this past week I used this graphic as a comment in a threat on Facebook… I have been using this graphic on a semi-regular basis since 2015.  Apparently FB has changed it “community standards” and I got a notice that the particular post had been pulled because it violated their community standards.

Apparently in the current environment of “cancel culture”… FB has hired some “snowflakes” to write and enforce their community standards.  This time … they stated that they were going to graciously only give me a warning… BECAUSE everyone makes mistakes.. but they “keep score for ONE YEAR” and that if I violate their community standards again I would be put in ‘FB jail” for 24 hrs.  Apparently they are of the opinion that those who post a lot on FB are so “addicted” to using their website that just the threat of being put into FB withdrawal is sufficient to make many people to be compliant.

Apparently their algorithm that they use must have come to that conclusion about me because of the number of posts and content of my posts that I would be submissive to their edits and censorship.  If this is the case, would suggest that their algorithm has some serious flaws.

They gave me the option to “agree” or “contest” their decision, and so I contested their determination… and was not given the opportunity to give my reasons as to why I did not agree with their decision and it took them a WHOLE SIX MINUTES for them to send me a notification that they had reviewed their decision and that they AGREED with their decision.

It was announced on TV today that FB had censored a post of President Trump .. something about his opinion concerning kids and catching/spreading COVID-19 …

Our First Amendment to guarantee “freedom of speech” only applies to the government/bureaucracy… FB is a private corporation… so they can legally control what appear on their webpage.  Of course, there is some law that regulates media that they must publish the truth, but all of these FB type website claims that they are exempt from such laws because they don’t publish anything… they are just a medium for other to publish on…  Since they are now censuring what others are posting… based on some “obscure” community standards… they may end up having to decide what they really are… especially if they continue to censor Trump… since he is the “good friends” with the USA Attorney General.

First of all, I have my own domain… www.pharmaciststeve.ccom … which I own and there is no overlord trying to censor what I post, secondly there is a new competitor to FB https://www.parler.com and I have created a pharmaciststeve account on there and will start using in place of FB. https://www.parler.com is suppose to be more friendly to conservative mindset and doesn’t have snowflakes being censors.

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I can assure everyone that  before this is all over… some of the things that are now being stated as FALSE will at some time will turn out to be TRUE and some of the things that are now being stated as TRUE will as some time will turn out to be FALSE.

Just look back to March when many were saying that President Trump was not right to close our borders from people from China, Europe and other countries and now a few months later many of those same people are saying that Trump has done too little … too late…

Dr Fauci seems to only want to work with a med that has proven effective in a double blind placebo study… who is going to volunteer to participate for such a study when they have tested positive for COVID-19 and might end up getting a PLACEBO (sugar pill)…  I wonder if such a clinical trial is even ethical.

It would appear that HCQ, Zithromax and Zn was fairly effective when given early after being infected or those with with mild/moderate symptoms.  At first, it was taking abt two weeks before a person demonstrated symptoms after being infected and then they got tested and had to wait another 5-7 days before they got treated – if they tested positive..  The virus had abt a 3 week head start and the combo of meds appeared to be less effective.

It has been reported that hospitals had a financial incentive to diagnose everyone coming thru the door with COVID-19 and an additional financial incentive to put pts on vents… which 80%-90% never came off the vent alive.

The COVID-19 was believed to be a new/novel virus and no one had protocols on how it was to be treated… everything that was done … was GUESS WORK…

No matter what you are told or you hear someone else state…  everyone needs to look for the political and/or financial agenda behind what they are saying.

We are told that since March that we are suppose to shelter in place, no go to church, beauty/barber shop, gym or other close gathering … unless you are protesting in the street or you are going to the funeral of a deceased member of the House of Representatives.

