Judge rejects bid by CVS, Walgreen’s and other pharmacy chains to toss opioid suits

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2020/08/07/cvs-walgreens-other-pharmacies-fail-bid-toss-opioid-lawsuits/3324662001/

CLEVELAND – Lawsuits filed by two Ohio counties against retail pharmacy chains claiming their opioid dispensing practices flooded communities with pain pills and were a a public nuisance can continue, a federal judge in Cleveland has determined.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster rejected the pharmacy chains’ motion to dismiss the suits, ruling Thursday that the Ohio law does indeed apply to Lake and Trumbull counties’ nuisance claims.

Polster is overseeing more than 2,000 lawsuits filed by local governments, tribal authorities and others against companies they blame for fueling an opioid epidemic that has killed 430,000 people since 2000.

The two northeast Ohio counties’ lawsuits against CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart and Giant Eagle were the first to target retail pharmacy chains as both distributors and dispensers of painkillers. The counties contend the chains’ stores in the two counties bought a combined total of nearly 130 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills, the most frequently diverted and abused painkillers, between 2000 and 2014. That would be roughly 266 pills for every Lake County resident and 320 pills for every Trumbull County resident during that 15-year period.

Attorneys for the retail pharmacies have argued the stores were filling prescriptions written by physicians for legitimate medical needs.

A trial is set for May.

A trial in a case filed against six pharmacy companies by Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, and Summit County, which includes Akron, is scheduled for November.

Those claims seek damages from the retail chains as distributors of painkillers but not as dispensers. A federal appeals court ruled in April that Polster wrongly allowed the two counties to add the companies as dispensers.

Also on Thursday, women living in Florida and California filed separate federal lawsuits claiming retail pharmacies repeatedly refused to fill their legitimate pain medicine prescriptions. The lawsuits ask a judge to declare them class actions, which would open them to include plaintiffs making the same claims.

A spokesman for Walgreens, named in one of the lawsuits, declined to comment Friday. A message seeking comment was left with Costco Warehouse, the other defendant in that case, and with CVS, the defendant in the other lawsuit.

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https://youtu.be/WCXQLARPu9c

Epidemics are a thing in their own and if you do not stop them in the first few weeks they will assume their roles as infectious agents until they run out of hosts. you can still protect your self but the overall attack rate needs to reach a certain point until the virus runs out of hosts. Lockdowns just move infectious people around and destroy our culture while the virus does it dirty deed. We need to focus on the pathology and decide if pushing fluids is wise and whether we need to treat the microthrombi with aspirin. These are medical issues that need focus, not more lockdowns and fretting about which method we erroneously believe will stop the epidemic. The charts indicate the US cases look to be declining and maybe by November the thing will burn out on its own, as is the historical case

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there are no studies outside of death certicicate data that show benzos are a problem. No reputable study uses death certificates as they have a 50% error rate. The rare CDC sponsored studies showing benzos of being a problem world the certificate study is basically invalid. Purely opiate overdose deaths whether it be in attics or in patients are extremely rare. They have to be combined with other drugs usually four or five. It is difficult to tease out which is which. I have not seen any studies of increased death rates with just benzos and opiates except for the invalid dispute a study out of unc using death certificates. Even then the author said probably the higher death rate associated with benzo’s and opiates was due to people being sicker. Yes Virginia sicker people die more frequently. A fairly large CDC ground followed the production of the study I have heard from the author. this study also showed death from opiates with or without other medications as extremely rare in medical patients It may be more common in the CDC subjects who 95% died in the streets and suffered from heroin addiction disease, Affect CDC has never admitted. It’s time for the CDC guidelines to be suspended we’ve had enough

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Independent pharmacies top score in all categories in JD Powers survey

https://drugstorenews.com/these-pharmacies-topped-jd-powers-2020-survey

Pharmacies’ expansion into primary care is driving significant increases in both satisfaction and consumer spending, according to the J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Pharmacy Study released yesterday.

The U.S. Pharmacy Study, now in its 12th year, measures customer satisfaction with brick-and-mortar and mail order pharmacies. The 2020 study is based on responses from 13,378 pharmacy customers who filled a prescription during the three months prior to the survey period of September 2019-May 2020.

