An Experimental Vaccine Cannot be Mandated: Know Your Rights

An Experimental Vaccine Cannot be Mandated: Know Your RightsAn Experimental Vaccine Cannot be Mandated: Know Your Rights

https://home.frankspeech.com/article/experimental-vaccine-cannot-be-mandated-know-your-rights

Democrat Governors in many states have gone to great links to politicize the China virus by issuing mandates that have repeatedly violated American constitutional rights. Some of these same liberal politicians are now in discussions about mandating mask wearing and vaccinations. However, the law makes it clear that an experimental vaccine cannot be mandated!

According to an article published by The Christian News Wire “On March 27, 2020, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary declared that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use (EUA) of drugs and biological products for COVID-19. That means people must be told the risks and benefits, and they have the right to decline a medication that is not fully licensed. The same section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that authorizes the FDA to grant EUA also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to “ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed … of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.”

Thus, it’s very important to stay armed with all the resources needed to advocate for yourself and your loved ones. For more details of how to protect yourself from an infringement upon your constitutional rights, visit America’s Frontline Doctors Legal Eagle Dream Team’s website to learn more about Masks, Vaccines and the Law.

 

Today’s chuckle

CVS, Walgreens responsible for 70% of wasted COVID-19 vaccines

CVS, Walgreens responsible for 70% of wasted COVID-19 vaccines

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/cvs-walgreens-responsible-for-70-of-wasted-covid-19-vaccines.html

CVS and Walgreens were responsible for 128,500 of the 182,874 wasted COVID-19 vaccine doses recorded by the CDC as of late March, Kaiser Health News reported May 3.

Of those 182,874 wasted doses, CVS was responsible for nearly half, and Walgreens for 21 percent. The two retail pharmacy giants wasted more doses than states, U.S. territories and federal agencies combined, according to CDC data.

The bulk of the wasted doses came from the companies’ long-term care facility vaccination programs, which were launched at the beginning of the country’s mass inoculation efforts.

CVS told Kaiser Health News “nearly all” of its reported vaccine waste occurred during its long-term care facility vaccination efforts. Michael DeAngelis, CVS’ senior director of corporate communications, attributed the wasted doses to “issues with transportation restrictions, limitations on redirecting unused doses, and other factors.”

Mr. DeAngelis also told Kaiser Health News that CVS limited its waste to approximately one dose per onsite vaccination clinic.

Walgreens told Kaiser Health News its wasted doses accounted for less than 0.5 percent of the 8.2 million vaccine doses it administered through March 29.

Managing Risk of Chronic Post-Surgical Pain: Timing Is Key

I have suspected for years that the gross under treating of pain by our medical system has allowed nerve paths to be altered that any stimuli that it receives … it interprets it as PAIN… and it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE for the nerve path will revert to a normal status after several months of untreated pain… and it has created a new CHRONIC PAIN PT ! Does this report suggest that I may have been right all along ?

Managing Risk of Chronic Post-Surgical Pain: Timing Is Key

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/aapm/92314

Psychological interventions can help reduce risk of persistent pain after surgery but timing is critical, a pain expert said at the virtual 2021 American Academy of Pain Medicine annual meeting.

“We can look at chronic pain as occurring in a very linear process,” said Ravi Prasad, PhD, of University of California Davis, in a meeting session about multimodal ways to prevent chronic post-surgical pain.

“By definition, pain starts off as something acute,” Prasad noted. The acute phase includes assessments and treatment to try to eliminate pain quickly.

“When the pain condition fails to respond to some of these initial treatments, it starts to enter the subacute category,” Prasad said. “The patient is still engaged in different medical workups to try to identify the cause of the pain and still participating in treatments, but they haven’t responded to the interventions in the manner expected, meaning the pain continues to persist.” This is usually about 3 to 6 months after the acute phase.

When a patient’s pain reports have plateaued and pain is refractory to medical treatments for at least 6 months, it can become chronic.