We live in Indiana but all our TV stations come out of Louisville, KY and they have been filling the streets every night for at least a couple of months.. protesting over Breonna Taylor’s death from Louisville police serving a no knock warrant and they went to the wrong house.  There seems to be no end in sight… and they even have a petition with 10 million signatures https://www.whas11.com/article/news/investigations/breonna-taylor-case/justice-for-breonna-taylor-petition-receives-more-than-10-million-signatures/417-d2c9953a-3ff1-4f45-aa09-4f4fa9712da2   to bad that the chronic pain community could not find such a motivation for unity.

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As COVID-19 cases began to overwhelm hospitals in the United States, state and local governments enacted public health orders in order to slow the rate of infection. These measures have ranged from stay-at-home orders and mask mandates to business closures and bans on large gatherings. All in all, 42 states issued stay-at-home orders for their residents.¹ Yet despite the broad public support for such public health orders, businesses and religious groups have brought multiple lawsuits in response.² Most of these challenges have either contended that the regulating body does not have authority to issue the order, that the order was discriminatory, or that the order constituted a regulatory taking. Moreover, these challenges largely have been partisan in nature rather than in the interest of public health. The legal validity of these orders is also supported by a long history of precedent showing that policing powers reside with the state, with courts consistently ruling that these powers include instituting protections during public health emergencies, learn more about COVID legal battles in Texas.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not over.³ In fact, as states have begun to lift public health orders, rates of coronavirus cases have started to rise.⁴ As a result, many local and state leaders have begun reinstituting some public health orders, likely increasing the number of legal challenges that will be filed in the courts.⁵ In order to ensure the safety of Americans, it is critical that courts follow the law and not succumb to partisan political arguments that are at odds with case law and scientific reality. However, it is also important for courts to be attentive to the potential for states to abuse their broad emergency authorities—especially with an election looming.

Supreme Court precedent regarding states’ police powers

The U.S. Supreme Court has given states wide latitude in terms of their police powers, which provide state and local governments the authority to take action against impending threats to the safety of the public.⁶ Generally, the government must first declare an emergency.⁷ Once an emergency is declared, state and local governments have the ability to issue orders to protect public health and the power to restrain certain liberties.⁸

The 1824 Supreme Court case Gibbons v. Ogden distinguished between the authority given to the federal government and the authority of the state, holding that police powers largely belong to the state.⁹ Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Marshall stated that these powers included the ability to impose isolation and quarantine orders.¹⁰ Almost a century later, in 1905, the court weighed in on the state’s authority to impose public health orders in the case Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which concerned a law mandating smallpox vaccinations.¹¹ The question for the court in this case was whether the state had the authority to issue such a mandate under the 14th Amendment.¹² The court stated that it did, finding that a “community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.”¹³

Jacobson remains the principal case setting the legal standard for states’ police powers and has been cited to uphold public health orders in many of the cases described later in this issue brief. However, the ruling does not give states carte blanche when enacting public health orders, as they are not allowed to exercise their power in an “arbitrary” or “unreasonable manner.”¹⁴

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While Stephen Hahn says the FDA is not in a position to “regulate the practice of medicine,” a group of researchers oppose doctors prescribing the anti-malarial drug for COVID.

The Hill: FDA Chief: Hydroxychloroquine Use A Decision Between Doctor And Patient 
Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on Thursday declined to take a definitive stance on whether people should take hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus,

instead saying that decision should be made between a doctor and a patient.

“We had data that when this drug was combined with others, there was some risk associated with that. But the question you’re asking me is a decision between a doctor and a patient,” Hahn said on NBC’s “Today” show. (Axelrod, 7/30)

CNN: Hydroxychloroquine: Researchers Publish Scathing Critique Of Henry Ford Study Touted By The White House 
Researchers on Wednesday published scathing critiques of a study President Trump repeatedly touted on Twitter. That study, published earlier this month in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, claimed to show that hydroxychloroquine saved lives. President Trump tweeted about it enthusiastically. (Cohen, 7/31)

