A Year of Historic Action to Combat the Opioid Crisis
https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/year-historic-action-combat-opioid-crisis/
One year ago this week, President Donald J. Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. Ever since, the Trump Administration has applied an all-of-Government approach to the epidemic, allowing each agency and department to do their part to help the cause.
This is a crisis that cannot be solved through Government action alone. Private-sector and nonprofit partners are stepping up and stepping in to make a difference. Today, President Trump hosted 21 of these organizations at the White House. Their work is innovative, groundbreaking, and promising for the millions of Americans who struggle with addiction or support loved ones who do.
Amazon
Mr. Brian Huseman, Vice President, Public Policy
Amazon will help first responders more efficiently access critical medical records and has programmed Alexa voice service to answer important questions about opioids and addiction.
Belden Industries
Mr. John Stroup, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board
Belden will expand their rehab and employment program to two additional U.S. facilities in 2019 and provide a Blueprint for companies to adopt to recruit and retain employees supporting recovery.
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
Mr. Scott P. Serota, President and CEO
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association will launch Blue Distinction® Centers for Substance Use Treatment and Recovery and will establish a toll-free national hotline to provide all Americans a way to locate designated treatment centers.
Cigna
Mr. Alan Muney, Chief Medical Officer
Cigna will partner with the Veterans Health Administration to help veterans manage pain, improve access to opioid addiction treatment and improve mental well-being, and will work to reduce opioid-related overdoses in various communities by 25 percent within three years.
CVS Health
Mr. Thomas Moriarty, Executive Vice President, Chief Policy & External Affairs Officer, and General Counsel
CVS Health is committed to installing 1,100 additional permanent medication disposal units in communities and reaching 250,000 students and parents with its opioid abuse prevention program by the end of 2019.
Dispose RX
Mr. John Holaday, CEO
DisposeRx is committed to stopping opioid abuse, by contributing DisposeRx packets that can remove over 10 million opioids from our nation’s medicine cabinets.
Emergent BioSolutions
Mr. Mike Kelly, President US Operations
Emergent BioSolutions will offer Free NARCAN® Nasal Spray to all 16,568 public libraries and to each of the 2,700 YMCA locations in the United States.
Facebook
Mr. Kevin Martin, Vice President, US Public Policy
Facebook is committed to addressing the opioid epidemic through impactful public-private partnerships including: a link to SAMHSA’s Helpline in Search, and supporting the Ad Council PSA and DEA Takeback Day.
Global Teen Challenge
Mr. Ed DeShields, Board Member
Global Teen Challenge, the largest treatment center worldwide, is building a national Treatment Information System so its 250 U.S. treatment centers can understand which recovery programs are showing the most promise of success from addiction.
Google
Ms. Susan Molinari, Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs
Google has created a Locator Tool for National Take Back Day that they’ll promote on the Google.com homepage, and will launch a partnership with Walgreens to display permanent drug disposal locations on Google Maps.
Johnson & Johnson
Ms. Linda Murray, Senior Vice President, Consumer Experience and Global Editor in Chief, BabyCenter
Johnson & Johnson will continue educating America’s nurses and physicians to fight substance abuse and launched an opioid addiction awareness campaign that reached more than 2.5 million expectant parents via BabyCenter.
Leidos
Mr. Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO
Leidos is committing to an additional $3 million to opioid related causes, and furthering efforts to educate our workforce of 32,000 employees and launching a coalition of dozens of companies to address the crisis.
MyPillow
Mr. Mike Lindell, CEO
MyPillow employs workers directly after graduating from faith-based drug treatment and will soon launch the Lindell Recovery Network to bring hope, recovery and mentorship to thousands struggling with opioid addiction.
National Head Start Association
Mr. Damon Carson, Board Chairman
The Head Start community will expand training to all 245,792 staff in over 21,000 centers nationwide to address the far-reaching impacts of parent substance-use disorder on young children and families
National Safety Council
Ms. Debbie Hersman, CEO
National Safety Council will spread awareness of the crisis through the Prescribed to Death traveling Memorial, and will educate 1,000 more physicians on safer prescribing practices.
Red Cross
Mr. Jack McMaster, President, American Red Cross Training Services
Red Cross will offer our online course, First Aid for Opioid Overdoses, to give all Americans the knowledge to respond to a suspected opioid overdose emergency and will integrate opioid education in over 3 million annual first aid trainings.
Rite Aid
Ms. Jocelyn Konrad, Executive Vice President for Pharmacy
Rite Aid is offering free DisposeRx packets with new opioid prescriptions. Its Foundation installed 312 medication disposal units and launched the Prescription Drug Safety Initiative for students across the country.