“It’s important to recognize these time points exist,” Prasad emphasized. “We can intervene at these different points — and intervene even prior to the experience of acute pain — to try to minimize the likelihood that persistent pain develops.”

Factors that contribute to chronic pain include environmental stressors, lifestyle factors, unhealthy support systems, limited access to care, and patient risk factors including history of substance abuse, adverse childhood experiences, and psychiatric conditions.

Research has shown the most useful predictors of poor pain outcomes after surgery were pre-surgical somatization, depression, anxiety, and poor coping.

“All of these are things that are actually modifiable,” Prasad said. “We can actually do something about these to change the outcomes a person might have.”

Cognitive therapies and relaxation training are two interventions receiving a lot of attention, he noted. Breathing, relaxation exercises, and meditative practices can help patients learn to quiet the nervous system by working on the sympathetic-parasympathetic axis. But cognitive processes also have to be targeted, Prasad observed, and “this is where cognitive behavioral therapy can come in.”

The crux of cognitive behavioral theory is that “by changing the interpretation, we can change the impact of consequences at the emotional, physical, and behavioral level,” Prasad said. “The challenge with this is that our interpretations tend to be automatic.”

“Making changes in our interpretation is difficult because we have to become aware of processes that are occurring in our subconscious and make changes in something that’s been with us for a very long period of time,” he acknowledged. “These thought processes can be very resistant to change. But it’s essential we do this if we want to have sustained change in our outcomes.”

It’s not something as simple as turning negative thoughts into positive ones, Prasad added. “Rather, we look at the accuracy and the degree of helpfulness of the thoughts, and modify the thoughts into something that is more accurate and helpful.”

“We know that when people engage in cognitive behavioral therapy, their outcomes are improved. Affective stress is decreased, pain sensitivity decreases, and this can minimize opioid burden,” he continued. And it’s not the only intervention that can help: “there’s a wide range of psychological-based tools that have a strong evidence base behind them,” including biofeedback training and mindfulness-based stress reduction.

But timing of these treatments is essential, Prasad emphasized.

“The way to optimize timing is to do presurgical screening to identify what’s the most appropriate intervention for the patient,” he said. Some patients may need help before surgery, others can be targeted at the acute or subacute phase. “Regardless, we want to make sure we address symptoms as early as possible and not wait for pain to be in a chronic state.”

Opioid Policy Concerns? Here’s How the CDC ‘Responds’ To Letters

I have been a “student of the bureaucracies” for some 40 + yrs …. and this whole CDC opiate dosing guidelines issue is from the same “play book” that I have seen bureaucrats use over and over again for all those years, but this time… the CDC did the whole process behind closed doors, trying to keeping those participating anonymously – which failed… The primary charge of the CDC is to deal with communicable diseases and the last time I checked… pain is not a communicable disease.  Did anyone challenge the constitutionality of these guidelines created by the CDC without statutory authority ?  Apparently not, because people of the bureaucratic chain… wanted these guidelines published. While it is often stated that we are “country of laws”, but what is not often stated is that all too many of our laws are never/seldom enforced.  Score so far SWAMP  ONE & PEOPLE ZERO.

Opioid Policy Concerns? Here’s How the CDC ‘Responds’ To Letters

https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/04/30/opioid-policy-concerns-heres-how-cdc-responds-letters-15519

ACSH advisor and pain patient advocate Red Lawhern has been at the forefront of efforts to undo the damage done by the 2016 CDC Advice on Opioid Prescribing. He wants the abomination thrown out and has spent countless hours trying to reason with the CDC (and others). Here is the result of his hard work.

Red Lawhern Ph.D., a healthcare writer and member of the ACSH Board of Advisors, has repeatedly demanded that CDC respond to their many critics who have pointed out that the 2016 US CDC guidelines on opioid prescribing to adults with chronic non-cancer pain are contradicted both by science and the CDC’s own statistics. He has received responses but they are just form letters. Here is the latest (I’ve even added my own translation of the CDC response. No extra charge).

