“Every Respectable Source of Medical Education Was Corrupted” You would think someone would have learned their lesson after the opioid disaster, but woohoo! Here we go again with genital mutilation, another medical money maker.
Can someone, anyone, explain to me why the AMA has jumped onboard, so fervently, to support the trans lobby’s push to give puberty blockers & hormones to underage children with transient mental problems, and then promote irreversible sexual-genital mutilation of teenage boys and girls?
Does the AMA not understand how much trust they have lost? Is the big Pharma money worth selling your soul?
Who the hell at the AMA decided to support this cockamamie policy? Give me a name.
on a meta scale there's too many humans - there used to not be enough, hence the bias / incentive was on producing structures which incentivized more - now it's the reverse. hence homosexuality at one time being pretty taboo because it didn't result in children, and now it being celebrated, as well as other gender topologies like the above because it allows the sexual impulse to be utilized without resulting in children.
this may not specifically explain the on the ground reality, but if you view it from 10,000 feet it really really explains what has gone on since the victorian age.
the bigotry also really aligns well with the beginnings of modern capitalism (victorian era) as even in ancient greece both homosexuality was considered an honor by the higher echelons and they all had wives locked up in their 2nd story house to procreate with.
as far as trans specifically, sexuality has been viewed by certain sect as a control mechanism, particulary the male-female socialization dynamic (i'm saying the social normalization stuff - not the biological reality) which leads to certain outcomes preferred by those in power. This has been widely examined since Freud and beyond. Trans is another way of deconstructing this dynamic in many ways - there is an intellectual tradition somewhat valid which deconstructs this, though i still personally find it batshit insane to want to transition so -
but merely having the option you are going to get some people who will "do" it for various reasons - some monetary, some simply attention seeking, and some genuine believers -
Perhaps if you were aware of any of the following your comment might not ended with having an option.
Eugenics is a very old term, but it was practiced widely here and abroad. It became genetic counseling and calling attention to ‘over-population.’
The switch to the eventually called ‘planned parenthood’ has been a boon and exported overseas.
Jaffe’s, head of the Technical Assistance Division of Planned Parenthood-World Population, 1969 memo to Dr. Berelson, president of the World Population Council (founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1952)
1969 Nixon requests money to study population: Title 10 (1970)
1972 Nixon request a population report: The Rockefeller Commission completes the report and Nixon shelves it but requests Kissinger to study how ‘over-population’ in “developing countries” threatens the U.S.
1973 Nine Robes enshrined abortion as a right.
19974 Kissinger’s highly classified report is turned in. Nixon is gone but Ford signs it into law and implements as NSSM-20.0. This changes how the USG operates in foreign countries.
1979 Carter releases the Global 2000 report which accepts every premise of the population control advocates.
1985 Reagan forbids using tax dollar funding of any international program that promotes or finances abortions -The Mexico City Policy.
1990 Bush 41 re-implements those policies. Clinton reverses; Bush 43 re-implements; Obama reveres; Trump re-implements; Biden reverses.
Gays are cherished because they won’t reproduce. Transgenderism is wanted because they can’t reproduce. It is all about depopulation, specifically of certain peoples to reduce the consumption of natural energy resources so they are available to the next generations of those that claim the power of the future. The goal is no more than 1,000,000 million people world-wide. Soon there will be famines, more wars and technology engineered floods and droughts.
This article shines a light beam on why drug deaths are lauded, Covid was manufactured and more manufactured deadly viruses will be released.
This has nothing to do with eugenics - wtf? I'm explaining some very very basic social theory stuff here, that's all.
How many of these commenters have been to college? Not to sound like a pompous ass, but I'm genuinely dumbfounded by the ignorance here sometimes, and at others by the lack of intellectual curiosity.
All I attempted to explain was some very very basic social foundations for what eventually turned into the trans movement - as well as basic theories on why homosexuality has been allowed or not allowed during certain epochs. Hell I don't even agree w/most of it - but it's foundational. (and good food for thought, assuming you have a freaking brain)
I view trans surgery as a subset of major inpatient cosmetic surgery, which is well-known as the most lucrative specialty in medicine. But unlike the majority of cosmetic surgeries, which are viewed as elective, the trans makeovers are covered by medical insurance.
Until the day arrives when there's XX and XY "chromosome transition" therapy, "gender transition procedures" are always about cosmetic surgery to align with a subjective personal perception of their own body image- entirely in relation to how the person feels/thinks they're being viewed or responded to by other people, at that.
If someone lived in solitude, how much "gender dysmorphia" would they experience?
I don't know. But I think it's a question worth pondering.
It surely seems to me trans activists and the medical establishment driving this horseshit have conflated gender and gender roles in order to prey upon mentally ill people.
That didn't take long. Straight from a discussion of opioids and then straightaway to somebody's genitals. Anybody's genitals. Forget the opioid crisis---let's talk turkey. Balls and all...
The common thread is the enormous profit potential in the exploitation of medical technologies for questionable purposes.
For that matter, while I'm not the convinced anti-vaxxer that so many others are on this site, I do have to admit this: I'd feel a lot more confidence about the recent insistence on the continuing expansion of vaccinations--for a range of diseases that were formerly considered amenable to being handled by natural immunity evolution, given a condition of basic good health--if I hadn't learned that Pfizer's covid vaccine was the single most profitable pharmaceutical product in the history of medicine:
"Pfizer’s 2021 revenue was $81.3 billion, roughly double its revenue in 2020, when its top sellers were a pneumonia vaccine, the cancer drug Ibrance, and the fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica, which had gone off-patent.
Now its mRNA vaccine holds 70% of the U.S. and European markets. And its antiviral Paxlovid is the pill of choice to treat early symptoms of COVID. This year, the company expects to rake in more than $50 billion in global revenue from the two medications alone.