Kaiser Health News and Politifact HealthCheck: Don’t Fall For This Video: Hydroxychloroquine Is Not A COVID-19 Cure 
Millions of people, including the president of the United States, have seen or shared a video in which a doctor falsely claims there is a cure for the coronavirus, and it’s a medley starring hydroxychloroquine. The video shows several doctors in white coats giving a press conference outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. It persists on social media despite bans from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and it was published by Breitbart, a conservative news site. (Funke, 7/31)

Also —

The Hill: Ohio Pharmacy Board Backtracks, Withdraws Rule Barring Use Of Hydroxychloroquine To Treat Coronavirus
The State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy on Thursday withdrew a rule that would have barred pharmacists, licensed distributors of drugs and medical institutions from prescribing the controversial anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat or prevent the novel coronavirus after Gov. Mike DeWine (R) voiced concerns. The state pharmacy board said in a memo on Wednesday that the rule would, in general, prohibit the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19… But the rule quickly met with pushback from DeWine (R), who urged the state board to reconsider the decision the day it went into effect. (Wise, 7/30)

If the FDA does not have the authority to regulate the practice of medicine… DOES THE DEA LACK THAT SAME AUTHORITY ?

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My blog – this blog – is now in its NINTH YEAR and trying to put things into perspective that is a similar time frame that I spent going thru HIGH SCHOOL and COLLEGE. Going from grade school to becoming a licensed Pharmacist  would suggest is a substantial amount of progress and advancement.

During a similar time frame I opened or expanded several successful businesses.

Generally, the best way for an individual or entity/group to reach/accomplish a goal is to have a dedicated organized plan  along with a adequate number of knowledgeable people who will work toward the goal on a consistent basis, or some will just either pray and figure that someone else will make it happen or just rely on “dumb luck”.

Since 2012 … there has been 5 different Congressional sessions and two different Presidents one from each party. The Republicans have had the majority in both the Senate and the House the majority of the time and only ONE SESSION where both the Senate and the House had the majority of both houses and was the same party as our President – first two years of Trump’s presidency.

In looking at what has happened in/around the chronic pain community during the same time frame.  Advocates have come and gone, the National Pain Report is now gone, one of the national non-profit advocate had some “issues” and the then president was booted out.

How many more FB pages devoted to something going on in/around pain have been created… but it would seem that the numbers have exploded.  I don’t think that any one could come up with a accurate number.  Has to be in the THOUSANDS.

The vast majority of those FB pages are “closed”, “private” or some other visibility restriction placed on them..   Meaning that NOTHING could go viral from a post in one of those FB pages.  Could that be part of the reason that seemingly the vast majority of the community have no idea what is going on in/around the community?

Most everyone recognizes that there is a substantial amount of infighting and disagreement.  This is not something that has happened overnight and it seems to only be getting worse.

There is claimed that there are 100 million chronic pain pts and some 25-35 million within that number are considered dealing with intractable chronic pain – needing some pain mitigating therapy 24/7.  Some want to readily blame President Trump for the current problems.  Yet what political party was in the majority when the decade of pain law expired in 2009 and there was no interest in renewing it ?  What political party was in the majority when the DEA cut opiate pharma production limits by about 50% over several years ?  What political party was in the majority when the CDC published their Opiate dosing guidelines in 2016 ? Has the presumed Democratic Presidential candidate came out and made a statement for or against chronic pain pts getting adequate therapy and/or the DEA continuing to raid prescribers’ offices and shutting them down over mostly fabricated or exaggerated facts ?

Imagine if early in 2019 had come together and got 1% of the community to donate $10/month to a non profit that would be hiring a law firm, PR firm, Lobbyist firm.  That would generate 10 million/month cash flow to a  “war chest”.  At this point in time those professional could be approaching the upper echelon of those two political campaigns with the facts that they represent 100 million chronic painers and that they are looking for a candidate who will support getting the DEA out of prescribers’ offices…

If Trump wanted those 100 million votes the community needs an executive order to put a muzzle on the DEA BEFORE NOV 3rd or those 100 million votes will be given to Biden.  Generally it only takes about 65 million total votes to win the presidency.  In reality, the community could determine who gets elected to just about any office at any level from city/county/state/nationally. Remember, abt 85% of Congress is up for re-election every two years and abt 98% will get re-elected regardless what they do or don’t do or promise to get done and never does or does just the opposite of what they promised.