Good Neighbor Pharmacy ranked the highest among brick-and-mortar chain drug store pharmacies for a fourth consecutive year, with a score of 915. Health Mart (905) came in second and Rite Aid Pharmacy took third place (861). 

Sam’s Club ranks highest among brick-and-mortar mass merchandiser pharmacies for a fifth consecutive year, with a score of 885. Costco and CVS/pharmacy inside Target (870 each) rank second in a tie.

When it comes to brick-and-mortar supermarket pharmacies, Wegman’s topped the list for a third consecutive year, with a score of 904. Publix (889) ranks second and Winn-Dixie ranks third (883).

Humana Pharmacy ranks highest in the mail order segment for a third consecutive year, with a score of 904. OptumRx (886) ranks second and Kaiser Permanente Pharmacy (883) ranks third.

“When you look at the major pharmacy business trends of the past couple of years—CVS acquiring Aetna, Walgreens partnering with Humana and Walmart moving into health insurance—it’s clear that pharmacy operators are positioning themselves to become hubs of consumer healthcare, edging into the space once reserved for primary care physicians’ offices,” said James Beem, managing director of Healthcare Intelligence at J.D. Power. “What has not been clear until now is exactly how consumers would react to the shift. Simply put, they’re embracing it, and it’s driving higher overall satisfaction and increased spending as they use more health and wellness-oriented services.”

Among the key findings of the 2020 study:

• Nearly half (48%) of retail pharmacy customers have used at least one health and wellness-oriented service provided by their pharmacy this year, up a significant 5 percentage points from 2019. Overall customer satisfaction with the retail pharmacy is 26 points higher (on a 1,000-point scale) among customers who use health and wellness services vs. those who have not;
• Customers who use at least one health and wellness-oriented service provided by their pharmacy spend an average of $11 more per customer than those who do not use these services ($35 vs. $24, respectively). When customers use two or more health and wellness-oriented services, that average spend climbs to $58. Among customers who use two or more health and wellness-oriented services, overall satisfaction jumps to 907 vs. 861 for those who don’t use any service;
• Just 9% of brick-and-mortar pharmacy customers order their prescriptions via digital channels. Despite the stubbornly low utilization rate, overall satisfaction among those customers who do order digitally through a brick-and-mortar pharmacy is 859, which is 5 points higher than among those who only visit the store in person. By contrast, mail-order pharmacy customers are far more frequent users of digital ordering, with 32% ordering prescriptions via digital channels. These mail-order digital customers have even higher levels of satisfaction, with an overall satisfaction score of 867; and
• Physician recommendations for pharmacy-delivered health and wellness services are associated with an 80% utilization rate and recommendations from friends and family are associated with a 75% utilization rate. However, just 8% of customers say they’ve received a recommendation from their doctor and 9% have received a recommendation from friends and family. The most common means of hearing about these services is in-store advertising, which drives a 45% utilization rate.
• Both Good Neighbor Pharmacy and Healthmart pharmacies are independently owned pharmacy franchisees

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https://youtu.be/x0IOr1zf3TA

Pres Trump is talking about Prescription Benefit Managers and the health insurance industry

This is a graphic that shows who gets the lion’s share of each and every dollar the pt hands over when they get a prescription filled.  Nearly HALF of the dollars goes to the MIDDLEMEN..

This year we switched our Part D prgm from Silver Scripts – owned by CVS Health and PBM Caremark – owned by CVS to Humana and this year we have a $435 deductible for each of us  – which we did not have last year – our out of pocket costs for medications is about HALF of what we paid last year and our premiums are about $2/month more.  What medications we are talking have not changed.