I'd be considerably less skeptical if Pfizer had put a voluntary cap on their own profits, for a kinda-sorta-maybe effective vaccine regime relying on an experimental technology that's every bit as "novel" as the covid virus, with its rapidly mutating variants.
I am a 61 yo anesthesiologist who saw this coming 30 years ago when we saw the push to treat pain as a 5th vital sign and to deemphasise the addictive nature of opioids. The government, pharmaceutical industry and our medical societies all share the culpability for the disaster we now face. And none will ever admit responsibility. Shameful.
Your thoughts on under treated pain in terminally ill and nursing home patients?
I had appendicitis at age 67. Was in the ER for hours, in excruciating pain, waiting and waiting for an appendectomy. I am pretty stoic, but rated my pain at 11 for over 6 hours. That’s a long time to wait for pain relief.
After the surgery when I reported minimal pain, and really didn’t need anything, the heavy duty pain meds were given to take home and to be taken as needed. Nonsensical.
No problem with narcotics for the terminally ill. Nursing home patients are a tougher question since these drugs have sometimes been used to make patients more docile for overworked staff rather than treatment of real pain issues. The new overreaction to the problem of widespread addiction has lead to patients who actually fit into the time honored categories (acute short-term pain issues and surgical pain, both of which should be limited short term uses, and terminally ill) where narcotics are appropriate find they are delayed receiving them because health care workers are caught in the middle of a national policy disaster.
I highly recommend the book “the empire of pain” about the sacklers and the opioid crisis. Deep educational, yet riveting and told as a family drama similar to a Succession style story.
This book started my rabbit hole into the opioid crisis - the government is not your friend and agencies are made up of everyday people that can be corrupted.
The more I learned about the opioid crisis and how every level of regulation and protection had been corrupted, the more Covid made sense. Big pharma’s money talks louder than what’s good and healthy for actual people, simple.
It’s also happening right now with “gender affirming” surgery, or better described as the pseudo scientific butchering and sterilizing of children. ITS ALL ABOUT MONEY and the fact that people still hide behind “oh the AMA guidelines say this so it must be fine” need to do more research about the Opioid crisis. At least pain management sounds somewhat noble and scientific - cutting children’s breasts off and shooting them up with testosterone sounds like something they’d do in the 1300s.
Don't forget the opioids get their twin, Narcan/Naxalone to pull folks out of the synth ODs. Emergent BioSolutions (who own the Narcan patent) have had over $1 billion in revenues in the last year. I couldn't find data on how much Teva Pharmaceuticals made with Naxalone. Now with efforts to make sure all police, EMT and Fire have Narcan to administer, it's just purely dipping into the public trough. Of course, when someone can OD "risk free" you're not going to get any curbing of that behavior.
Follow the money. Whenever some treatment is legislated, someone's raking in billions. The outcome for patients is irrelevant.
Future outlook: look for pharma companies to come up with treatments for "turbo cancers", which seemed to crop up more recently for "unknown reasons".
I have to wonder how much has been made off Suboxone as well. In my way of thinking it was switching an illegal drug, heroin, for a legal one, Suboxone. These were meant for temporary use, tapering and weaning off narcotics. I’d love to see the stats on how many, once started, continue permanently.
Absolutely, saw this all the time when I lived in San Francisco. Narcan was heralded as this miracle for overdoses - except after reversing the OD, they didn’t care that people were just going right back to the street to do the same drugs. Patient health and recovery weren’t top priority
Empire of Pain was a great book, though it leaves you feeling enraged.
I also recommend The Least of Us by Sam Quinones. It presents an even bigger picture of the crisis and includes the stories of those whose lives have been wrecked by addiction.
I read "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" (2015) by Sam Quinones. Its exhaustive research didn't prevent Quinones from telling the tale of this terrible crisis in a very readable way.
The chronic pain/opiate propaganda was just starting to be a big thing as I was finishing medical school back in the late 90's. I remember being skeptical about it even then, but many of my contemporaries STILL seem to have no idea that they were duped--or how. They still spout nonsense about the "epidemic of untreated pain," and the "5th vital sign."
Opiates are the most egregious example of pharma greed, but there are many others. Anti-depressants, for example: barely better than placebo (even in the drug companies' own trials) and leading to many potential harms that have been downplayed and covered up. If these meds were effective, shouldn't we have less depression now than in the past, rather than exponentially more?
The evil of the people who push unproven drugs (COVID vaccines anyone?) on a naively trusting public is beyond comprehension. No wonder peoples' trust in doctors is at an all time low. As a profession, we richly deserve it.
I worked in addiction detox and with psychiatric patients for decades. You are absolutely right about all the antidepressants and antipsychotics pushed on patients. These drugs are more powerful than people realize and they’re on them for years - sometimes for the rest of their lives. The effects of antipsychotics used long term are particularly awful and drug companies have gotten approval for doctors to prescribe them to children as young as six.
And, as with almost everything else, the last thing we consider is solving the problem--in this case, requiring tht key personnel at regulatory and educational entities be divested of any meaningful financial relationship with those regulated or with an interest in the educational programs.
Instead, we declare war on the innocent--specifically, my wife as an example. She suffers from a very serious chronic pain condition, and the physicians, Board Certified in Pain Management and Anesthesia and who operate as a pain center at a major teaching hospital. They are constrained in how they treat her, what they can prescribe and in what quantities and even the mechanism by which such prescriptions can legally be written. The doctors practice in fear of the next wave of regulators to descend on them, upend their operation while searching for evidence they can misrepresent to take away their medical licenses. All of this is inconvenient at best and a threat to her health at times, for no damn good reason except to let some politicians and administrators pretend they care.
