Op-Ed By Larry Golbom – Addiction: The FDA and OxyContin
August 21, 2009
This is an editorial written by Larry Golbom of Prescription Addiction Radio. All viewpoints are welcome here at US Recall News. If you would like to write an editorial response please use the comment section below or contact us with your proposal.
FDA: Please Stop Oxycontin! By Larry Golbom:
In February 2009, the FDA announced that they would begin the process to require Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) to help curtail the misuse of the drugs referred to as opioid pain products. The FDA has been negligent in not responding to the crisis sooner. In response, the companies and organizations that benefit most from the unencumbered distribution of oxycodone, fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, and oxymorphone have started to react.
In my state, Florida has the most detailed public statistics available concerning drug related deaths and 2008 was a banner year for the drug companies. In Florida, the deaths implicated with oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin, increased 25%, fentanyl 19%, and Hydrocodone 8%. Heroin displayed a 20% increase, the drug most closely interchangeable with oxycodone. As the over marketing and over production of the addictive narcotics continues to flood every community in the country the response from the drug industry is becoming more refined. There was recently a well organized effort directed at the FDA to continue the status quo on the prescription narcotics and many people in the Hospice industry responded. It is interesting that people who help the terminally ill and see the suffering an end of life disease can bring have been lead to believe by an organization partly funded by the drug industry that the FDA is considering curtailing pain relief to those who are in the most need. The evolving response by those who claim to be advocates for pain relief is to exploit those in our society who need the most compassion and caring. A rational discussion to curtail addiction and death must include professionals who take care of the terminally ill, but not to include representatives who profit from an over proliferation of proven products that have been proven to be dangerous.
My previous writings have been detailed in connecting the increased production of legal narcotics under the guise of pain relief. The mantra that “millions of people in pain are being undertreated” has helped drive the excuse to allow “pain management clinics” to proliferate around the country. With every pain management clinic more potentially addictive drugs will reach our streets. The silence from our medical professionals, public officials, elected officials and medical boards, along with the lack of understanding by the major media allows the silent and growing epidemic of death and addiction to continue.
The literature defines three basic forms of pain: Terminal, Acute and Chronic. Terminal pain needs little explanation. An end of life disease may cause excruciating pain prior to death and the World Health Organization addressed this issue over 20 years ago. The literature and health community should be well versed on treating a terminal patient without limitations.
Acute pain is generally thought of as short term. A day surgical procedure, dentist appointment and procedures that require hospitalization all fit into this category. The pain has a limited time frame and intensive narcotic pain therapy, if necessary, is warranted. However, we still have practitioners who don’t understand that 40 to 60 Percocet may be the first step to a world of dependence and/or addiction.
Chronic pain is the form of pain that has become the most susceptible to the exploitation and misunderstanding of “pain therapy“. It has started with the medical establishment forgetting that pain is a symptom and not a disease. Ironically, most of the wisdom in the medical literature concludes that addiction is a disease and we now have thousands of medical practitioners creating a disease from treating a symptom. The disease of addiction has become a growing phenomenon as a result of medical incompetency. We try to avoid cardiac disease, diabetes, HIV, etc. but, continue to condone the dispensing of products, with few safeguards that have been linked to creating the disease of addiction.
If an individual cannot stop taking a drug due to suffering adverse consequences from discontinuing the drug, I believe that is addiction. Contrary to my analysis, the “experts” have created the differentiation of addiction, dependence and tolerance. Addiction is a mental instability that creates a craving beyond the scope of rational medical use. Only addicts smash through front windows or point guns at people to get more drugs. Addiction is defined with psychological shortcomings.
Dependence and tolerance are simply outcomes from “rational medical care”. The reality is those who are dependent or tolerant cannot stop taking the drugs without serious physical and mental complications (withdrawal). Whereas addiction is defined as a psychological problem, dependence and tolerance are only defined as physical complications. The latest literature indicates a strong correlation that depression may predispose an individual to being more sensitive to pain. The psychological effects of those consuming the opioids daily is conveniently avoided in the discussion for those defined as tolerant or dependent by the drug companies.