The Attorney General of NY has filed a law suit against the National Rife Association (NRA) over some alleged mis-management of funds and she wants to DISSOLVE this 150 y/o non profit over these allegations… Of course, when she ran for this office, one of her campaign promises was to get rid of the NRA   https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/new-yorks-lawless-nra-lawsuit/  

Congress is playing games with extra unemployment that just expired and some of the governors are insisting that business function at a small percentage of capacity and/or some that are still requiring some business to remain close – now in their 4th month… It is claimed that maybe as much as 50% of the small businesses will not come back.  And Congress just left for their AUGUST VACATION – with no agreements.  Apparently many of the constituents that they represents are nothing but political pawns. Looks like Trump is going to issue some more executive orders to help the people in this country who are suffering financially.

The largest teachers union claims that they won’t go back to work until some demand  – like Medicare for all – that has nothing to do with teaching is met.

Joe Biden has been sheltering in place in his basement and the states have moved toward early voting that some states will be accepting absentee ballots before the first presidential debate is done.

Does anyone but me see the timing of this novel – never seen before – COVID-19 seem a bit suspect ?  After all Trump has played hardball with China and China has 1.4 billion people and if they lost of few million to the COVID-19 infection… would it really make a different to that political structure ?

In my 8 decades on this earth, I have seen riots happening in other parts of the country over that time frame but NONE have lasted for several months.  EXCEPT FOR NOW.  In Milwaukee here is what the cops are telling local residents Minneapolis Cops To Citizens: “Give Criminals What They Want”

In many large cities homicides and other crimes have surpassed all data from 2019 and month to month are up 2-3 fold in numbers.

There are other organized and coordinated parts of this chaos, but I can’t think of them right now.

It was claimed by some that Russia interfered with the last presidential election, .. are some of these same people behind this organized and coordinated chaos to interfere with this election ?

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It has been reported that the local prosecuting attorney withheld this body camera video from the media but somehow a media outlet in England got a copy of this video and only then was it released and a copy got back to the USA media.

It has been reported that Floyd’s toxicology showed that he had a very high blood level of a Fentanyl analog and that may have been why he kept saying that he was having trouble breathing. A overdose of a opiate will cause death by stopping breathing. He was also stating that he suffered from claustrophobia and did not want to get into the back of the police car.

Could this hold situation be another bad outcome when a mental health pt and the cops interact ?  Was the high dose of the Fentanyl causing his underlying claustrophobia to be exaggerated ?

How many people have died because of the over-reaction to Floyd’s death… how many millions of damage to property that was caused by this death ?

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425

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After this “dust-up” with FB over me using this graphic…  this graphic made me think about somethings with this saying and the DEA.  The controlled substance act was signed into law in 1970 creating the BNDD ( Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) which morphed in the DEA in 1973.

Currently with many new, updated studies and information about opiate/controlled substances that was not available back in 1970 , pts are asking… why won’t they listen to these new studies that shows that opiates and controlled substances are not as addicting – or virtually non addicting when prescribed to chronic pain pts and they are taken as prescribed.

Here is all the DEA schedules definitions https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling     These definition were basically decided up by the BNDD/DEA back 50 yrs ago. If you notice, there is very small differences between adjacent categories – with the exception of C-I.. which basically for illegal drugs.

And medications back then were arbitrarily assigned to one of each of 6 categories.

They continue to juggle meds around in the scheduled meds list…  Some times, it is just the DEA changing “their opinion”… from the beginning of the controlled substances Hydrocodone/Acetaminophen (Norco) was a C-III but in late 2014 the DEA decided that it should be a C-II… because their opinion is that people were becoming addicted to this med and/or abusing it.

When the non-opiate/ non-addicting meds came to market – Stadol & Talwin they were just Rx only items, but it didn’t take long for the DEA to classified as a controlled substance because substance abusers were using these two meds to potentiate other substances that they were taking.

When Lyrica came the market.. it was originally scheduled as a C-V because a few of people stated that it made them “high”… so you have med that was suppose to be a non-opiate pain med, but when just a few people in the clinical study stating that it made them high – it got scheduled

There have been other meds that end up being abused by some people and changed to a scheduled med

The scheduling seems to be more determined by the use/abuse by a certain small group of people and has nothing to do with the actual medicinal properties of the medication.

Makes one wonder, when the typical OD toxicology has 4 to 7 substances showing up .. with one of those typically being ALCOHOL, but the use/abuse of alcohol continues to kill abt 100,000/yr but alcohol has a very healthy tax income stream to both state & federal coffers.

