PHARMACIST STEVE

www.nationalpainreport.com/op-ed-the-opioid-epidemic-hasnt-happened-by-chance-8835108.html

As HHS Secretary-nominee Alex Azar awaits Senate floor action, Dr. Jernigan warns on his drug industry ties and calls for consideration of alternative medicine approaches to health care, especially for the opioid epidemic.

America’s addiction to pain pills was entirely predictable. The nation has long been over-medicated, blithely popping 3.2 billion medications annually, according to the CDC.*

Watch any nightly network newscast and we’re bombarded with drug ads, playing on our myriad health concerns and promising blissful remedies. Harvard tells us that the drug industry spends more than $5 billion a year on consumer advertising**, supporting, according to the U.S. government, more than $300 billion in pharmaceutical sales.*** Add to that the astronomical popularity of non-prescription or OTC drug products, and you can see that we’re a nation consumed by our aches and pills.

Given this environment, it is somewhat concerning that the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, whose job is to protect Americans’ health, is the former president of the U.S. division of global pharmaceutical marketer Eli Lilly and Company. His disposition towards expanding our synthetic drug culture versus furthering the development and application of natural medicine should be carefully explored during Congress’s consideration of his nomination.

While many pharmaceuticals clearly can save, extend and improve the quality of life, the reality is that their long-term use conveys merely the illusion of health. Remission is promoted as success, even though it is but a temporary abatement of symptoms. While Americans consume the most prescription medications, the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. as having the worst health among developed countries. With drugs to control the symptoms of every named illness, Americans are oblivious to the reality that despite their pills, they’re getting sicker.****  

A vital key to a healthier and more productive population is the development and promotion of a new medical corps, trained in the pure treatment philosophy of biological medicine, focused on identifying and treating the root causes of illness, rather than just the symptoms.

True healing cannot occur by simply masking symptoms. In those instances where pharmaceuticals are required as first-line treatment, the aim should be to get off medication as quickly as possible, and identify and correct the cause at its source.

The biological medicine treatment option is particularly effective for those with chronic pain and illness – cases that have been considered untreatable in conventional drug therapy – without the risk of addiction or worse. It applies advanced science in diagnostics and treatment technologies to treat the patient, not the disease, by restoring the body’s own healing potential.  

Lifetime reliance on pharmaceutical drugs only benefits the drug industry. While prescription drugs are convenient, requiring little time and effort to prescribe, symptom-suppression is not a real solution to health problems, and it often entails side effects that reduce productivity and ultimately lower quality of life.

Americans should demand that our healthcare providers, elected officials and industry regulators acknowledge the drug industry’s grip on our healthcare system, and work to recognize and promote natural treatments and disciplines that seek to restore health, versus continuing promotion of the drug-induced illusion of health. The confirmation process for HHS Secretary-designate Azar is a prime opportunity to start this process.

Dr. Jernigan is Founder of the Hansa Center for Optimum Health, Wichita, Kansas.

I could not agree with this doctor more.. except for different reasons… The opiate crisis started with the Harrison Narcotic Act 1914 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act when our Congress was driven by racial biases and bigotry passed this bill which was signed into law by Woodrow Wilson… this law… created the “black drug market” and a pseudo prohibition of opiates.

The Feds have created an assortment of various agencies to enforce the Harrison Narcotic act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Narcotics

In 1970 Congress passed a bill that created the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) which created the BNDD ( Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs)… which a couple of years later would evolve into the infamous DEA. The CSA replaced the National Narcotic Bureau and its TWO MILLION/yr budget with 1500 employees and a 42 million/yr budget, and the WAR ON DRUGS was officially declared.

Currently the DEA has an official TWO BILLION/yr budget and 12,000 employees and an additional 79 billion/yr is spent by other city/county/state agencies, courts, prisons and others engaged in fighting the war on drugs.

In 1917 our judicial system declared that opiate addiction was a CRIME and not a DISEASE and any doctor caught maintaining or treating a opiate addict would be sent to prison.

Today, even though the last two Surgeon Generals have stated that addiction – all addictions – is a mental health issue and not a moral failing the DEA continues to function under a 100 y/o belief. So President Trump has a member (DOJ) of his cabinet that is working under the century old idea that opiate addiction is a crime and another member of the cabinet ( Surgeon General) working under the current concept that addiction is a MENTAL HEALTH DISEASE.

Some believe that the part of definition of socialism is for a bureaucracy to create a problem and then create a “solution” to the earlier problem that the bureaucracy created.

Coroners are now seeing between 60%-99% of all OD’s with a illegal Fentanyl analog and/or Heroin and typically 4-5 other substances in the person’s toxicology report. Yet, DOJ/DEA/law enforcement is still pursuing entities withing the legal medication drug channels of distribution. Maybe because law enforcement is still living in a early 20th century mindset or the entities that they are pursuing are not armed, don’t shoot at law enforcement, easy to locate, and have a excellent “paper trail” ?

And DOJ/DEA is still functioning like a Ford Model T.. which is what was the normal mode of transportation in 1917. Maybe they are still operating in the “horse and buggy” mode of the early 20th century.

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