Hey FDA, Mind Your Own Business

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One of the first things I learned in my health care career is that pain is an inherently subjective experience. Different people experience different levels of pain in different situations, and everyone has their own idiosyncratic problem areas — one can’t bear dental pain while another finds back injuries unbearable. Because of this fact, backed up by neurological research, I was taught that we cannot take a cookie-cutter approach to pain management and that each patient deserves individual attention and an individual pain management plan, which is as important an aspect of the overall plan of care as any other therapy.

Our betters in the Food and Drug Administration know better. They know what my teachers and peers did not, and are prepared to implement a nationwide cookie-cutter pain management plan for every single one of three hundred million Americans. In their infinite wisdom, they have decided to make hydrocodone/acetaminophen combinations — the most well-known of which is Vicodin — harder to come by and to require patients to see their doctors — and pay for an office visit, of course — every time they need a refill of these fairly mild drugs…MORE

31 COMMENTS

  1. Get ready all you old F’ers, we have arrived at the old Soviet medical system.

    Yesterday I turned on my local AM station (rarely done theses days ) where they were talking about Obamacare. Lots of stories about doctors quitting, and the coming common practice of only seeing nurse practitioners in the future etc. One ER nurse in Burlingame (San Francisco bay area) called in with a recent story.

    A 72 year old man arrived in the ER after a stroke. The tests indicated a certain procedure should be done quickly to prevent more damage, and recover from the stroke. When the doctor ordered the procedure the hospital administrator said no, is too expensive to be done to a 72 year old patient. The doctor and nurses were stunned but had to comply. The 72 year old will now and forever be severely damaged because the procedure was not done. Under Obamacare that will become the norm.

        • Hideous.

          Now, to be clear, I would never presume to dictate to another person when their “time” has come (and expect the same courtesy in return). If a person wishes to end their life, it’s their business – as I see it, in accordance with the NAP and self-ownership.

          But when the state – when anyone else – arrogates unto themselves the power of life or death over others, you’ve crossed perhaps the greatest ethical line in the sand there is. On the other side of that line lie the crematoria and the gas chambers and the ditches dug by those about to occupy them.

          • eric, it happened in Tx last year. Amid no fanfare or public input, this beatch Susan King, a Rep. rep from Abilene, an ex-CCU nurse, introduced legislation to the Rep. controlled legislation giving the right of take someone off life support not to the family but to a doctor in charge. Family sees signs of someone getting well but the doc doesn’t, sayonara MF. Of course this is just one more example of the power insurance companies wield over all of us. We have become subservient to them and they now “own” the entire country. This makes your point about mandatory ins. of any sort. It’s just a bit of a step to the next law. I suspect this law and those responsible will ultimately come under fire, at least I hope so. Hospital administrators are just peeing their pants counting all the extra booty they can siphon off as their own. One hand washes the other…..and the people get to lick both.

          • Eric,
            I WILL dictate when someone’s time has come, based on the aggression against us to date.

            Think, “The Order” and the sin eater myth (?).

            Alex Bernier: And now it is I. I have been blessed and cursed… for now I possess the keys to the kingdom of heaven. I will forgive those who deserve freedom. I will damn those who have damned themselves. I will learn to live after love has died. I am the sin eater.

            The State doesn’t pretend to be the Sin Eater, it pretends to be GOD.
            Personally, I have an issue with that – because it’s a direct corrollary to another quote, this from a real person:
            “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

            — C.S. Lewis

            IE, the State believes they are God. (Whether there is or is not a god is immaterial. They aim to MAKE one…)
            I lived under that (at home) until I was 27. One set of rules for my parents, and one for me. I don’t mean they could drive, while I at 15 was not allowed to. (IE, child’s temper tantrum.) I mean, at 23, I was not allowed to go ON DATES WITHOUT A CHAPERONE sort of control. Was not allowed to get my driver’s license. Did not buy a car until 25, and then was “sold” my father’s car which he was replacing…
            Yet my sister got her first car at 18. Driver’s license at 17, IIRC. I am the biological child; she is adopted. I was “immature” from about 10 onwards; her first word was “NO” and she was always an adult. She gets to run around; I am expected to be celibate.

            Better to rule in thie Hell than serve in that “Heaven.”
            And I’ll do all I can to ensure that sort of “Heaven” doesn’t manifest itself in my country.

