 65
percent of the organizations released information on their funding from
for-profit sources. Moreover, 8 percent of the respondents “reported [that]
pressure to conform their organizations’ positions to the interests of industry
funders is of concern.”
Among those patient advocacy groups receiving the most funding
from opioid manufacturers were the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, the
American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Chronic Pain Association and
the American Geriatrics Society.
Around 30 percent of the total contributions made by the major
opioid manufacturers, and the largest donation category, went towards
restricted grants that specify the use of their money. Non-education
grants—despite the name of the category, these funds are used for initiatives
related to patient and public education and scientific research—constituted 26
percent of all donations, followed by payments for advertising (18 percent) and
sponsorship (14 percent).
The report also detailed payments from the opioid companies to
physicians affiliated with these advocacy organizations totaling over $1.6
million. For example, based on data from CMS open payments, between 2013 and
2016 Dr. Steven Stanos of the American Academy of Pain Medicine received over $90,000
in payments, while Dr. Charles Argoff, president of the American Academy of
Pain Medicine Foundation, received over $600,000.
The report notes that these groups, financially supported by
opioid manufacturers, “amplified or issued messages that reinforce industry
efforts to promote opioid prescription and use, including guidelines and
policies minimizing the risk of addiction and promoting opioids for chronic
pain.”
According to a complaint from the City of Chicago cited by the
report, the Academy of Pain and Medicine and the American Pain Society
allegedly issued guidelines to physicians in 2009 that promoted opioids as
“safe and effective” for chronic pain. That same year, the American Geriatrics
Society issued guidelines for patients with persistent pain recommending that
they use opioids instead of aspirin or ibuprofen if acetaminophen (Tylenol)
proves insufficient.
“It looks pretty damning when these groups were pushing the
message about how wonderful opioids are and they were being heavily funded, by
the manufacturers of those drugs,” Lewis Nelson, a professor of emergency
medicine at Rutgers University and expert on prescription drug misuse, told the
Center for Public Integrity after the release of the report.
The advocacy groups also lobbied to defeat legislative measures
that would have restricted the over-prescription of opioids and opposed the
2016 guidelines issued by the CDC recommending non-opioid therapies for chronic
pain (outside of active cancer treatment and end-of-life care) and generally
limiting opioid prescriptions for acute pain to three to seven days.
The report states that these groups registering opposition with
the CDC “while receiving funding from the opioids industry raises the
appearance—at the very least—of a direct link between corporate donations and
the advancement of opioids-friendly messaging.”
This conclusion coincides with that of a 2017 article in JAMA Internal Medicine, which
looked at more than 150 organizations that submitted comments to the draft CDC
guidelines, and found that “opposition to the guidelines was significantly more
common among organizations with funding from opioid manufacturers than those
without funding from the life sciences industry.”
Some of the advocacy groups even challenged efforts by the government
to hold accountable physicians overprescribing opioids and industry executives
engaged in fraudulent marketing.
For example, the National Pain Foundation defended Dr. William
Hurwitz after he prescribed excessive amounts of oxycodone, up to 1,600 pills
in one day: “The conviction [in the trial court] broke ground by holding that a
doctor acting in the good faith belief that he was serving the best medical
interest of his patient could be found to be a drug dealer.”
The report concludes by quoting from a 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health that
“a tension exists between the status of advocacy organizations as ‘among the
most influential and trusted stakeholders in U.S. health policy,’ and the
reality that their ‘positions closely correspond to the marketing aims of
pharmaceutical and device companies.’”
OBAMA AND HIS
CRONIES IN BIG PHARMA AT WORK!
AMERICA’S SUICIDE:
PATHOLOGICAL
VIOLENCE, OPIOID
ADDICTION, STAGGERING POVERTY,
SOARING JOBLESSNESS FOR LEGALS
AND POVERTY FOR ALL….. While the rich
only get SUPER RICH!
PRINCETON REPORT:
American middle-class is addicted,
poor, jobless and suicidal…. Thank the corrupt government for surrendering our
borders to 40 million looting Mexicans and then handing the bills to middle
America?
WALL STREET TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: DIE YOUNG…
your company pension dies with you!
OPIOID AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION KILLS OF MIDDLE
AMERICA
SOARING
POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These
figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America,
the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the
globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll
taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
Millions of children go hungry as the super- rich gorge themselves
and ILLEGALS SUCK IN BILLIONS IN WELFARE!
"The top 10 percent of Americans now own roughly three-quarters of all household wealth."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/america-unravels-millions-of-children.html
"While telling workers there is “not enough money” for wage increases, or to fund social programs, both parties hailed the recent construction of the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, a massive aircraft carrier that cost $13 billion to build, stuffing the pockets of numerous contractors and war profiteers."
Unclaimed bodies pile up as opioid
overdose death rates soar and burial costs overwhelm the government
·
In 15 states, the government sets aside
money to cover the cost of cremating and burying the deceased who left no
assets behind
·
Other states push the financial burden
down to the local level
·
A 2004 report estimated that there are
40,000 unclaimed bodies stored in morgues across the US, and experts say that
number has risen in recent years
·
More than 115 people die from opioid
overdoses each day
·
The most affected populations are those
in lower income groups who are less likely to leave money behind to cover
burial costs
·
Hundreds of unclaimed remains are
stored in the basement of a funeral home in Worcester, Massachusetts, some
dating back to the 1800s
Unclaimed bodies are piling up across the US as state and local
governments struggle to keep up with payments to the funeral homes that spend
thousands to bury them.