** NOTE – The text in bold is taken directly from the email that Dr. Lawhern received. 

CDC: Thank you for your suggestion to CDC-INFO.

JB Translation: Seriously? You really expected this to be read by a human? 

 

CDC: Your comments have been forwarded to the appropriate CDC program for their information.

JB Translation: Your comments will be read, but not so soon. Probably right around the time that the Hubble Telescope spots Wilma Flintstone orbiting Venus while playing mahjong.

 

CDC: Additionally, here is some information about CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain that may be helpful to you.

JB Translation: True, if you’re running a concentration camp.

 

CDC: Living with chronic pain can be devastating, and effective pain management is important to getting your life back. It is essential that you and your doctor discuss treatment options, carefully considering all the risks and benefits.

Translation: If you’re counting on prescription opioids to get your life back then we have done everything humanly possible to make sure this doesn’t happen. Talk to your doctor? Please! If he is/was in pain management there’s a pretty good chance he’s in the slammer. And if you’re fortunate to still have a doctor who’s not in the slammer, by all means, speak to him or her.  But given pressure from the DEA, you are more likely to walk out of the office with a prescription for Sarin gas than two Vicodins. 

 

CDC’s mission is to protect the health and lives of Americans. Improving the way opioids are prescribed can ensure patients have access to safer, more effective chronic pain treatment while reducing the number of people who misuse or overdose from these drugs.

JB Translation: Ha-ha! The joke’s on you! Any idiot (perhaps even Andrew Kolodny) knows that there are no safer, more effective alternatives. And the non-idiots also know that at the same time that opioid prescriptions were forced way downward, overdose deaths took off into the stratosphere. CDC knows this. You know this. CDC. Just. Doesn’t. Care.

 

CDC: The Guideline was developed to ensure that primary care doctors work with their patients to consider all safe and effective treatment options for pain management. CDC encourages doctors to continue to use their clinical judgment, base treatment on what they know about their patients, maximize use of safe and effective non-opioid treatments, and consider the use of opioids only if their benefits are likely to outweigh their risks.

 

JB Translation: Hmm. Is the CDC truthful? Let’s conduct an experiment:

1. A CDC empty suit spokesperson is connected to a lie detector and is asked one question. Doesn’t really matter what the question is. He answers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. The polygraph records biometric data and responds accordingly:

 

 

3. Well, that answer seemed to be a bit off. Now what?

Images credits: Medical Daily, YouTube

That’s better.

Getting serious for a moment… CDC – please provide a reference to even ONE published randomized controlled trial that demonstrates that cognitive-behavioral therapy or acupuncture when used alone as a substitute for opioids provides a safe and effective alternative to prescription pain relievers. We don’t think you’ll find one.

 

CDC: The Guideline is not a regulation, but rather a set of recommendations. The recommendations in the Guideline are voluntary, rather than prescriptive standards. The recommendations are intended to support informed clinical decision-making in the context of the provider-patient relationship.

JB Translation: But by an astounding coincidence, the recommendations became restrictive laws in 37 states. And there is an ongoing effort to pass a federal law that is probably even more restrictive. There is no need for decision-making since CDC has already made these decisions and the bureaucrats and politicians reacted just as the authors of the 2016 guidelines knew they would
 

CDC: Starting fewer patients on opioid treatment and not increasing to high dosages in the first place will reduce the numbers of patients prescribed high dosages in the long term.

JB Translation: Isn’t this a bit like saying: “People who own an accordion are more likely to play the accordion?” And more important, won’t this restriction condemn millions of intractable pain patients to agonizing pain when low-dose therapy proves to be inadequate?