            We’re going to be the USA of “Escape from Los Angeles:” No Smoking, No Drinking, No Drugs, military control of the country, and a Theocracy (Statism).

            I can’t find the quote I was seeking, not John Adams (or Quincy), or Madison, or Paine…
            It was something to the effect of, it is better to resist Early, when victory is easy; as, if you resist later, you will have to fight – and it will be harder and more difficult. And ultimately, you may have to fight when there is no chance of winning, because death is preferable to living under the system of laws/rules/tyranny.

            And, as much as we agree on Madison’s contemptible role in bringing us here, even HE warned us of what we’ve become:
            Democracy is the most vile form of government… democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

            Also:
            The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
            ___

            I also have no illusions about where it leads, but i’m headed there anyway… So no loss.

        • Maybe I should apply.
          “Cheap, painless death!
          Steps:
          1. Pay me.
          2. Confession / last rites / preparations.
          3. Pull pin.
          4. Hold to chest, just under chin.
          5. Count down from 100, and by the the time you reach 1, you’ll be moved off this mortal coil.

          Note: Some dis-assembly required. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Void where prohibited. Funeral will be closed-casket. “

        • “Bioethics”–love the Orwellian sound of it.

          A recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethis (sic) advocated “post-birth” abortions of three-year-olds.

          Aside from any intellectual, philosophical objection to this monstrosity…I take one look at my hilarious, clever little two-year-old son to recoil at the viciousness of these psychopaths.

          That it wasn’t greeted by worldwide condemnation shows how successfully the sociopaths have recruited people to their pathology.

          That it IS being greeted with condemnation in certain circles shows how quickly people are waking up from this nightmare.

          • There’s got to be an analogy the the quote on Soiclaism: “The problem with socialism is, you evnetually run out of other people’s money.”
            The problem with Sociopathy is, eventually someone ELSE decides YOU are the problem… And tries to fix it. And sometimes they only get it half right – leaving you wishing they’d been more successful.

            Maybe a picture of a half-body, legs removed, “other parts” removed… And Morse code symbols for “kill me”, as in Metallica’s “one”.
            Or maybe just, “I wish they hadn’t missed.”

          • Garysco, just had a sneezing fit, eyes watering and read that missive to Jean as “as you walked through the hospital with your MP5 and earbuds plugged in”

          • Here’s a link to the article
            http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full

            Institutional Christianity can best be understood as a vehicle for social eugenics. Religious wars are fought with the goal of exterminating the enemies whose religious beliefs are “incorrect.”

            The nanny state is a form of social eugenics, it encourages and assures that the right kind of people who do the right kind of things succeed. Regardless of whether they are more productive than anyone else.

            American & UK Christians are murdering Islamists for eugenics reasons. All religious wars are eugenics driven. World War I and II were fought because the Peoples Front of Judea and the Judean Peoples Front were highly motivated to kill each other and win a eugenics holy war.

            Libertarians and conservatives are likely as eugenic as anyone else. Though usually not verbalized, few have issues with incarceration, sterilization, financial penalties, and marginalization of the sort of freeloaders who fill the ghettos.

            The root of modern collectivism is belief in there being a viable method to improve the mass of humanity by encouraging people with desired traits to succeed and for people with undesirable traits to fail.

            Let’s say for arguments sake that in 2014 it is discovered that crack smoking men who serially impregnate women and then abandon them are the most successful, productive, and happy cohort in society.

            This surprising fact was discovered after the anarchist libertarians in Florida won a majority in all elections in 2014, and successfully sued to have the constitution reinstated.

            They then nullified all laws that didn’t violate the NAP. The price of drugs dropped instantly. In the second week, it was discovered that crack-smokers were able to work 20 hour days, with no adverse effects in their productivity.

            They all quickly became extremely rich. They moved to the best neighborhoods, bought the best of everything, and all manner of women flocked to them night and day, and the crack-heads had quite a good time of it.

            Many of them were impregnating a dozen women a week. It was forecast that they would soon be the ruling class of Florida, if nothing was done.

            Those who paid lip service to the free-market went ape-shit. There appeared out of nowhere new anarchist and libertarian philosophers who found some justification or other to revamp and modify the NAP and it became the NAP+.

            The new doctrine was called sustainable exuberance. It was an addendum to Leonard Reed’s anything peaceful. Anything peaceful was permitted unless it involved social risk and instability.

            The libertarian doctrine of Social Risk & Instability became a bedrock principle of anarchy and libertarianism and things remained largely as they had always been.