A
2004 report estimated that there are 40,000 unclaimed bodies stored in morgues
across the US, and experts say that number has risen dramatically in recent
years in part due to the opioid crisis.
More
than 115 people die from opioid overdoses each day, and the most affected
populations are those in lower income groups who are less likely to leave money
behind to cover burial costs.
Funeral
homes across the US have been overwhelmed by the number of bodies that need to
be taken care of as they shoulder the cost and wait for government
reimbursement.
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·
Peter
Stefan, pictured, is the funeral director at a home in Worcester,
Massachusetts, that handles dozens of unclaimed bodies each year. He is
pictured in the basement where several of the bodies are stored
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·
In
Massachusetts, funeral directors are paid $1,110 for each unclaimed body
buried. The money is intended to cover the cost of labor, the casket, corpse
transportation and burial plot
'These
are human beings, someone's mother, father, sister, brother,' Peter Stefan, a
funeral director who buries dozens of unclaimed bodies a year in central
Massachusetts, said.
'What
do you do with these people? If I leave this place this way, the poor won't
have too many options.'
In
15 states, the government sets aside money each year to cover the cost of
cremating and burying the deceased who left no assets behind. Other states push
the financial burden down to the local level.
The
number of bodies that require government funding has grown as the opioid
epidemic - which claimed the lives of more than 64,000 last year - worsens.
Opiates
are now the leading cause of death for adults under 50.
In
West Virginia, drug overdose victims have used up nearly all the state
government money budgeted for the unclaimed dead.
West
Virginia has the highest rate of opioid deaths in the country, accounting for
52 per 100,000.
The
state saw a 25 percent increase in opioid-related deaths from 2015 to 2016.
According
to executive director of the state funeral directors association Robert Kimes,
homes that bury the indigent and unclaimed from March on will have to try to
recoup money from the state later, but there's no guarantee that they will be
paid back.
Lawmakers are considering lowering the
payment from $1,250 to $1,000 to make the fund last longer, Kimes said.
In
Massachusetts, a dwindling number of funeral homes are willing to shoulder the
cost of cremation or burial of unclaimed bodies because the state has failed to
keep up with reimbursements.
Funeral
directors in the state are reimbursed $1,110 for each unclaimed body buried.
That
payment, which is intended to cover the cost of labor, the casket,
transportation of the corpse and burial plot, hasn't risen in 35 years despite
an estimated 150 percent inflation rate in that period.
Many
funeral directors have said the actual cost of burying an unclaimed body is
double what the government pays them.
Cremation
is a cheaper option for disposing of unclaimed bodies, but it is only possible
if a family member signs off. On average, cremation costs about one third of
what burial does.
Hundreds
of cremated remains of unclaimed bodies are stores in the basement of Stefan's
funeral home, some dating back to the 1800s
Stefan
said that Massachusetts lawmakers should require local health boards to approve
cremation when relatives don't come forward within 30 days.
He
and his supporters, including Democratic state Senate President Harriette
Chandler, say they believe it would make more funeral homes willing to help out
with abandoned bodies.
Directors
recently became eligible for an extra $1,000 if they accept bodies from the
Massachusetts medical examiner's office, which investigates suicides and
suspicious and accidental deaths, but that accounts only for some bodies.
Robert
Lawler, director of a funeral home in Boston that buries about 100 bodies each
year, said:
'As
long as you have two or three funeral homes that are willing to do this, it's
not a problem. But what happens when we decide we can't do it anymore?'
Stefan
arranged the burial of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is often the
go-to funeral director for police, nursing homes and hospitals.
+8
·
Employees
at a funeral home in Massachusetts lower a casket containing the body of James
Oram, 82, into the ground. Oram died in a nursing home and his body was
left unclaimed
+8
·
Stefan
eventually discovered that Oram died with about $2,000, money that paid for his
burial instead of the state
Stefan
recounted the details of when a man named James Oram, 82, arrived at his
funeral home in Worcester hours after dying at a nursing home in January.
Oram's
body spent about a month in an unfinished basement in a large refrigerator
where Stefan can keep three bodies as he looks for relatives, money and burial
space. Other bodies are placed in caskets and stored in a room kept cold.
Stefan
eventually discovered that Oram died with about $2,000, money that paid for his
burial instead of the state.
The
basement also holds hundreds of containers of cremated remains that were never
picked up by relatives, some of which date to the 1800s.
The
state of Ohio used to pay $750 to homes, but has now shifted the burden to
local governments.
Today
some communities offer a set fee, while some smaller towns often won't budget
for it and funeral directors have to fight to just get paid $350, according to
Scott Gilligan, general counsel for the National Funeral Directors Association.
'A
lot of times, they just do it as good citizens,' Gilligan said.
In
Georgia the costs are also handled on the local level.
Floyd
County coroner Gene Proctor said he handled about 90 unclaimed sets of remains
last year.
Last
year he had to call five or six funeral homes every time he had an unclaimed
body before he could find one willing to bury it for the $1,250 the county
provided, he said.
'I
couldn't blame them because ... they're a business and they have to make money
to survive, and here I am asking them to cost themselves money,' he said.
The
county recently passed an ordinance that allows cremation of the unclaimed and
pays $750, which Proctor said has made a big impact.
+8
·
+8
·
Oram's
body is carted out of the home by funeral director Paul St Germaine and driver
Richard Derosiers and placed into the hearse so it can be taken to the cemetery
+8
·
Stefan
puts on a tie before heading out to the cemetery for Oram's burial on February
1, 2018
+8
·
St.
Germaine draws a cross in the dirt over Oram's grave directly after the ca
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