Heavy-duty prescription painkillers like hydrocodone and OxyContin are a big part of medicine in Nevada, with doctors prescribing them at a rate that almost reached one per person previous year.
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A joint investigation by The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that drug companies and allied advocates spent more than $880 million on lobbying and political contributions at the state and federal level over the past decade.
Since 2006, IL has had an average of 63 registered lobbyists each year employed by members of the Pain Care Forum, a loose coalition of drugmakers and dozens of nonprofit groups supported by industry funding.
Members of a little-known group called the Pain Care Forum have blanketed the nation’s capital for more than a decade with messages touting the vital role of prescription painkillers, creating an echo chamber that has quietly derailed efforts to curb US consumption of the drugs. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has received more than $16,000 from the drugmakers and their allies going back to 2009. Mike Crapo during the same period. Perdue Pharma, one of the largest opioid producers by sales, said it does not oppose policies “that improve the way opioids are prescribed” even if they result in lower sales.
The drugmakers and allied advocacy groups – such as the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network – also employed an annual average of 1,350 lobbyists in state capitals from Olympia to Tallahassee during that span, when opioids’ addictive nature came under increasing scrutiny.
Some of those public officials supported or killed key opioid legislation affecting patient prescriptions and the pharmaceutical companies’ bottom lines.
In his veto message, Cuomo wrote that the bill’s intent was laudable, but research on the new drugs’ effectiveness was limited and they’re approximately two to three times more expensive than other opioids.
Her office has taken a multi-pronged approach, including trying to get more doctors to use the state’s prescription monitoring program, encouraging residents to lock up their opioid prescriptions and campaigns to get residents to turn in unneeded painkillers to law enforcement drop boxes.
DRUG DEATHS: The number of Oregonians dying from drug overdoses is on the rise.
And while Ohio’s state lawmakers have introduced and pushed measures in recent years designed to address opioid abuse, the money can appear to create a conflict of interest with politicians who accept money from pro-pain management groups and then espouse the problems with said painkillers.
New Hampshire also had the nation’s third highest rate of drug overdose deaths per 100,000 people in 2014, behind only West Virginia and New Mexico.
Overdose deaths in Iowa from heroin and other opioid drugs more than doubled in the decade from 2005 to 2015, and treatment admissions more than quadrupled, according to state Department of Health data.
Opioids include prescription painkillers including OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet, and can be similar to heroin and morphine in their addictiveness.
Essentially, the agency said the risks of painkillers outweigh the benefits for the vast majority of patients with routine chronic pain and that doctors instead should consider alternatives like physical therapy.
The drug industry relied upon lobbyists and political contributions when the guidelines went before the Washington Legislature in 2010. “Though we do have a few Dr. Feelgoods, as we call them”, Dixon said. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
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