My observations as a 40 year RN; Opioid Rx has come full circle. Now orthopedic surgeons give nothing but ibuprofen after total knee surgery. No moderation in American medicine. We either drug them or make them suffer.
I just had a total knee replacement that also included a leg realignment. The surgery took about a third longer than normal. I can't take NSAIDs because of stomach bleeding. I went through months of unmanageable pain. The ortho docs are scared shitless. I'm now receiving lower spine shots. They seem to help.
As has been covered in Reason magazine, most opioid deaths are now caused by illicit opioids and the victims have never been exposed to pharmaceutical opioids. The Sacklers suck, but the opioid crisis has taken on a life of its own beyond prescription opioids.
You have no idea how that upsets me. If I was caring for you it wouldn’t happen. I’d grab that surgeon by the ear while holding a Rx pad in front of him.
As a 78 year old retired California internist this is the first time I have read an article on the opioid crisis which has been so on the mark. I experienced the 5th vital sign campaign with dismay. The coup de grace came when our legislature mandated for the first time a specific continuing education topic for all physicians to complete. Needless to say that topic was “pain management” instructed by Sackler shills. More recently I have noted that several of my medical associates who completed these mandatory programs have been sanctioned by the Medical Board for opiate prescribing issues. I guess they were not able to unlearn what the experts taught them.
sorry I know many people ( used to be me too) that have suffered from serious pain that have been unable to receive the pain meds they need. My headaches put me in bed for days every month.. less now that i am post menopausal .. When I went to Canada I found out I could buy aspirin with a small dose of codeine.. saved me from days o being unable to get out of bed..when IO really suffered I needed Vicodin or a substitute. when my dentist did extensive work that was excruciating I was told to take two tylenol.. when my friend was in the hospital and need pain meds she was denied “until the doctor said she could be relived” of cancer pain. fucking cancer pain.. so we who are no drug addicts pay the price.. no better scene than this one from Terms of Endearment .. a scene that plays out every day in the medical community. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AIroyiLEM
Correct me if I'm wrong—I believe you're thinking of tylenol-3 you can get over the counter in Canada, which is ibuprofen [advil] and codeine! I've not seen aspirin and codeine before except in prescription combinations. I take it now and then for the same reason of headaches. Migraines seem to run in my family, and they are absolutely crippling. I think people who don't get chronic headaches assume we're exaggerating, but they really can make you unable to do anything but lay down and cry in agony.
Tylenol-3 can be bought at any pharmacy in Canada, but it might not be on display and sometimes needs asked for. At some pharmacies, they like to stare at you like you're an addict for even asking for it; the amount of codeine is low enough that the idea addicts are the main market is crazy, as if they all know chemistry and have lab equipment to do a cold water extraction separating the codeine to abuse it!
I always bring some to the US when staying with people I know there, and I've never had trouble, so for any Americans it may benefit, I assume it is safe to bring across the border. Put it with some vitamins or prescriptions if you are worried and want to be sure. TSA doesn't look for drugs, and they would see "tylenol" if they do and not read or recognise the ingredients.
I read this and am heartbroken. As a daily mass Catholic, I pray each and every day for those who have died deaths of despair usually fueled by drugs. OTOH, I am 67 and have beaten 2 cancers with the concomitant side effect burdens. I can no longer agree to any surgery without a clear agreement about what the pain relief options will be; trusting my doc to manage the issue no longer works. Tylenol for a lobectomy was not a good plan. If I were going to become addicted to pain medication, it would have happened long ago. Talking late at night to my friends about how to match up alcohol and Benadryl to get through the night is an inhumane denial of care - and not particularly safe.
In 2013 I had a major accident when a car turned in front of my motorcycle. I lost my spleen and had four broken ribs along with a bruised leg and a broken leg. They had me on a push-button IV pump with some narcotics I could use at will in intensive care. That lasted 6 days. Then they moved me to a cardiac unit because I developed an arrhythmia. Then I was sent to a rehab facility where they let me decide how many 10 mg Oxy tablets I wanted to take between 1 and 3 every 4 hours. I quickly went to 2. Then to 1. Then to 1 every 8 hours and finally to Tylenol. I never felt any withdrawal. No one should be in pain after surgery. This overreaction is ruining patients' quality of life.
Smoking is a choice, initially. - However, every addict eventually understands that the addiction makes the decisions - often choosing social settings, hobbies, contacts etc.
RFK Jr. is right - there's nothing Big Pharma likes better than a sick child - get'em hooked early. With luck we'll see better parenting, with the focus of setting better examples for the young. Won't cost a nickel, but will require parents to put down the bong and the ding-dongs and take their kids outdoors on walks. Quelle horreur!
Just wow. Maybe don't over-generalize quite so much about sick children and their terrible parents. I say this as the parent of a former pediatric cancer patient who has a rare immune system disorder - neither of which have anything to do with a lack of exercise and good food. In fact, if you saw is 6'1", 270 pounds of muscle on the football field, you'd think he was the picture of good living.
Thanks for your comment. Please accept my best wishes re: children with rare diseases. I'm not sure why you conflate my reference to illness from bad parenting with illness from rare diseases. I'm certain you can recognize the differences as clearly as I. I sincerely hope your child is enjoying better days. Good health is a gift - too many parents destroy their own and do too little to preserve that of their children. I and others I know have lost family members to addictions of one kind and another. A friend just this morning described his "broken" neighbors who lost a child to Oxy. The ravages of addiction and chemical dependency, as Bobby Jr. notes, ensures America has the sickest population on the planet. I'm sure you'd like to see healthier children. Again, sincere best wishes to you and yours.