 

In the meantime, clinicians can maximize use of non-opioid treatments, review with patients the benefits and risks of continuing opioid treatment, provide interested and motivated patients with support to slowly taper opioid dosages…”

JB Translation: “provide interested and motivated patients with support to slowly taper opioid dosages…”  somehow turned into involuntary, often rapid, tapering for patients who had neither the interest nor the motivation. This is the biggest lie in the whole damn thing. Tapering for most patients is like “walking off a cliff”  

 

CDC: Your question/comments will be shared with CDC experts working on this important issue.

Translation: Our CDC “experts” don’t care whether or not you skydive into the Kilauea Volcano wearing nothing but a G-string. Just don’t bother us. 

 

CDC: ***Feedback about your experience with CDC-INFO is important to us and will help us continue to improve. 

JB Translation: C’mon! You fell for this? Go look up “nitwit” in the dictionary. Or in the mirror.

 

CDC: Responses are kept completely confidential.

JB Translation: Finally something true. Of course, there are no responses. Or the CDC doesn’t want the many responses which contradict their fairy tales to be made public.

 

So, let’s give it up for Red, who took considerable time to provide concise, thoughtful comments and data-centric evidence [see http://face-facts.org/lawhern/the-opioid-crisis-in-three-charts/]  to CDC, only to be ignored entirely.

Is it any wonder that people don’t trust our government?

Indian physician, Richard Arjun Kaul sues State of New Jersey in India

Kaul sues State of New Jersey in India

On May 2, 2021, Indian physician, Richard Arjun Kaul, filed a lawsuit (Kaul v State of New Jersey/Allstate/Christie-K11-5) in the Indian High Court, against the State of New Jersey, Allstate Insurance Company and ex-New Jersey Governor, Christopher J. Christie, in which Kaul accuses the Defendants of engineering policies of racial discrimination against Indian physicians. The action details the way the Defendants targeted ethnic minority physicians for civil and criminal prosecution, in order to eradicate debt and increase corporate/executive profit, and the disproportionate number of Indian physicians in American jails. Kaul brings attention to the unseen carnage caused to the physicians’ families by the Defendants crimes, and how, through judicial corruption, they have evaded justice in America.

“… Defendant Allstate, in approximately 1998 commenced the engineering of a policy of racial discrimination, that selectively targeted successful Indian healthcare providers for civil and criminal prosecutions for alleged healthcare fraud.”

“Defendant, Allstate, in seeking to attempt to conceal its crimes of racial discrimination/judicial corruption/bribery/political corruption/fraud/kickbacks has manufactured its own Internet Service Provider, and maintains its own servers, through which it conducts the affairs of its criminal enterprise.”

“Defendant Allstate uses Allstate India, and thus the nation of India, to launder the proceeds of its American criminal enterprise. Defendant Allstate, a corporation linked to Lloyd’s of London, is attempting to exact the same injury on India, as was covertly conducted by the English East India Company in the 17th century, in which India was robbed of its mineral resources.”

K11-5 seeks monetary compensation in excess of $9 billion, ninety-percent (90%) of which will be used to establish educational/healthcare programs in India, Africa and the US.

 

NP Thyroid by Acella has once again been recalled!

NP Thyroid by Acella has once again been recalled!

https://stopthethyroidmadness.com/2021/04/30/np-thyroid-by-acella-has-once-again-been-recalled

Yup. It’s happened again. The following lots of NP Thyroid by Acella Pharmaceuticals LLC have been recalled due to sub-potency! 15-mg, 30-mg, 60-mg, 90-mg and 120-mg NP Thyroid®

And as the creator of Stop the Thyroid Madness (STTM) patient-to-patient movement, I’m not surprised.

Since Acella brought NP Thyroid back after the recall(s) in 2019, there have STILL been complaints by some hypothyoid or Hashimoto’s patients!! No, not all. But enough to cause concern. The complaints have occurred in thyroid groups directly associated with STTM…and even in groups that are not directly associated with STTM. I was hearing those complaints in STTM coaching calls. I was hearing about them from many patient volunteers who contact me!