There is presently a site on the internet requesting the FDA to immediately begin to stop the distribution of OxyContin http://www.banoxycontin.com. With only one local TV station and with the help from two newspaper publications it has garnered thousands of signatures and comments asking our public officials to stop the proliferation of OxyContin onto our streets. The public is beginning to understand that OxyContin is simply a controlled release form of oxycodone. Oxycodone has been available to medicine for over 60 years and it was Purdue Pharma starting in late 1995 who apparently realized that marketing a product similar to heroin would be highly profitable. The FDA is well aware of OxyContin’s limitations in the use of medicine, is aware of Purdue’s marketing tactics, and is aware that the question of the risks exceeding the rewards for the use of OxyContin is long overdue for review. The comments from independent sources is bringing the long term use of opioids for chronic pain into serious question. Betts Tully, a “pain patient”, in part, submitted this to the FDA on June 30, 2009:
* “This is not, nor has ever been a complicated issue. The benefits do not outweigh the risks. A medical examiner in 2002 stated that “it does not take a rocket scientist to connect the dots, where OxyContin is concerned, even if poly-drug use is involved, in these deaths. The common element of OxyContin in all these deaths, speaks volumes“.
* “The scientific evidentiary basis for OxyContin, as well as aggressive narcotic prescribing practices for the treatment of moderate pain, is flawed if not outright junk science, designed to drive profits only. Real studies are needed for dangerous products before these drugs and new practices are unleashed on the public.”
* “The claim that severe and chronic pain is or was “undertreated” is unfounded and scientifically inaccurate. Accepted scientific evidence, based on rigorous study has never been conducted.”
The tobacco companies successfully thwarted the legal community for many years. Everyone knew tobacco was dangerous and it has only been recently in which the tobacco companies are losing lawsuits to the victims do to the misrepresentation of tobacco. I remain hopeful that the media and legal community will begin to look more closely at the cause of our loved ones being hurt and our communities suffering from the continued growth of the growing distribution of the legal narcotics. Our wait for the FDA to react continues.
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12 Responses to “Op-Ed By Larry Golbom – Addiction: The FDA and OxyContin”
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Another excellent article from Larry Golbom, Host of Prescription Addiction Radio. He highlights the complexities of the poorly understood disease of addiction which has exploded nationally largely due to the overuse of prescription opioids for millions of patients for the ’symptom’ of pain, many of whom have had chronic pain and pain sensitivity associated with anxiety and depressive disorders [Check out the references cited: "Patients with depression frequently suffer from medically unexplained pain" and "MRI reveals relationship between depression and pain"]. This excessive, nonselective use of OxyContin and other opium-derived products as successfully promoted for profit by the opioid industry [with the complicity of the FDA], has led to the progressive, mounting toll of addictions, diversion, crime, overdose, and death, which needs to be better understood by the medical community, media and public.
Mr. Golbom speaks very truthfully and accurately regarding the scourge that Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, has wrought upon this country. This drug took our daughter from us three years ago, she was only 18. She made a simple mistake and accepted an OxyContin pill offered to her by a relative. One pill. This was her only experience with this dangerous drug.
This drug flooded the medicine cabinets of America after being illegally marketed by Purdue, a company convicted of a felony for lying to doctors and the American public about the dangers of this drug to increase profits. Once it was widely distributed, it became increasingly used nonmedically. Young people assume that any drug that is in the family medicine cabinet with a doctor’s name on the vial must be safe. The results have been tragic.
As Mr. Golbom has stated, FDA is well aware of the danger of this drug, the thousands of deaths annually from its use, misuse and abuse, and Purdue’s illegal marketing tactics, yet this company is allowed to continue to market the drug as always, with but a slap on the wrist. IT IS SHAMEFUL FOR A GOVERNMENT AGENCY TO ALLOW THIS TO CONTINUE GIVEN THE HISTORY OF THIS DRUG. The dominating influence of the drug companies extends well beyond the halls of Congress into the very agency that is charged with ensuring the safety of drug use in the U.S.
We now have a new President. Unfortunately, thus far the Obama Administration has not shown that it means business in reducing the unnecessary deaths from OxyContin and other dangerous opioids. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I think ,that in this op-ed piece, we will have to agree to disagree. After two traumatic brain injuries I began to suffer from a variety of symptoms. One is severe pain where my spine connect to my brain. If I was to lay in bed, on my back all day and never move I, most likely, could live relatively pain free. However, having two kids, a wife and a job lying in bed is not an option. I spent 2 years and $100,000’s of dollars out of my money and my health insurance money to figure out how to stop the constant pain. I visited John’s Hopkins hospital, Georgetown University, Emory University and 7-8 of the best neurologist within a 300 miles from my home. After completing 2 years of constant medical therapy (of all kinds-except opioid) I could find no relief. I lost my job as a systems programmer with a major company. I lost my home. I lost my self respect. And I was loosing my wife and children. I was not going to let this injury take my family too.