"Among American teens, close to 30% are prediabetic. More than 18% of young adults have nonalchoholic fatty liver disease. More than 40% of adults 22 to 44 are obese, according to a 2023 study."
Explain, please, where I apologize, or express regret for a failure to be clear. Blaming children for their own obesity and poor diet may make sense to you, but not to me.
I am, btw, unlikely to accept criticism of the way I think and express myself from individuals unable to read, or understand the clear differences between hereditary/rare disorders and diet and lifestyle-induced health problems.
Read the data about who died during COVID and why. RFK jr has it right. Infants become addicted to screens because parents, in many cases, use phones as subsitutes for emotional engagement with their own kids.
Ask a teacher. I spent years in the classroom teaching the best and the brightest as well as folks with learning disorders. We are failing our children in the classroom and in our homes too often and in too many ways for me to enumerate here.
Ask yourself why so many around us, of all ages, are waddling through their days, all day, with a slurpy or "starbucks" in one hand and "smart" phone in the other. When was the last time you saw people of any age practicing wind sprints for fun and good health? We're raising a generation of young people, especially young women, overburdened with mental, physical, and emotional disorders in large part, because you and many others fail to grasp one basic concept.
We can't think our way into a better way of living, but we can live our way into a better way of thinking. Go for a long walk now, why don't you, and give the matter some thought. Thanks for your comment.
All of this can throw me into a rage. It happened with my daughter. Because of legal opiates, she was lost to us (and her child) for 12 years. It was a nightmare.
The problem isn't that opioids are "legal." They're legal, but doctors are supposed to have respect for their dangers, and use their prescription powers wisely.
The problem is that Sackler propagandized physicians into believing that they didn't have to think twice about prescribing 2-week supplies of them, even for minor acute pain.
Opioids are still the most commonly prescribed medicine for pain, and they always have been, because in most cases they're a more effective pain releiver than anything else. They aren't going anywhere. Severe pain is a very common problem- hydrocodone prescriptions are up there with statins and ulcer meds in terms of frequency of prescription. I had a case of shingles a while back, at I time when I needed to be up and functioning- I had bags to pack and a plane to catch. My shingles case was like being stung by a hive of bees for days on end. Without hydrocodone, I would have been helpless. It was the difference between functioning and not functioning. But I refuse to use those drugs to party with, because doing that might derail my life. It also sends the wrong message to other people.
I sympathize with your family difficulties, and I'm glad she got out of the trap. I have a family member who's fallen into fentanyl addiction. Frankly, I'd rather have them on a legal opioid maintenance program than that scary situation. What I really wish is that he'd get enough of a grip to get out of the quicksand and clean up. But if he was an addiction maintenance patient, at least he'd have enough supervision to get the opportunity to stabilize his life situation. The street world of illegal opioids is not an improvement.
Like many other "professional" medical associations, the AMA has nothing to do with the interests of American doctors, or scientific medicine, and everything to do with the interests of its leaders and their corporate and political overlords.
Most of these organizations don't speak for or represent American medical doctors. They represent private equity and hospital systems. They are exactly as corrupt and untrustworthy as their sponsors.
Nowadays even the medical specialty boards are just big moneymaking rackets. Like the CME industrial complex (I've forgotten more from what I read on medical Twitter or blogs, than what I had learned from expensive CME activities - another relic of a corrupt system).
That "pain faces" chart was in every hospital room I visited during my father's stays. It is highly manipulative. Just looking at it, in my emotional state, brought me to the verge of tears. To think that it was a PR stunt for increased opioid use is appalling. There is no depth to which these dope pushers will not sink.
Not that many died FROM Covid, doctor. I believe the CDC admitted only 6% died FROM Covid quite a long time ago. . Most of the rest, not all the rest, died WITH Covid and included in death certificates that were ordered manipulated by the CDC. A huge amount were simply murdered in hospitals by horrific protocols ordered from on high. It’s important this truth is also put front and center.
I am fortunate that when I was going through my brain tumor issues my doctor did not see me as a potential addict. My pain was treated with compassion not contempt.
I agree anyone posting comments should read “Empire of Pain”. It’s a fascinating story about how pain killers morphed from pain killers into opioids. While the 3 Sackler brothers seemed to be doing their best to help patients, their offspring changed the direction to maximize profit and increase addiction. Just a tragic story.
And, patients issue with pain still exists as a major problem. When Vioxx was stopped by the AMA and the Feds, opioid addiction became a massive issue. Pain management continues to be a problem
“Every Respectable Source of Medical Education Was Corrupted” You would think someone would have learned their lesson after the opioid disaster, but woohoo! Here we go again with genital mutilation, another medical money maker.
The same connection clicked with me.
Can someone, anyone, explain to me why the AMA has jumped onboard, so fervently, to support the trans lobby’s push to give puberty blockers & hormones to underage children with transient mental problems, and then promote irreversible sexual-genital mutilation of teenage boys and girls?
Does the AMA not understand how much trust they have lost? Is the big Pharma money worth selling your soul?
Who the hell at the AMA decided to support this cockamamie policy? Give me a name.
Didn’t mean to distract from your great article, doctor.
The article explained a lot about the interactions I had a few years ago with several doctors re pain relief. Everyone should read this.
on a meta scale there's too many humans - there used to not be enough, hence the bias / incentive was on producing structures which incentivized more - now it's the reverse. hence homosexuality at one time being pretty taboo because it didn't result in children, and now it being celebrated, as well as other gender topologies like the above because it allows the sexual impulse to be utilized without resulting in children.
this may not specifically explain the on the ground reality, but if you view it from 10,000 feet it really really explains what has gone on since the victorian age.
the bigotry also really aligns well with the beginnings of modern capitalism (victorian era) as even in ancient greece both homosexuality was considered an honor by the higher echelons and they all had wives locked up in their 2nd story house to procreate with.
as far as trans specifically, sexuality has been viewed by certain sect as a control mechanism, particulary the male-female socialization dynamic (i'm saying the social normalization stuff - not the biological reality) which leads to certain outcomes preferred by those in power. This has been widely examined since Freud and beyond. Trans is another way of deconstructing this dynamic in many ways - there is an intellectual tradition somewhat valid which deconstructs this, though i still personally find it batshit insane to want to transition so -
but merely having the option you are going to get some people who will "do" it for various reasons - some monetary, some simply attention seeking, and some genuine believers -
Perhaps if you were aware of any of the following your comment might not ended with having an option.