Ultimate Fighting Championship
Mr. Lawrence Epstein, Senior Executive Vice President and COO
UFC commits to launching a public service campaign to bring attention to the opioid crisis, using UFC athletes, its powerful social media platforms, and popular live events to educate millions of people on the dangers of opioid abuse.
Unshattered
Ms. Kelly Lyndgaard, Founder and CEO
Unshattered will expand their partnerships with recovery centers across the county and provide employment and job skills training to double the number of women that we serve by the end of 2020.
Walgreens
Mr. Rick Gates, Walgreens Senior Vice President for Pharmacy and Health Care
Walgreens is expanding its medication disposal program to all of its stores, and collaborating with Google to provide information about the location of disposal sites on Google’s platform.
Walmart
Mr. Paul Beahm, Senior VP of Health and Wellness Pharmacy Operations
Walmart will continue to limit initial, acute opioid prescriptions to a 7-day supply, use analytics to block illegitimate prescriptions, and require E-Prescriptions for all scheduled drugs by January 1, 2020.
Looking at this list of the 21 organizations at this White House meeting …. I see at least FOUR of the the major pharmacy chains, several of the major insurance companies and most of the major internet data collectors. All/most of these companies have access or in charge of protecting HIPAA data on all of us. Missing is all the DRUG WHOLESALERS and ALL THE PHARMAS with the exception of J&J.
This was ONE YEAR AGO… how much data has been collected, in the interim, on anyone legally being prescribed controlled substances ?
How many people dealing with chronic pain and other subjective diseases have to suffer, die or commit suicide because of this “gang of 21” KISSING UP to the administration ?
How much longer is those in the chronic pain community going to continue to act like a bunch of feral cats.. running in all directions and fighting among themselves. ?
These companies represents multiple TRILLIONS of dollars of net worth…
JUST TODAY AMAZON announced Amazon launches medication management features for Alexa As Amazon moves further into the healthcare market, the company today is rolling out a medication management feature for Alexa owners. The feature will allow customers to set up their own medication reminders and request voice refills using their prescription information
Over the eight years that I have been posting on my blog… I have seen advocates coming forward… eager to “right the ship”… and typically after 6-24 months… they become discouraged and “disappear”… Eight years of watching people contacting their members of Congress, dozens of media outlets, untold number of petitions and perhaps THOUSANDS of Face Book pages devoted to pain in some manner, making comments to various alphabet of federal/state agencies… which is not much more than a diversion… because the conclusion/outcome is preordained…
The number of legal opiate Rxs peaked in 2011-2012 and have been declining every year… how many have died from complication of their co-morbidity issues from under/untreated pain and the cause of death “NATURAL CAUSES”… how many have committed suicide from the unrelenting pain… I suspect that the number we know is much smaller than the REAL NUMBER.
With the technology that this “gang of 21” has… could be a modern day TROJAN HORSE… but with this TROJAN HORSE… the killing will be a very large COVERT GENOCIDE.
It may now be TOO LATE to create a legal defense fund… This David & Goliath battle may not turn out the same way as it did in the bible
Filed under: General Problems
It’s probably time to start discussing a solution that will work.
I mean radical stuff like getting to know your friendly neighborhood cartel vice president. Or perhaps getting chained together with our fellow members down at the ER. Setting up a clandestine mail-order system. It all sounds pretty far out and maybe worth a little chuckle and then turn the page, but I can tell you lots of us are looking at the clock and wondering when we’re not going to take it anymore and also thinking about how permanent death is and once you’re gone you’re gone you have one shot at it what difference is it going to make if you’re going to die in agony. I’m not proposing a suicide by cop scenario but if I’m just going to vanish I feel like it’s my duty to at least move the needle towards our cause if only a millimeter. Wanting to do the right thing.
I believe the first step will be to establish a VPN in order that Communications are secure.
We know our HIPAA rights are not secure and I believe also that the database being compiled knows where you are and what you’re doing where you may want to stop on your way home, think about it.
HIPPA is a not funny joke. The only ones who don’t have access to your personal medical information are parents and spouses, or the patient themselves!! This article pretty much proves that!!
I haven’t had access to all of my medical records as when I moved to another state none of the most important records from several years of seeing the doctor who put me on pain medication were available!! It’s like all those years of tests, treatment and trials even exist!!
I certainly don’t want a nurse, no matter how experienced, putting me under anesthesia!! I don’t really feel comfortable seeing a NP for anything more serious than a sore throat, they don’t have the training a doctor has!!
Well it tells me how tight Gov is with big business, as if I didn’t already know. The trouble is not their tightness so much as their blithering stupidity regarding the collection of errors they are using to come together.