But because of the on going infighting and disunity within the community … that boat has already sailed for this election year.

Do I believe that anything will change within the community ?  Not really, IMO, all too many are willing to compromise and unify as long as others are willing to compromise to their opinion(s) and unify under their “organizational umbrella “

Let’s hope that as the stronger advocates “thrown in the towel” and just walk away – out of frustration – the last advocate standing has the entire community’s best interest in mind

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Pennsylvania uses ‘weighted lottery’ to distribute lifesaving remdesivir in favor of low-income patients

https://www.foxnews.com/media/pa-hospitals-use-weighted-lottery-to-distribute-lifesaving-remdesivir-in-favor-of-low-income-patients

South Carolina doctor says they will also use a similar system if faced with shortages

The antiviral drug remdisivir has been effective in treating COVID-19, reducing risk of death for severely ill patients by 62 percent. It is also scarce, leaving a number of states in fear of running out as coronavirus cases continue to rise across the country.

As a solution to this problem, Pennsylvania is encouraging healthcare providers to use a “weighted lottery” system to decide which patients are treated with this lifesaving drug and who goes without. Instead of medical need being the deciding factor of who receives a drug, this lottery is weighted in favor of those who sit lower on the socioeconomic spectrum.

Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, is concerned that this move is not being given proper attention and could have huge implications for the health care system moving forward.

“They’ve decided to do some social engineering and tilt the scales and make sure that the drug goes to people who live in low-income areas in preference to patients, maybe in the same ICU with the same medical problems, who live in a nicer neighborhood,” McCaughey told Fox News.

McCaughey says this sort of “redistributive medicine” could have serious ramifications if adopted by more states and in more areas of health care. Hospitals face drug shortages all the time, like the widely used vincristine for childhood cancer. McCaughey worries that if this sort of tipping of the scales becomes normal practice it is the middle class who will suffer.

“I don’t think we should be rationing scarce medical resources against the middle class. We’ve got to treat everybody the same. They’re starting with remdesivir but this is only the beginning,” she said.

The rationale behind this new system is to “redress inequities that make health and safety less accessible to disadvantaged groups,” says the Pennsylvania Department of Health. “One strategy to accomplish this is to use a metric like the Area Deprivation Index to identify patients from disadvantaged communities, then give them somewhat increased chances to receive treatment in a weighted lottery,” according to their website.

Pennsylvania is not alone in this social justice push to ration drugs away from the middle class.

According to Dr. Dee Ford, who was on a panel of ethicists and medical experts who developed an “ethically principled” process to distribute the initial supply of remdesivir in South Carolina, the state would also adopt a similar system if faced with shortages.

While the general public is in favor of medical treatment being given to those most in need and using a blind lottery system, McCaughey believes academics are using the pandemic as an opportunity to push a “redistributionist agenda.”

“It’s time for the public to discuss this and speak out for fairness in medicine. It’s such a serious issue that it should be discussed by everybody, not just behind the closed doors of an academic discussion,” said McCaughey.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health responded to Fox New’s request for comment by saying they have distributed six shipments of remdesivir to acute health care facilities and have “devised a formula to ensure equitable allocation [of remdesivir] to all acute care health care facilities.” In their statement they also say a ‘”weighted lottery” is an inaccurate name for this formula, however, the term is used on their website.

“Additionally, the Department of Human Services, Department of Health and PA Emergency Management Agency, along with a number of other stakeholder groups, developed a system of set recommendations for how the hospitals can allocate RDV. These recommendations are available for use by all hospitals, and promote equal access to this treatment based on clinical judgment. While utilization of these guidelines is completely optional and up to the facility and the individual health care provider, we emphasize the need to make treatment accessible to all who can best benefit from its use,” the statement continued.

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