Eugenics is a very old term, but it was practiced widely here and abroad. It became genetic counseling and calling attention to ‘over-population.’
The switch to the eventually called ‘planned parenthood’ has been a boon and exported overseas.
Jaffe’s, head of the Technical Assistance Division of Planned Parenthood-World Population, 1969 memo to Dr. Berelson, president of the World Population Council (founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1952)
1969 Nixon requests money to study population: Title 10 (1970)
1972 Nixon request a population report: The Rockefeller Commission completes the report and Nixon shelves it but requests Kissinger to study how ‘over-population’ in “developing countries” threatens the U.S.
1973 Nine Robes enshrined abortion as a right.
19974 Kissinger’s highly classified report is turned in. Nixon is gone but Ford signs it into law and implements as NSSM-20.0. This changes how the USG operates in foreign countries.
1979 Carter releases the Global 2000 report which accepts every premise of the population control advocates.
1985 Reagan forbids using tax dollar funding of any international program that promotes or finances abortions -The Mexico City Policy.
1990 Bush 41 re-implements those policies. Clinton reverses; Bush 43 re-implements; Obama reveres; Trump re-implements; Biden reverses.
Gays are cherished because they won’t reproduce. Transgenderism is wanted because they can’t reproduce. It is all about depopulation, specifically of certain peoples to reduce the consumption of natural energy resources so they are available to the next generations of those that claim the power of the future. The goal is no more than 1,000,000 million people world-wide. Soon there will be famines, more wars and technology engineered floods and droughts.
This article shines a light beam on why drug deaths are lauded, Covid was manufactured and more manufactured deadly viruses will be released.
This has nothing to do with eugenics - wtf? I'm explaining some very very basic social theory stuff here, that's all.
How many of these commenters have been to college? Not to sound like a pompous ass, but I'm genuinely dumbfounded by the ignorance here sometimes, and at others by the lack of intellectual curiosity.
All I attempted to explain was some very very basic social foundations for what eventually turned into the trans movement - as well as basic theories on why homosexuality has been allowed or not allowed during certain epochs. Hell I don't even agree w/most of it - but it's foundational. (and good food for thought, assuming you have a freaking brain)
It is a form of eugenics as it does the same thing, stops certain people from having children.
There are theories and there are realities. I must have left my brain in my head.
It's not because these are explanatory theories on why xx or yy bigotry developed in the first place - jesus
I view trans surgery as a subset of major inpatient cosmetic surgery, which is well-known as the most lucrative specialty in medicine. But unlike the majority of cosmetic surgeries, which are viewed as elective, the trans makeovers are covered by medical insurance.
Until the day arrives when there's XX and XY "chromosome transition" therapy, "gender transition procedures" are always about cosmetic surgery to align with a subjective personal perception of their own body image- entirely in relation to how the person feels/thinks they're being viewed or responded to by other people, at that.
If someone lived in solitude, how much "gender dysmorphia" would they experience?
I don't know. But I think it's a question worth pondering.
It surely seems to me trans activists and the medical establishment driving this horseshit have conflated gender and gender roles in order to prey upon mentally ill people.
Oh they know the lessons well $$$$$$$$. Corruption pays like in all fields!
One could imagine seeing a very similar version of this article 20 years from now.
That didn't take long. Straight from a discussion of opioids and then straightaway to somebody's genitals. Anybody's genitals. Forget the opioid crisis---let's talk turkey. Balls and all...
The common thread is the enormous profit potential in the exploitation of medical technologies for questionable purposes.
For that matter, while I'm not the convinced anti-vaxxer that so many others are on this site, I do have to admit this: I'd feel a lot more confidence about the recent insistence on the continuing expansion of vaccinations--for a range of diseases that were formerly considered amenable to being handled by natural immunity evolution, given a condition of basic good health--if I hadn't learned that Pfizer's covid vaccine was the single most profitable pharmaceutical product in the history of medicine:
"Pfizer’s 2021 revenue was $81.3 billion, roughly double its revenue in 2020, when its top sellers were a pneumonia vaccine, the cancer drug Ibrance, and the fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica, which had gone off-patent.
Now its mRNA vaccine holds 70% of the U.S. and European markets. And its antiviral Paxlovid is the pill of choice to treat early symptoms of COVID. This year, the company expects to rake in more than $50 billion in global revenue from the two medications alone.
Paxlovid’s value to vaccinated patients isn’t yet clear, and Pfizer’s COVID vaccine doesn’t entirely prevent infections, although each booster temporarily restores some protection. Yet, while patients may recoil at the need for repeated injections — two boosters are now recommended for people 50 and older — the requirement is gold for investors..." https://health.wusf.usf.edu/health-news-florida/2022-07-05/how-pfizer-won-the-pandemic-reaping-outsize-profit-and-influence
I'd be considerably less skeptical if Pfizer had put a voluntary cap on their own profits, for a kinda-sorta-maybe effective vaccine regime relying on an experimental technology that's every bit as "novel" as the covid virus, with its rapidly mutating variants.
I think they are trying to get rid of the old people.