What were the continued complaints? They revolved around not being able to fully get out of one’s hypothyroid state.

And this is the second time for a recall of NP Thyroid

The first recall(s) happened in 2019. And you can read my blog post about it here. You will read that in some patients, their newly obtained NP Thyroid prescription was causing problems in the Summer of 2019. Then by Fall of 2019, there were obvious changes along with a return of hypothyroid symptoms, like a “cat piss” or “ammonia-type: smell. Patients reported back then:

  1. It now smells and tastes horrible, worse than before.
  2. The tablets look different from previous ones
  3. I’m feeling much worse now on the same dose that made me feel great. Symptoms are back.

Then in the same blog post, you will read about the recall due to sub-potency, then later “super potency”. Either way, it was clear that too many patients were NOT feeling well on it anymore. Even those who said they still did feel well, didn’t have labs to prove it would last.

So what do you do now if you had returned to using NP Thyroid since it came back out again?

Still to this day for what appears to be the majority of hypothyroid patients, Armour desiccated thyroid is working (even though there have been periods in the past where it had problems, but they seem to have been corrected a few years ago). So is using synthetic T4 with synthetic T3. Examples of the two synthetics are Tirosint for T3 with Cytomel or Sigma Pharm for T3. Honestly, all the brands have worked.

BUT….we as patient learned that to make either work correctly, we have to have the following:

1) The right amount of cortisol, otherwise we get hyper-like symptoms when raising. You can read this page to see clues that you might not have the right amount of cortisol. i.e. some levels being too low, others too high. All can cause hyperlike symptoms when raising a product with T3 in it. It’s the results of pooling.
2) The right amount of iron levels, otherwise we get rising RT3 (reverse T3), an inactive hormone which can block us from achieving the right amount of T3.
3) Optimal free T4 and optimal free T3. Optimal is NOT midrange. Optimal is not below midrange. Optimal is not just slightly above midrange

 

Should Dying Cancer Patients Suffer From Under treated Pain Because of ‘Concerns Regarding Addiction’?

Should Dying Cancer Patients Suffer From Under treated Pain Because of ‘Concerns Regarding Addiction’?

https://reason.com/2021/04/27/should-dying-cancer-patients-suffer-from-undertreated-pain-because-of-concerns-regarding-addiction/

Two recent studies show how ham-handed efforts to reduce opioid prescriptions undermine medical care.

Two recent studies show how the attempt to curtail drug abuse by discouraging and restricting opioid prescriptions has hurt bona fide patients by depriving them of the medication they need to ease their pain. The harm inflicted on these innocent bystanders, which would not be morally justified even if the opioid crackdown did what it was supposed to do, is all the more appalling because limiting legal access to these drugs seems to have accelerated the upward trend in opioid-related deaths by driving nonmedical users toward black-market substitutes.

Jon Furuno, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy, looked at prescribing patterns among 2,648 terminal patients who were transferred from an academic medical center to hospice care from January 2010 through December 2018. During that period, regulators and legislators responded to the “opioid crisis” by directly and indirectly limiting analgesic prescriptions, often in ham-handed ways. While that was happening, the study found, the share of hospice-bound patients who had opioid prescriptions when they were discharged fell from 91.2 percent to 79.3 percent—a 13 percent drop.

Furuno and his co-authors, who reported their results this month in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, controlled for age, sex, diagnosis, and the location of hospice care, so changes in those factors do not account for the decline in opioid prescriptions. Furthermore, “prescribing of non-opioid analgesic  medications increased over the same time period,” meaning that pain was more likely to be treated with less effective but still potentially dangerous drugs.

The average age of these patients was 66. Nearly three-fifths had cancer diagnoses, and all of them were expected to die soon, meaning that treatment should have been focused on making them as comfortable as possible in their remaining time.

