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Fortunately, the recent court determinations rejecting anti-opioid’s "public nuisance" arguments in California and Oklahoma will potentially serve as the opportunity to turn the tide of blatant misinformation being relentlessly shoved down the throats of the naïve public.

Less the potential of being awarded mindboggling sums of pharmaceutical company earnings, it would appear the principal motivation ($$$$) of the entities pursuing such litigation has been primarily eradicated from the equation.

Consequently, now would appear to be the opportune time to finally get rid of the false narrative and replace it with the truth.

Pain patients are not now, nor have they ever been the primary source of the government-created overdose crisis.

Get the government out of our doctor's offices!

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Well done, Peter.

I communicate weekly with patients who have been force-tapered and denied safe and effective opioid therapy because of the false narratives being peddled by people like Alex Gibney, Andrew Gibmen and Anna Lemke. Interestingly, Lemke's supposedly "expert" testimony on behalf of a prosecutor going after a pharmaceutical company was recently rejected by a judge who found that the medical literature from which Lemke quoted did not support the conclusions she drew from it. Likewise, judges in California and Oklahoma have recently thrown out "public nuisance" lawsuits against pharma companies, on similar grounds.

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Many Pain doctors were raided by jack booted thugs while patients were in the waiting room. Lost licences, went to prison. I know I sent you the article on the 300 Drs in Tennessee, it's disapeared off the search engines. Dr. Forest Tennent was treated badly. New illicit drug https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/florida-southern-border-biden-drug-cartels-mexico-dea the illict drugs flowing across our open borders has only grown.

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How do we get to Netflix/HBO to tell our side of the story: THE CHRONIC PAIN PATIENT CRISIS?

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There would likely need to be money or the story of the prohibition would have to go viral, meaning a really famous person or really bad case that got media attention. There isn't money in taking care of pain patients & defending those that need medicine. All the money is in big litigation now, so it is hard to make the media care seriously about this issue.

What does work is pressure from patients & disability groups, which is why New Amsterdam put out an episode defending patients after receiving major pressure from patients groups.

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Thanks for writing this!

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Sadly patients are worn out. I keep hoping families will dig deep & show up for them. Perhaps the $$$$ is in suing the Rehab industry. Plenty of evidence of misdeeds, intent, financial gain, deaths…now that more patients with pain have been ludicrously said to be suffering from “addiction” and are caught in that industry’s web, we have more opportunity than ever. Just need right attorneys. Or Institute for Justice is fighting illegal search and seizure including illegal use of AI/PDMP. More people need to call them though. Also, suing the government isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible either. We can’t roll over.

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They need to investigate damage done by medical devices such as Hernia Mesh, Pain Stimulators, there was a big scandal over St Jude's use of Medtronic's devices. Or bad surgeries, bad physical theraphy, a 'certified'PT collapsed my L5/S1. Pain has never let up, lumbar Calcified, which cracked because of a fall. BLACK BOXED DRUGS REMOVED FROM THE MARKET.

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Thank you for reading the article, its very appreciated!

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If you have it on Cable you can rate it, and leave a review.

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Pete,

This is simply brilliant.

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Wow. Your article is an absolute crock of shit. Well respected pain doctor Webster?! The script he'd given that poor woman was excessive even for someone with terminal cancer never mind a bad back. Get back in your box you muppet 🤬

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Respectfully, this writer has done his homework. You have clearly not. I say that as a physician.

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A truly excellent and incisive article ! These are indeed the Dark Ages of the inquisitional medicalization, monetization, and specious criminalization of human suffering and its relief. The inhumane and self defeating circular firing squad of weaponization of ignorance is complete. There exists a small notational error where it comes images. That is Jeffrey Singer, MD shown pictured on the (left), and Michael Schatman, MD shown pictured on the (right) in the article.