It wasn’t until I entered pain management and was administered oral morphine in a long acting form that I started to get some relief. After 6 months of figuring out a holistic treatment that included “narcotics” (not a word I would use) was I able to get out of bed on a simi-regular basis. I now work as much as I can, thank God for everyday the sun comes up and my wife and children love me for who I am not what has happened to me and what I have to do to take to control my symptoms.
You sir, though I agree with you about oxycontin, are a misinformed fool. You state,”If an individual cannot stop taking a drug due to suffering adverse consequences from discontinuing the drug, I believe that is addiction”. You would be wrong. The body has it’s own pain receptors that handle pain. They are there for a reason. However, when these mechanisms within the body cannot handle the signals sent to them they need a boost from artificial means.If those means are opioids then the body becomes dependent on opioid medication. When you take that boost away and the body begin to revert to it’s original chemical settings. During that period It effects the person in many unpleasant ways.
To classify people in pain as addicts is morally wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself. YES, there are people who abuse their medication and there should be monitoring to make sure that no one does. And if one were to fall into the depths of addiction treatment should be available. But you have gone too far in your assessment of people in pain. You make generalizations that do not include all people in pain. It’s people like you that make it difficult for people in pain to get the relief they need to have the will to live. Unless you think that we (people in pain)should all just die. I would suggest you reconsider your position.
I totally agree with Mr. Golbom.
It is most commonly our licensed practitioners who legally prescribe these drugs that are causing addiction. They hand them out like candy. Although the focus should be on identifying the cause of the health problem the “prescription” solution takes priority in dealing with it quickly albeit unsafe and leading to deadly consequences. Our addiction specialists need to educate everyone, starting with the medical community about what addiction is — a HEALTH ISSUE requiring support and safe treatment. The police also require education and support in understanding the disease of addiction and how to safely approach someone who may be addicted. This education cannot come from a drug company like Purdue Pharma who very clearly only has a vested interest in their profit margin. WAKE UP FDA.
Mr. Golbum has once again shined the light of truth on the deceptive practices of Big Pharma, the FDA, drug dealing “Doctor’s” and the addicted patients they “treat”.
America had better wake up to the facts surrounding the liberal prescribing of narcotic medications, and the fact that the pharmecutical companies and the “Doctors” doing the liberal prescribing are only in it for themselves. There are legitimate patients who need these medications, that is understood, but at the same time a person with a toothache should not be prescribed OxyContin. Purdue Pharma would have you believe differently of course, but let’s please keep in mind that they are a multiple felony convicted company.
Florida, for example, loses more people to death and addiction from OxyContin in one year, than the total number of Soldiers we have lost in the Iraq War since it started. That statistic is shameful and should grab the government and the FDA’s attention, but it does not. The new Drug Czar, Gil Kerlakowski has said prescription drug misuse would be a top priority for him – so far he has not delivered. The crimes associated with these dangerous drugs are out of control. Murder, assualt, robbery. When was the last time you read about someone robbing a pharmacy for Bayer Aspirin? You don’t – they get robbed for OxyContin.
The “Pain Orgs” funded by Purdue Pharma that exploit pain sufferers for their own monetary gain, have been drawn into the light as well. The FDA turns a blind eye to them, just as they do the phamecutical companies. Any legitimate pain patient who needs their medication should not have to enlist the help of a “Pain Org” (or is it the other way around?) to get the medications they need. The “Pain Orgs” seem to exist for one thing only – helping pharmecutical companies peddle their dangerous drugs, through dishonest “Doctors”, to unsuspecting patients.
The FDA has only one choice here – ban and / or re-classify these drugs to only those that truly need them. REMS is like putting a band-aid on an arterial wound. It won’t work. This problem is too widespread. The days of the Big Pharma money making, at the expense of the legitimate patient have got to be over.
In the guestbook of my website are thousands of death and addiction stories and MANY started as patients. The FDA has ignored this fact for too long and needs to evaluate the risk/reward for oxycontin in moderate pain cases and in general.