“Even among patients prescribed opioids during the last 24 hours of their inpatient hospital stay, opioid prescribing upon discharge decreased,” Furuno noted in a press release. “It seems unlikely that patients would merit an opioid prescription on their last day in the hospital but not on their first day in hospice care, and it’s well documented that interruptions in the continuity of pain treatment on transition to hospice are associated with poor patient outcomes.”

Furuno noted that “pain is a common end-of-life symptom, and it’s often debilitating.” He added that more than 60 percent of terminal cancer patients report “very distressing pain.”

In this context, it is especially striking that Furuno and his colleagues cite “patient and caregiver concerns regarding addiction” as one obstacle to adequate pain treatment. The risk of addiction is exaggerated and overemphasized even when physicians are treating chronic pain in patients who may have years or decades to live. When patients on the verge of death are suffering severe pain that could be relieved by opioids, “concerns regarding addiction” seem like a cruel joke.

Furuno et al. also mention “policies and practices aimed at limiting opioid use in response to the opioid epidemic,” which are based on similar fears and reinforce them. In particular, Furuno cites the opioid prescribing guidelines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued in 2016.

U.S. Supreme Court Has an Important Issue Before It — and There’s a Lot at Stake for Pain Management Specialists, Physicians Prescribing Pain Medicine

Image showing assorted pain medications in someones hands.

U.S. Supreme Court Has an Important Issue Before It — and There’s a Lot at Stake for Pain Management Specialists, Physicians Prescribing Pain Medicine

https://www.chapmanlawgroup.com/scotus-supreme-court-pain-medicine-naum/

The High Court Could Decide a Groundbreaking Issue in Pain Management: How the Standard of Care Should Apply to Criminal Charges That Involve Prescriptions. Now’s Your Chance to Help

In the fight for ethical pain management, the federal courts have had difficulty interpreting and applying the medical standard of care when it comes to physicians’ prescription-related criminal matters. Now, the nation’s highest court has the chance to correct this. And if you are a pain management specialist or you have a vested interest in how prescription-related criminal cases are decided, this is your chance to weigh in. 

Before the Supreme Court of the United States is an argument that pain management clinics, specialty physicians, and other healthcare providers involved in pain medicine have waited all too long to be decided. With your amicus support, we can educate the justices on why this is important for the practice of medicine and the prevention of a suffering patient population.

The Feds Continue to Use a Troublesome Standard of Care to Criminalize Pain Management Physicians, Wrongfully Pushing Them Into Role of Drug Pusher

For most of the 21st century, the federal government’s methods for criminalizing malpractice have put physicians, particularly those who specialize in pain management, in a troublesome, often career-ending place.

Why? Because the feds have changed the phrase “the bounds of professional practice” — and, similarly, “legitimate medical purpose” and “course of professional practice” — to mean a departure from nationally recognized standards and fully into the drug trafficking arena. As a result, physicians who simply want to ease their patients’ long-lasting pain symptoms are paying the price criminally and professionally.

Traditionally, drug trafficking charges are only levied against physicians who cease acting as a physician (i.e., acts “outside the bounds of medical practice”), and instead engage in unlawful drug transactions (i.e., drug pushing or diversion). Yet, over the last 10-plus years, the federal government has criminalized violations of nationally recognized standards of care — standards that physicians already disagree on when it comes to pain management. Because the fields of pain management and addiction medicine are rapidly evolving, the standards constantly shift with them.

As CDC Guidelines Make the Standard of Care Harder to Follow, the Federal Courts Are Throwing Their Hands Up — and Pain Patients Are Left Suffering

Making matters much worse has been the release of the Centers for Disease Control Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. These went from being suggested guidelines to full-blown standards adopted into state and federal administrative codes. As a result, the standard of care has become heightened, more complex, and difficult to follow — to the point where several federal circuits are unable, or have refused, to interpret the applicable standard when it comes to criminal liability.