This also seem to be the same logic behind the DEA’s “medical fact(s)” that there is no valid medical necessity for a pt being prescribed a opiate, benzo, muscle relaxant  concurrently because the DEA has observed that substance abusers/OD’s have been observed taking those three categories of meds together in very large doses – much above what is FDA recommended doses – to get high.

The DEA has turned these opinions – that were derived at by observing what substance abuser/addicts have done and they have stated and repeated these opinions for so many decades that those opinions have been repeated so many times over 5 decades that they are now believed to be actual FACTS.

How many people who were working for the DEA in the 70’s are still working for the DEA now ?  Who could have refuted that these “facts” are really guesses/opinion from those working the DEA in the 1970’s ?

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Facebook removes pro-Trump ad aimed at Joe Biden, claiming false information

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebook-removes-pro-trump-ad-false-information-claim

A pro-Trump ad was removed from Facebook after claims that it contained false information, Fox News has learned.

America First Action PAC on Tuesday told Fox News that Facebook removed one of its ads, titled “On Hold,” which was placed in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on July 24. The ad was flagged by Politifact on July 29, according to the PAC.

“Facebook’s decision to take down this ad shows its anti-conservative bias,” America First Communications Director Kelly Sadler told Fox News. “America First Action has logged an appeal, but the threat of anti-conservative bias, targeting, and censorship remains ahead of Election Day in November and we must be vigilant in holding big tech, like Facebook accountable.”

TWITTER EXEC IN CHARGE OF FACT-CHECKING MOCKED TRUMP SUPPORTERS, CALLED MCCONNELL ‘BAG OF FARTS’

Sadler, during an interview on Fox Business on Tuesday, added that this “is just more bias from these social media companies.”

“We’re going to file an appeal, but there’s really little we can do about it,” she told host Stuart Varney. “These social media giants are monopolies, and ultimately they make the decision of what runs on their platform.”

Facebook confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that the ad had, in fact, been fact-checked. A Facebook spokesperson told Fox News that ads that are fact-checked and found to contain false information are not eligible to run as a paid ad on the social media platform.

The spokesman added that the videos can, instead, run as original content on the group’s page.

America First Action, though, said certain versions of the ad were removed in particular states, but the Facebook spokesman said that once the ad was fact-checked as false, all versions would be removed from the platform.

The Facebook spokesperson said that if any version of the ad was still running on the platform, it would be due to a lag in Facebook’s fact-checking system.

The ad in question was titled “On Hold,” and shows a woman calling 9-1-1 and being put on hold. The ad moves to show Democratic nominee former Vice President Joe Biden saying “yes,” with a “defund the police?” banner.

The ad is currently marked on Facebook with a label saying: “False Information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.”

Facebook’s fact-checking comes as members of the Trump administration and prominent Republicans have claimed that social media platforms have censored right-leaning viewpoints.

Attorney General William Barr told Fox News in June that social media platforms are “engaged in censorship” and are acting more like “publishers.”

“They originally held themselves out as open forums where people, where the third parties could come and express their views and they built up a tremendous network of eyeballs,” Barr said on “Special Report” in June.

“They had a lot of market power based on that presentation,” the attorney general added. “And now they are acting much more like publishers because they’re censoring particular viewpoints and putting their own content in there to diminish the impact of various people’s views.”

Twitter, earlier this summer, slapped a warning label on one of President Trump’s tweets for the first time, cautioning readers that despite the president’s claims, “fact checkers” say there is “no evidence” that expanded, nationwide mail-in voting would increase fraud risks — and that “experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud.”

Within minutes, Trump accused Twitter of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election,” that the platform “is completely stifling FREE SPEECH” and vowing: “I, as President, will not allow it to happen!”

Two days later, the president signed an executive order that interprets Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 as not providing statutory liability protections for tech companies that engage in censorship and political conduct. It also cuts federal funding for social media platforms that censor users’ political views.

The presidential election is < 90 days away and the Facebook “fact checkers” have decided that some facts on this publication is FALSE

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