I agree with the fight to ban Oxycotin. I also feel for people in pain, but oxycotin and opoids are over prescribed and under controlled. Take Oxycotin off the market. What kind of medicine was prescribed to chronic pain suffers before Oxycotin? Have the FDA hire a company to make a different kind of pain killer with all the money they fined Purdue Pharma. I have seen so many people young and old get addicted to these opoids. I have lost two nephews to Oxycotin.My sister who grew up in a great family and great person got addicted to percoset from a back injury and now is a Heroin addict. My sister in now alive and on suboxene but her story is real and her only wish in life was that she never picked up. If you need an addict to describe to you or help you in any way with the life of this addiction I am sure she will be glad to help. GET THE DRUG OFF OF THE MARKET, SO MANY HIGH SCHOOL KIDS ARE GOING FROM OXYCOTIN TO HEROIN IT IS HORRIBLE.
I have lost both my children to oxycotin, and my grandchildren has been without parents because of it. All it took was trying it once and they were hooked. I say someone is making a killing in money for other people dying on oxycotin. I think we should all file a lawsuit on the govenment and pharmacutical companies for pain, anguish, suffering and the lost of our childrens and family lives maybe they would see the how the oxycotins are destroying all families.
I walk both sides of this issue. I lost a child, sister , mother, and almost my brother , either directly or indirectly related to OXY. I also suffer 3 debilitating diseases. My pain is severe, my fear of OXY is worse.
I was addicted @ 17 to IV Demerol. Auto accident caused 17 fractures, collapsed lung. I certainly didn`t choose this, and was before the days of Morphine pumps.
Doctors want you to be comfortable and Nurses want you to be quiet. It`s a fine line, and hopefully you don`t fall over it. I did. It sucked, was one of the hardest things I ever did, the funny thing is I didn`t realise(nor did my Doctor) that it was withdrawal I was sick from.
Although in believe in pain relief for those of us that NEED it, I also believe that Oxycontin is specifically manufactured to addict people, therefore is a danger to society and needs to be recalled, just like tires, playpens, blinds, food and any other thing that injures, kills people inadvertently.
Obama has ties to big Pharma and it`s time he TRULY understands what his decisions mean.
oxycontin is ruining and killing people everyday, and after being found guilty of false info about the drug,and the addictiveness of it ,and the lives that have been lost and families that it has destroyed to my opion it should be banned any med with opium should be banned and the fda should be held responsible and forced to ban opiates after all they did lie about it’s effects ,so ban it now and forever and award evryone that it has caused harm….
Hello my name is Staicia Southern. I’m a sixteen-year old girl from California and I am highly interested in becoming an anti-OxyContin activist and help put a stop to the addiction and loses of our loved ones. Over the passed couple of months I have lost two friends of mine to this drug. When I found out about my friend, at first I couldn’t believe it. Know one expected it from him, know one knew he was abusing this drug and then all of the sudden he’s gone, just like that. At that moment I decided that I wasn’t going to just wait around to see which one of my friends is going to die next. I decided I’m going to do something about it, I am going to do everything in my power to let the world know about this harsh drug and that our children are getting ahold of it and that one little interaction with this drug can take them away from us forever. I can only imagine the pain of what it feels like to loose a child, but the pain of loosing close friends at sixteen hurts. These friends of mine weren’t bad people, they were genuinely good true-hearted kids and wonderful friends, always full of life and smiling and making sure if you were having a bad day that they’d cheer you up.
For years now, tons people I used to hang out with and call my friends have turned to this drug and completely neglected everything else. It has turned them into shady, deceiving people that I would rather not have in my life, and so I choose to stop hanging out with them, and I stuck with a small group of friends i trusted. But even in this small group of friends, that drug found its way in and took the life of someone I loved.
I want to talk to as many kids and families as possible and just get let them be aware, and if I can do more I will. If it saves one life at least I know doing something right. My friends that are gone no longer have a voice to speak for this, so I believe that it is my duty to be the voice for them.
My dad was a recovering alcoholic who had been sober for about 5 years. After a surgery, he was perscribed Oxycontin by a doctor. This was in the same hospital that my father had been in for rehab several years earlier. I will forever be curious why there was no red flag on his medical records that alerted he had a history with addiction? My highschool years were spent watching him spiral out of control with this terrible drug and Oxycontin was the ultimate cause of his death. When the doctor wrote that script, he wrote my dad’s death sentance.