For the Social Security burden, yes. And to generally remove more of the "useless eaters".
"Aging Useless Eaters"
Hey, Canada seems hell-bent on helping the elderly - among others - to die. So, there's that.
I am a 61 yo anesthesiologist who saw this coming 30 years ago when we saw the push to treat pain as a 5th vital sign and to deemphasise the addictive nature of opioids. The government, pharmaceutical industry and our medical societies all share the culpability for the disaster we now face. And none will ever admit responsibility. Shameful.
Your thoughts on under treated pain in terminally ill and nursing home patients?
I had appendicitis at age 67. Was in the ER for hours, in excruciating pain, waiting and waiting for an appendectomy. I am pretty stoic, but rated my pain at 11 for over 6 hours. That’s a long time to wait for pain relief.
After the surgery when I reported minimal pain, and really didn’t need anything, the heavy duty pain meds were given to take home and to be taken as needed. Nonsensical.
No problem with narcotics for the terminally ill. Nursing home patients are a tougher question since these drugs have sometimes been used to make patients more docile for overworked staff rather than treatment of real pain issues. The new overreaction to the problem of widespread addiction has lead to patients who actually fit into the time honored categories (acute short-term pain issues and surgical pain, both of which should be limited short term uses, and terminally ill) where narcotics are appropriate find they are delayed receiving them because health care workers are caught in the middle of a national policy disaster.
I highly recommend the book “the empire of pain” about the sacklers and the opioid crisis. Deep educational, yet riveting and told as a family drama similar to a Succession style story.
This book started my rabbit hole into the opioid crisis - the government is not your friend and agencies are made up of everyday people that can be corrupted.
The more I learned about the opioid crisis and how every level of regulation and protection had been corrupted, the more Covid made sense. Big pharma’s money talks louder than what’s good and healthy for actual people, simple.
It’s also happening right now with “gender affirming” surgery, or better described as the pseudo scientific butchering and sterilizing of children. ITS ALL ABOUT MONEY and the fact that people still hide behind “oh the AMA guidelines say this so it must be fine” need to do more research about the Opioid crisis. At least pain management sounds somewhat noble and scientific - cutting children’s breasts off and shooting them up with testosterone sounds like something they’d do in the 1300s.
Don't forget the opioids get their twin, Narcan/Naxalone to pull folks out of the synth ODs. Emergent BioSolutions (who own the Narcan patent) have had over $1 billion in revenues in the last year. I couldn't find data on how much Teva Pharmaceuticals made with Naxalone. Now with efforts to make sure all police, EMT and Fire have Narcan to administer, it's just purely dipping into the public trough. Of course, when someone can OD "risk free" you're not going to get any curbing of that behavior.
Follow the money. Whenever some treatment is legislated, someone's raking in billions. The outcome for patients is irrelevant.
Future outlook: look for pharma companies to come up with treatments for "turbo cancers", which seemed to crop up more recently for "unknown reasons".
I have to wonder how much has been made off Suboxone as well. In my way of thinking it was switching an illegal drug, heroin, for a legal one, Suboxone. These were meant for temporary use, tapering and weaning off narcotics. I’d love to see the stats on how many, once started, continue permanently.
Absolutely, saw this all the time when I lived in San Francisco. Narcan was heralded as this miracle for overdoses - except after reversing the OD, they didn’t care that people were just going right back to the street to do the same drugs. Patient health and recovery weren’t top priority
Well, that's why it's called emergency medicine. The EMTs and cops don't have the time or resources to do follow-up.
I support the concept of Rehab Jail. Even though I don;t know of it being implemented anywhere in the US just yet https://substack.com/@adwjeditor/p-141581406
Empire of Pain was a great book, though it leaves you feeling enraged.
I also recommend The Least of Us by Sam Quinones. It presents an even bigger picture of the crisis and includes the stories of those whose lives have been wrecked by addiction.
Another banger for sure! I read dopesick as well, but IMO empire of pain and the least of us were better
I read "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" (2015) by Sam Quinones. Its exhaustive research didn't prevent Quinones from telling the tale of this terrible crisis in a very readable way.
Sounds like you're arguing that the Avignon papacy was LGBTQ-friendly.
The chronic pain/opiate propaganda was just starting to be a big thing as I was finishing medical school back in the late 90's. I remember being skeptical about it even then, but many of my contemporaries STILL seem to have no idea that they were duped--or how. They still spout nonsense about the "epidemic of untreated pain," and the "5th vital sign."
Opiates are the most egregious example of pharma greed, but there are many others. Anti-depressants, for example: barely better than placebo (even in the drug companies' own trials) and leading to many potential harms that have been downplayed and covered up. If these meds were effective, shouldn't we have less depression now than in the past, rather than exponentially more?
The evil of the people who push unproven drugs (COVID vaccines anyone?) on a naively trusting public is beyond comprehension. No wonder peoples' trust in doctors is at an all time low. As a profession, we richly deserve it.
I wrote about my one of my own "red pill" moments with big pharma here: https://pairodocs.substack.com/p/he-who-pays-the-piper-part-2
I worked in addiction detox and with psychiatric patients for decades. You are absolutely right about all the antidepressants and antipsychotics pushed on patients. These drugs are more powerful than people realize and they’re on them for years - sometimes for the rest of their lives. The effects of antipsychotics used long term are particularly awful and drug companies have gotten approval for doctors to prescribe them to children as young as six.
True, my sister died for cirrhosis of the liver (age 57). She was diagnosed BiPolar, but she was never a drinker. Killed her liver with her meds.
😢 So sorry.
Antidepressants dramatically helped me. I’m grateful for that.
I'm so out of loop I never knew that 'pain is the 5th vital sign' was a thing. Apparently, I should be very glad of that.