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Kolodney made a fortune running Suboxene clinics, with intrest in NARCAN. Kolodny’s Phoenix House drug rehab spun out of control | EDS and Chronic Pain News & Info https://edsinfo.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/kolodnys-phoenix-house-drug-rehab-spun-out-of-control/ THEN you had Redfield vowing revenge 'war' becauce his Heroin Addict 37 yr Muscian old son OD'D cocaine or heroin depending on the news you read laced with Chinese Fentanyl https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/americas-heroin-epidemic/cdc-chief-says-fentanyl-almost-killed-his-son-n891976

CDC Researchers State Overdose Death Rates From Prescription Opioids Are Inaccurately High | Cato @ Liberty https://www.cato.org/blog/cdc-researchers-state-overdose-death-rates-prescription-opioids-are-inaccurately-high.

Few words were written that Forced Tapered Patients died of heart attacks, suicide. Or turned to illicit street drugs. Blaming pain pills https://thefederalist.com/2019/03/26/blaming-prescription-pain-pills-opioid-epidemic-fake-news/?fbclid=IwAR1-1J1k50le1TH25Cek8LFpFNZz9ughsLqOhE3-17TlV_ErG2v5TQsWybY#.XamnDrO3vPC.facebook

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Words mean things, 'chronic' is a lesser pain, Intractible Pain is Cancer level, doesn't have to be cancer caused, falls, car wrecks, war wounds, diseases like AA Adhesive Arachnoiditis. Untreatable by anyother means.

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Totally agree. I think “chronic” is part of the war against patients. It’s absurd in that it defines anything lasting longer than 3 months as psychiatric. For instance, discs take 12-18 months to heal when ruptured. Did people forget learning that in Med school? This is gaslighting on a societal level and forces people into procedures and surgeries that are more likely to harm and are very expensive. If you can call all the people with severe disease weak willed whiners with minor problems in their heads, then of course they don’t need serious treatment. No one questioned the word, and that’s one way it got past “go” in my mind. Ingenious really; evil and eugenicist but ingenious. Anna Lembke admitted she thinks she was fooled once by a patient and that she’s co-dependent (she has a problem), so she projects that onto everyone. It’s beyond cruel. Not someone who should be allowed near patient care or policy.

It’s hard to narrow it down, but my father having a below knee amputation and not getting anything for pain afterward, followed by a lecture to me that he was having phantom limb pain when I asked, was about the worst single incident I can site. I know everyone has a list. This can’t go on.

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I'm doing PT again, I have total degenerative Spinal Stenosis. From C3-S1. There are collapsed, bone spurs, bulges, and minor fractures. They never healed. It limits my movement. Which weakens my muscles. I've had multiple MRIs to prove it. Plus a too small to repair shoulder tear.

When my Dad fell off a Catwalk, he damaged his neck discs. 2 bones were removed from his hips to create new discs, but no screws or other hardware, he recovered faster, and had little issues afterward. What happened to that procedure?

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It seems like hardware breaks way too often; the approval process for devices is really bad-individual devices like hardware are basically approved if they aren’t substantially different than something else that’s already been approved, but also hasn’t been evaluated for safety. But they are different enough to be patentable and highly valuable to the companies. Why isn’t that fraud? You can’t be both the same for safety and different for profit.

I’m so sorry both your dad and you have such pain.

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Cancer finally stole my Dad.

Hip hardware is often bad, Chromium. My thumb surgery for a torn ligament took screws, and the trigger lock release left the joint frozen, But the worst was the unnecessary hard cast from the thumb to just below my elbow, it left the index finger as frozen as the thumb, by damaging the wrist nerves. It is called a Mallets Finger or Baseball finger, the joints have little fine movement.

I never let the surgery on my back, saw too many failures.

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iNTRACTABLE PAIN IS HIGHER CANCER LEVEL THAN 'CHRONIC' PAIN. W

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Thank you for telling this from the pain patient’s view. All of the people who have deceived and continue to do so will answer have to answer for their actions someday.

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No problem, its a very frustrating story. I appreciate you reading the piece.

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Passed on.

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