Is the standard objective or subjective? Disjunctive or conjunctive? Are the meanings “legitimate medical purpose” and “usual course of professional practice” one and the same? These are questions with which the courts have been wrestling, often coming up with vague, if any, answers.

As this is happening, the practice of medicine is left hanging in the balance. From pain management specialists to addiction medicine practitioners, and even general family doctors, physicians remain fearful of prescribing out of liability concerns. Meanwhile, their patients are turning to illicit drugs to ease their pain, further fueling the true cause of the opioid epidemic.

For Future of Pain Medicine and How Pain Management Specialists Can Best Help Patients, It’s Critical You Let Your Voice Be Heard Before the High Court

If your practice or organization feels threatened by this shift, you now have the chance for your voice to be heard before the nation’s highest court.

The Supreme Court of the United States is considering Naum v. United States, a case that calls for putting a definitive standard in place for prescribing controlled substances in the U.S. This would address the vagueness of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 21 C.F.R. § 1306.04 and eliminate any ambiguity when federal circuits are asked to consider whether a pain management specialist (or any other practitioner) ceased to act as a physician and instead served as a drug dealer.

The argument is authored by Ronald W. Chapman II, who represents the defendant in Naum. As chairperson of the White Collar Defense & Government Investigations practice at Chapman Law Group, Chapman has faced this legal argument in several federal circuits. In Naum, the U.S. Supreme Court has a case that is representative of why a definitive standard must be put in place.

We are calling on you to show your support of this crucial legal issue, by way of an Amicus Brief. This is an issue that affects you and your constituents directly, and it will clarify how the criminal law procedure applies to the practice of not just pain medicine, but overall medical practice.

You may find the brief for Naum v. United States here. We appreciate your consideration in helping the high court understand how much is at stake for the many members of pain management medical community, and, just as important, the patients who rely on them.

 

Reckless Endangerment (Legal Definition: All You Need To Know)

Can anyone think of how this might apply to pts getting ESI’s, having their pain meds/controlled substance reduced/stopped – especially at- or near – cold turkey withdrawal… by prescriber, pharmacist, insurance/PBM industry and many other issues where the pt ends up being harmed ?

Reckless Endangerment (Legal Definition: All You Need To Know)

What Is Reckless Endangerment

 

Reckless endangerment is a term used to refer to acts or omissions constituting crimes under criminal laws exposing another to serious risk of injury or physical harm.

For an act, behavior, conduct, or omission to be considered as “reckless endangerment”, the offender’s intention to cause harm is not relevant to the crime.

What’s relevant is that the accused acted or behaved in a way that exposed others to a substantial risk of severe physical injury.

For example, under the New York penal code, “reckless” behavior is defined as a criminal act or conduct that:

  • Creates an unjustifiable risk of serious physical injury to another person
  • The accused is aware that will expose others to serious risk and disregards the risks
  • Constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct of a reasonable person 

The NY reckless endangerment statute then defines physical injury to include:

  • Loss or protracted impairment of the function of any bodily organ 
  • Protracted impairment of health 
  • Protracted and serious disfigurement
  • An impairment of a person’s physical condition which creates a substantial risk of death, or which causes death 

Legal Definition

What does reckless endangerment mean?

How do you define reckless endangerment?

Reckless endangerment is a type of “endangerment” crime whereby the offender’s wrongful action, conduct, or behavior is likely to expose others to a significant risk of bodily injury or even death.

This type of criminal offense is designed to prohibit reckless or wanton conduct exposing others to serious injury.

Criminal Intention 

When dealing with a reckless conduct charge, it’s important to consider the criminal intent aspect of the crime.

In criminal law, the prosecutor has a duty to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused “acted” in a criminal way and had the “intention” to act in that fashion (this is referred to as the criminal intent or mens rea).

However, for a person to be convicted of a reckless endangerment crime, the prosecutor must prove that the accused acted carelessly and did not care for the foreseeable consequence of his or her actions.