And, as with almost everything else, the last thing we consider is solving the problem--in this case, requiring tht key personnel at regulatory and educational entities be divested of any meaningful financial relationship with those regulated or with an interest in the educational programs.
Instead, we declare war on the innocent--specifically, my wife as an example. She suffers from a very serious chronic pain condition, and the physicians, Board Certified in Pain Management and Anesthesia and who operate as a pain center at a major teaching hospital. They are constrained in how they treat her, what they can prescribe and in what quantities and even the mechanism by which such prescriptions can legally be written. The doctors practice in fear of the next wave of regulators to descend on them, upend their operation while searching for evidence they can misrepresent to take away their medical licenses. All of this is inconvenient at best and a threat to her health at times, for no damn good reason except to let some politicians and administrators pretend they care.
100%
My observations as a 40 year RN; Opioid Rx has come full circle. Now orthopedic surgeons give nothing but ibuprofen after total knee surgery. No moderation in American medicine. We either drug them or make them suffer.
I just had a total knee replacement that also included a leg realignment. The surgery took about a third longer than normal. I can't take NSAIDs because of stomach bleeding. I went through months of unmanageable pain. The ortho docs are scared shitless. I'm now receiving lower spine shots. They seem to help.
As has been covered in Reason magazine, most opioid deaths are now caused by illicit opioids and the victims have never been exposed to pharmaceutical opioids. The Sacklers suck, but the opioid crisis has taken on a life of its own beyond prescription opioids.
You have no idea how that upsets me. If I was caring for you it wouldn’t happen. I’d grab that surgeon by the ear while holding a Rx pad in front of him.
Amen! The people who really NEED pain relief are SUFFERING! Intensely so.
As a 78 year old retired California internist this is the first time I have read an article on the opioid crisis which has been so on the mark. I experienced the 5th vital sign campaign with dismay. The coup de grace came when our legislature mandated for the first time a specific continuing education topic for all physicians to complete. Needless to say that topic was “pain management” instructed by Sackler shills. More recently I have noted that several of my medical associates who completed these mandatory programs have been sanctioned by the Medical Board for opiate prescribing issues. I guess they were not able to unlearn what the experts taught them.
sorry I know many people ( used to be me too) that have suffered from serious pain that have been unable to receive the pain meds they need. My headaches put me in bed for days every month.. less now that i am post menopausal .. When I went to Canada I found out I could buy aspirin with a small dose of codeine.. saved me from days o being unable to get out of bed..when IO really suffered I needed Vicodin or a substitute. when my dentist did extensive work that was excruciating I was told to take two tylenol.. when my friend was in the hospital and need pain meds she was denied “until the doctor said she could be relived” of cancer pain. fucking cancer pain.. so we who are no drug addicts pay the price.. no better scene than this one from Terms of Endearment .. a scene that plays out every day in the medical community. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AIroyiLEM
Correct me if I'm wrong—I believe you're thinking of tylenol-3 you can get over the counter in Canada, which is ibuprofen [advil] and codeine! I've not seen aspirin and codeine before except in prescription combinations. I take it now and then for the same reason of headaches. Migraines seem to run in my family, and they are absolutely crippling. I think people who don't get chronic headaches assume we're exaggerating, but they really can make you unable to do anything but lay down and cry in agony.
Tylenol-3 can be bought at any pharmacy in Canada, but it might not be on display and sometimes needs asked for. At some pharmacies, they like to stare at you like you're an addict for even asking for it; the amount of codeine is low enough that the idea addicts are the main market is crazy, as if they all know chemistry and have lab equipment to do a cold water extraction separating the codeine to abuse it!
I always bring some to the US when staying with people I know there, and I've never had trouble, so for any Americans it may benefit, I assume it is safe to bring across the border. Put it with some vitamins or prescriptions if you are worried and want to be sure. TSA doesn't look for drugs, and they would see "tylenol" if they do and not read or recognise the ingredients.
Aspirin and codeine used to exist in Canada. Haven’t checked lately.
I read this and am heartbroken. As a daily mass Catholic, I pray each and every day for those who have died deaths of despair usually fueled by drugs. OTOH, I am 67 and have beaten 2 cancers with the concomitant side effect burdens. I can no longer agree to any surgery without a clear agreement about what the pain relief options will be; trusting my doc to manage the issue no longer works. Tylenol for a lobectomy was not a good plan. If I were going to become addicted to pain medication, it would have happened long ago. Talking late at night to my friends about how to match up alcohol and Benadryl to get through the night is an inhumane denial of care - and not particularly safe.
In 2013 I had a major accident when a car turned in front of my motorcycle. I lost my spleen and had four broken ribs along with a bruised leg and a broken leg. They had me on a push-button IV pump with some narcotics I could use at will in intensive care. That lasted 6 days. Then they moved me to a cardiac unit because I developed an arrhythmia. Then I was sent to a rehab facility where they let me decide how many 10 mg Oxy tablets I wanted to take between 1 and 3 every 4 hours. I quickly went to 2. Then to 1. Then to 1 every 8 hours and finally to Tylenol. I never felt any withdrawal. No one should be in pain after surgery. This overreaction is ruining patients' quality of life.
Should have read bruised lung.
Smoking is a choice, initially. - However, every addict eventually understands that the addiction makes the decisions - often choosing social settings, hobbies, contacts etc.
RFK Jr. is right - there's nothing Big Pharma likes better than a sick child - get'em hooked early. With luck we'll see better parenting, with the focus of setting better examples for the young. Won't cost a nickel, but will require parents to put down the bong and the ding-dongs and take their kids outdoors on walks. Quelle horreur!