            The PTB came to be mostly libertarian and anarchists, because now they were the ones able to harness and thrive by ruling as parasites by freeing and then unfreeing the crack heads who surprisingly were great builders, engineers, and problem solvers.

            The crackheads allowed their new masters to rule over them, because at least it was better than it was before. Plus they were part of the most admired system in the world. They themselves were libertarian and anarchist men of honor.

            They build massive public works that lifted every last person out of poverty and want. It was made legal for them to have only one wife. And to have 2 1/2 children. It’s the group consensus after all.

            The libertarians and anarchists got all the credit of course. They were the great new leaders who had shown the world a better way.

            A better way to use social eugenics and for the herd to rule over the individual and over the phyle.

            Some things may never change.

  2. The FDA is just one cog of the Crypto-Fascist-Soviet dominant health conglomerate in the world: the US-PHS
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_Service_Act

    (AHRQ) (ATSDR) (CDC) (FDA) (HRSA) (IHS) (NIH) (SAMHSA)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Public_Health_Service

    Through this 1944 PHS act – Big Pharma, Big HMO, Big Ag, and other cartels control and shape American lives to maximize control and wealth extraction; and increasingly also the lives of everyone on Earth.

    The takeover we fought against – from UK, Nazi, Soviet, and other Menaces has already occurred quietly and incrementally all around us.

    The USSA is a collective zombie without humanity, honor, or decency. It will bite and infect you if you let it. Stop staring blankly at its hypno-screens and find away to reclaim what’s left of your humanity.
    _________________________________________

    Global household wealth is $241 trillion. Most of it can be made to increase or disappear at the whim of central bankers.

    The good news is poverty is declining worldwide, and billions of people are better off than they were. The bad news is nearly all wealth is now being tightly monitored and under the thumb of the world wide banker police state control grid.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/credit-suisse-global-household-wealth-increases-49-to-usd-241-trillion-marked-by-a-resurgence-of-wealth-in-the-eurozone-2013-10-09

    The average adult Earthling is worth $51,600.

    The average Swiss is worth $513,000.

    Everything is Their business. Our lives and ability to conceive of and then generate new wealth are the real assets of the central bankers.

  3. Impact in the U.S.from the Crisis on Key Wealth Measures

    Between June 2007 and November 2008, Americans lost more than a quarter of their net worth.

    By early November 2008, a broad U.S. stock index, the S&P 500, was down 45 percent from its 2007 high. Housing prices had dropped 20% from their 2006 peak, with futures markets signaling a 30–35% potential drop. Total home equity in the United States, which was valued at $13 trillion at its peak in 2006, had dropped to $8.8 trillion by mid-2008 and was still falling in late 2008.

    Total retirement assets, Americans’ second-largest household asset, dropped by 22 percent, from $10.3 trillion in 2006 to $8 trillion in mid-2008. During the same period, savings and investment assets (apart from retirement savings) lost $1.2 trillion and pension assets lost $1.3 trillion. Taken together, these losses total $8.3 trillion.

  4. Hey FDA and alphabet soup nazis. Thanks for impoverishing me to the extent that I’m living in a van down by the river.

    Instructions for Vandwellers to cross over to Algodones.
    http://cheaprvlivingblog.com/2013/02/shopping-in-algodones-mexico-for-dental-glasses-and-prescription-drugs/

    Life is beautiful when you’re a motivational speaker/blogger and start living in a van down by the Rio Grande river.

    Hola ninyos. Me llamo Tor Minotaur. Y yo soy un movitational speaker. Yo vivo en un van circa de un rio.

    Matt Foley Mexican Motivational Speaker
    http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/863354/

    Senor Minotaur, where you study spanish, taco bell?

  5. I like the Mexican pain management plan. Pharmacies stock the pills and the pain sufferer walks in and buys them. Aceteminophen is toxic to the liver, even in small amounts if taken regularly, and is absolutely worthless for pain anyway, unles it’s a mild headache you’re experiencing. Even for that use, the health risk isn’t worth the little bit of relief you might get from the shit.

    Pain management is the business of the person suffering the pain. If someone needs Dilaudid, he should be able to buy a jar of 1,000 doses for cash from the pharmacist and take them as needed if that’s what gives him relief.

    We need the DEA like we need cancer. Just my opinion, of course.