Charge

A reckless endangerment charge may be filed against a person in the context of domestic abuse cases, car accidents, child abuse, or other types of abuse such as nursing home abuse or hospital abuse.

In the United States, an endangerment charge can go from a misdemeanor to a felony depending on the state laws and circumstances of the crime.

For example, in the state of Washington, under Section 9A.36.050 Revised Code of Washington, “A person is guilty of reckless endangerment when he or she recklessly engages in conduct not amounting to drive-by shooting but that creates a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to another person”.

The law defines reckless endangerment to be a gross misdemeanor. 

Legal Defense

Every case will have unique elements a criminal defense attorney will consider when preparing a defense.

Typically, a person charged with felony reckless endangerment, misdemeanor endangerment or any type of criminal endangerment charge may file a defense by establishing that:

  • The act or behavior did not expose others to risk or the victim was not exposed to serious physical injury or death (depending on the charge)
  • The severity of risk or injury does not reach the level of seriousness required for a person to be found guilty of this crime 

Sentence

The sentence or punishment for criminal reckless endangerment can vary based on the facts of the case and other factors.

For example, in the state of Tennessee, the charge can be classified from a Class A misdemeanor all the way to a Class C felony.

The reckless endangerment law in Tennessee provides for Class A misdemeanor to be punished by imprisonment and fines that are not greater than eleven months and twenty-nine days in jail or a fine of $2,500 (or both).

In New York, life endangerment crimes can be classified as Class A misdemeanor or Class D felony.

Reckless endangerment felony charges will tend to have a more severe sentence than reckless engagement misdemeanor charges.

The court will also consider the history of the offender to determine the most appropriate sentence to issue.

In Alabama, a person arrested for this offense can face a Class A misdemeanor charge exposing the offender to a jail sentence of up to a year and a fine of up to $6,000.

Examples

What are some examples of reckless endangerment crimes?

Many behaviors can lead to a reckless endangerment accusation or charge, such as:

  • Reckless endangerment driving
  • Placing a child in a potentially harmful situation through negligence or misconduct
  • Placing an animal in a potentially harmful situation 
  • Discharging a firearm
  • Drag racing 
  • Drinking and driving 
  • Driving at high speeds
  • Eluding the police 

What’s more, the accusation of “reckless endangerment” does not necessarily involve a victim.

If the law enforcement officer considers that a person’s conduct exposes others to a serious risk of suffering injuries, the individual may be arrested and charged.

Reckless Assault vs Reckless Endangerment

The terms reckless assault and reckless endangerment are often used interchangeably although they mean different things.

Typically, an assault charge consists of a deliberate or intentional act intended to knowingly cause bodily harm to another or cause the other person to fear bodily harm.

A more serious type of assault charge is aggravated assault where the assault occurs with a weapon.

Reckless endangerment involves an act or behavior that can potentially cause bodily harm to another.

Although every jurisdiction will have its own statutory definition of reckless endangerment, you will typically find different types of endangerment charges such as public endangerment, child endangerment, or animal endangerment.

Reckless Endangerment Takeaways 

So, what is the definition of reckless endangerment? 

What is criminal endangerment?

Is reckless endangerment a felony?

Let’s look at a summary of our findings.

Reckless Endangerment:

  • Reckless endangerment is a type of crime where a person is accused of acting or behaving in a way exposing others to a high risk of bodily harm
  • There are different types of “endangerment” crimes such as public endangerment, child endangerment, animal endangerment, and reckless endangerment 
  • Many acts or omissions can be considered as “reckless” leading to a misdemeanor or felony charge such as reckless driving, putting a child’s life in danger, misusing a firearm, evading the police using a vehicle, hospital abuse, nursing home abuse, and more 

An accused can attempt to defend against such a charge by establishing that others were not exposed to serious risk of physical injury even if the alleged conduct was true (factual impossibility) or the prosecution did not establish the proper degree of injury (the crime requires the risk of “serious” physical injuries)