Just wow. Maybe don't over-generalize quite so much about sick children and their terrible parents. I say this as the parent of a former pediatric cancer patient who has a rare immune system disorder - neither of which have anything to do with a lack of exercise and good food. In fact, if you saw is 6'1", 270 pounds of muscle on the football field, you'd think he was the picture of good living.
Thanks for your comment. Please accept my best wishes re: children with rare diseases. I'm not sure why you conflate my reference to illness from bad parenting with illness from rare diseases. I'm certain you can recognize the differences as clearly as I. I sincerely hope your child is enjoying better days. Good health is a gift - too many parents destroy their own and do too little to preserve that of their children. I and others I know have lost family members to addictions of one kind and another. A friend just this morning described his "broken" neighbors who lost a child to Oxy. The ravages of addiction and chemical dependency, as Bobby Jr. notes, ensures America has the sickest population on the planet. I'm sure you'd like to see healthier children. Again, sincere best wishes to you and yours.
Update: Bobby Jr. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-can-make-america-healthy-again-rfk-jr-reforms-chronic-disease-crisis-a9b4b8c0?st=4w601dlfq6vln1d
"Among American teens, close to 30% are prediabetic. More than 18% of young adults have nonalchoholic fatty liver disease. More than 40% of adults 22 to 44 are obese, according to a 2023 study."
think more broadly and stop the over generalizing and no apologies will be requried.
Explain, please, where I apologize, or express regret for a failure to be clear. Blaming children for their own obesity and poor diet may make sense to you, but not to me.
I am, btw, unlikely to accept criticism of the way I think and express myself from individuals unable to read, or understand the clear differences between hereditary/rare disorders and diet and lifestyle-induced health problems.
Read the data about who died during COVID and why. RFK jr has it right. Infants become addicted to screens because parents, in many cases, use phones as subsitutes for emotional engagement with their own kids.
Ask a teacher. I spent years in the classroom teaching the best and the brightest as well as folks with learning disorders. We are failing our children in the classroom and in our homes too often and in too many ways for me to enumerate here.
Ask yourself why so many around us, of all ages, are waddling through their days, all day, with a slurpy or "starbucks" in one hand and "smart" phone in the other. When was the last time you saw people of any age practicing wind sprints for fun and good health? We're raising a generation of young people, especially young women, overburdened with mental, physical, and emotional disorders in large part, because you and many others fail to grasp one basic concept.
We can't think our way into a better way of living, but we can live our way into a better way of thinking. Go for a long walk now, why don't you, and give the matter some thought. Thanks for your comment.
All of this can throw me into a rage. It happened with my daughter. Because of legal opiates, she was lost to us (and her child) for 12 years. It was a nightmare.
The problem isn't that opioids are "legal." They're legal, but doctors are supposed to have respect for their dangers, and use their prescription powers wisely.
The problem is that Sackler propagandized physicians into believing that they didn't have to think twice about prescribing 2-week supplies of them, even for minor acute pain.
Opioids are still the most commonly prescribed medicine for pain, and they always have been, because in most cases they're a more effective pain releiver than anything else. They aren't going anywhere. Severe pain is a very common problem- hydrocodone prescriptions are up there with statins and ulcer meds in terms of frequency of prescription. I had a case of shingles a while back, at I time when I needed to be up and functioning- I had bags to pack and a plane to catch. My shingles case was like being stung by a hive of bees for days on end. Without hydrocodone, I would have been helpless. It was the difference between functioning and not functioning. But I refuse to use those drugs to party with, because doing that might derail my life. It also sends the wrong message to other people.
I sympathize with your family difficulties, and I'm glad she got out of the trap. I have a family member who's fallen into fentanyl addiction. Frankly, I'd rather have them on a legal opioid maintenance program than that scary situation. What I really wish is that he'd get enough of a grip to get out of the quicksand and clean up. But if he was an addiction maintenance patient, at least he'd have enough supervision to get the opportunity to stabilize his life situation. The street world of illegal opioids is not an improvement.
I am sorry and glad she was not lost forever.
Like many other "professional" medical associations, the AMA has nothing to do with the interests of American doctors, or scientific medicine, and everything to do with the interests of its leaders and their corporate and political overlords.
Most of these organizations don't speak for or represent American medical doctors. They represent private equity and hospital systems. They are exactly as corrupt and untrustworthy as their sponsors.
Nowadays even the medical specialty boards are just big moneymaking rackets. Like the CME industrial complex (I've forgotten more from what I read on medical Twitter or blogs, than what I had learned from expensive CME activities - another relic of a corrupt system).
That "pain faces" chart was in every hospital room I visited during my father's stays. It is highly manipulative. Just looking at it, in my emotional state, brought me to the verge of tears. To think that it was a PR stunt for increased opioid use is appalling. There is no depth to which these dope pushers will not sink.
Not that many died FROM Covid, doctor. I believe the CDC admitted only 6% died FROM Covid quite a long time ago. . Most of the rest, not all the rest, died WITH Covid and included in death certificates that were ordered manipulated by the CDC. A huge amount were simply murdered in hospitals by horrific protocols ordered from on high. It’s important this truth is also put front and center.
I am fortunate that when I was going through my brain tumor issues my doctor did not see me as a potential addict. My pain was treated with compassion not contempt.
Jim
I pray Dr. Bivens never has to see this issue from my side of the fence.
Jim
I agree anyone posting comments should read “Empire of Pain”. It’s a fascinating story about how pain killers morphed from pain killers into opioids. While the 3 Sackler brothers seemed to be doing their best to help patients, their offspring changed the direction to maximize profit and increase addiction. Just a tragic story.
And, patients issue with pain still exists as a major problem. When Vioxx was stopped by the AMA and the Feds, opioid addiction became a massive issue. Pain management continues to be a problem
Vioxx killed people