    • Yall must be un-Amerikun. As a rep of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling I want you to know that those people killing themselves with pills deserve death, they should be drinking. And…what?….who? Monsanto? Bayer? Excuse me, I have to take a call….or two…or three But before I leave, I want you to know that all our members are supporters of DARE and “competing” acronyms. aieeee aieeee get that dog off me….aieeeee

    • Ed, a few misconcepciones about Mexico, they don’t have the good stuff at any pharmacia I’ve been to and that’s a bunch. Hell, I broke ribs in mexico and was near Guatemala and the pharmacia barely had valium. They had something the non-English speaking doctor and the non-Spanish speaking me couldn’t translate. I could never even find it on the internet in English so never did find out what it was except a anti-inflammatory…but after several hundred miles of driving it will make you sleep or maybe just being up forever will do that. Anyway, when you total your truck in Mexico, just hope it’s a GM so it will drive thousands of miles afterward and even the a/c is killer, no matter your shocks are blown.

  6. What’s this? Make pain pills harder to come by while keeping marijuana illegal? (screw the “medical marijuana” movement, that’s just a government ploy to get users to put their name on a list so the Feds can raid them. Never trust the government!)… Wow, it’s almost like the government doesn’t want the public to learn for themselves how to medicate themselves, but rely on the government to do so. Who would’ve thought?

    “But Jacob, there’s a pill epidemic going on!” My reply: No shit! I’ve got plenty of former friends and even a family member succumbing to pill addiction. Let the pill heads pop all the pills they want, Darwinism will take effect. Sure, watching your loved ones kill themselves because they refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions is hard (understatement of my life…), but it’s better than the government attempting to “fix” the problem. (“fix” being in quotes because of course “their” goal is to exacerbate the problem so that “they” can swoop in with the solution, a one world government, that will continue to cause problems that “they” will have “solutions” for.).

    • That is absolutely correct, but the correct terminology reads like this:

      “solution” should be “revenue streams” and “fix” should be “control”

      • Yes, that is what I meant to say. The way I originally typed it does sound much too soft, as if anyone in the government (other than low level, brainwashed, sheep) actually want to “fix” any issues. Control and make money…because why work when you can force others to do it for you?

        • I know you meant it. I just felt like saying it. The whole shit makes me sick. Different subject, but I’ve been taking a .NET class up near DC in Manassas. Learning Tree has as small office rented out in a building there. In the building are a bunch of small businesses operating. A lady and I are the only ones in the class at this location. Anyhow, the people that work in the building are total douche bags. Seeing people like these and how they operate and act at work really leads me to believe a lot of people deserve all this nasty-ness America is going through. I hate these pencil neck pretentious pussies who every other word is “my MBA.” Fucking clowns..

          • I feel you on the “a lot of people deserve all this nasty-ness America is going through” thing. The housing crisis of ’08 was/is fucked up, but I can name off a lot of people who had their fake ass lifestyle ripped right out from under them, and they more than deserve it. I won’t name any names, but amongst them are: fake marriages where both wife and husband were cheating on each other and spreading their immorality wherever they went because “they are richer than you, therefore more successful, so shut the fuck up about your moral values!” and all their shit head kids, who dealt drugs throughout the neighborhood to other kids, and used their parents status to their advantage…. some of these shithead kids I’m talking about still live at home, and they’re my age and older (to which I applaud. Keep the sheep sucking on mom’s tits, it’ll be that much “better” when it all comes crashing down around them)…. I say, bring on the collapse so these pieces of shit can see life how it’s supposed to be (success through actual work, not mooching off mommy and daddy, and not mommy and daddy mooching off the system)

            And just to dovetail this reply back into the article we’re commenting under… these piece of shit kids I’m talking about ARE THE EXACT REASON FOR THE PILL EPIDEMIC IN AMERICA. Rich parents whose “kids” (25+ year old adults…) get to live on their dime, go to the doctor, fake illnesses or “pains” so that they can get prescribed opiates, then sell them to the rest of the neighborhoods. They are almost untouchable because mommy and daddy are turning the blind eye and have lots of money to hide behind. This all is worth a full length rant, for sure. I’ll see what I can do about that.

            • Hey Jacob,

              Ditto in re those who got what they deserved. I must admit to some Schadenfreude on that score.

              I knew people who would take out massive equity loans on their bubble-inflated house to buy a brand new high-end car, a motorcycle, etc. Meanwhile, I’d keep paying down my mortgage . . .

              After a few years of what I perceived to be unsustainable double-digit annual increases in home values in my area (this was early 2000s, in Northern Va.) I decided it was time to get the fuck out. I’d always wanted to live in the country anyhow – and this seemed like the moment to do it. That is, before the music stopped and there was no place to sit anymore.

              So, we sold the house in Sterling (near Dulles Airport, not far from DC) for more than twice what I’d paid for it when I bought back in the late ’90s. And instead of doing what the id-e-ots (say it Dr. Evil style) were doing at the time – that is, buying a bigger, much more expensive McMansion – we bought a less expensive place and reduced our cost of living by probably 50 percent.

              I could have bought several new cars, a bunch of new bikes – all kinds of stuff. But I didn’t. Instead, I did the prudent, responsible thing. I see no reason why others aren’t expected to do the same thing – much less why they believe they’re entitled to bail-outs (at my expense) when things go to shit.

          • I’m with you on the MBA thing Dom. What kind of person needs to go to school for 4+ years to start a business? Being an engineer I hear all these MBA’s telling everyone how they need cheap engineers so they can be directed by MBA’s by their “investment fortitude”.

            Every fantastic successful thriving business I ever worked for was ran and started by geeks and engineers, without a MBA. Its in the latter year when the suave MBA comes in and the short sighted bean counters that the former becoming corpses. I can always tell when a company has peaked, the CEO and president are MBA’s and the CFO is the secon in line and HR and head hunter pricks rule the sidelines.

            One billion dollar company I worked for founded by a physicist and some engineers made engineering equipment. They got all their ideas from engineers needing a certain peice of equipment and just building it and trying to sell it. It was rudimentary entrepeneurship that went something like well shit I need XYZ, there is no XYZ, maybe I’ll build it and sell it. And wouldn’t ya know it was a big money maker almost always. Then the 80’s and 90’s the MBA’s took over the company after the geek/inventor/business leader who started died, they said we have to target our markets with decisive leadership and no more engineering guess. The answer was to look at the competitors and decide they needed to do the same thing. Always a day late and dollar short. This company is now in a near death spiral from 30K employees at its peak to 2K now. That’s what MBAs do.

            They can’t design, they can’t even think critical and so they take credit for others that do. One of my mentors from long ago was both an engineer and MBA, and he said something quite funny. Like why don’t alll these brilliiant geniuses go prove their worth and merits by starting and running their own businessses into success. Of course he was being sarcastic.

            As far as I’m concerned all MBA classes should be dumped in the toilet along with arts degrees. College should only exist for geek degrees and medical, the rest should get a job working mediocre jobs instead of manning government posts and running profitable companies into the ground.

            One thing you got to love though is I’m starting to see a lot of trust fund babies starting to feel the heat. They got all soft unlike their grandads that made them rich, and the belly of the beast has slowly been eating their historic gains. Blue collarism is going to make a comeback soon for the unproductive just like Carnegie predicted in the great churning.

            Regards,
            HR

          • Just one point about your perspective, Jacob, RE: children living at home with mom and dad.
            It’s not exactly a bad thing.
            [And, no, I don’t live at home with mom and dad.]

            It’s just that generational families living under the same roof was once a more common thing in this unitedstate. It wasn’t a bad thing at all. There’s nothing wrong with pooling resources to get ahead. In fact, I recommend it to everyone, especially older people. Many people Need to bunch up. To survive.

            One example of a current template for that is group homes for the elderly. They all share one kitchen and one nurse. But what they really need (maybe?) is some children running around to give them light and a reason to live and be productive.
            Not too mention the parents could benefit from free child care and their children could learn things no public school will teach them. …Hmm, maybe that’s why living at home is so frowned upon by so many gooberment lovers?

            That’s just my take.

            • Morning, RBH!

              I agree.

              The separation of people via age class is one of the things that dehumanized this society. Older people get cordoned off in “retirement” communities, then old folks’ homes. They see their kids – and grand kids – maybe a couple times a year. Parents hang out with other parents; single people with other singles. It’s limiting – and sad. Also, stressful – financially and otherwise. Both of us (my wife and I) have parents who are getting older – but who are physically distant and so, when something happens, it will mean having to travel to another state (or across the country) just to be in the same vicinity.

              I understand wanting to get out of the house when you’re 18. But I also don’t see that it’s a negative thing to stay until you’ve built up some financial wherewithal – especially if everyone gets along and contributes to the household.

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