So the government finally admits there is an opioid drug problem. Why did it take Congress so long to acknowledge a problem? Now, if they could only admit their own role in the opioid epidemic.
But let’s start at the beginning. Pharmaceutical companies give ‘gifts’ to colleges, ensur that a proper view of medicine and “cures” is taught in medical schools. Next, there is a revolving door between the industry and department heads at the FDA and CDC. More importantly, they give kickbacks, vacations and gifts to doctors that prescribe their drugs. But the monetary enticement can’t be laid entirely at the feet of doctors.
Our own Congress receives about four times as much money from the pharmaceutical industrial complex than they do from the military industrial complex. Opioids are only one of the many legal prescription drugs with a blatant path of destroyed lives and dead bodies.
For real transparency, publicize every time an individual dies or is hospitalized from a prescription drug, taken according to the doctor’s instructions. Kind of like what is done for a car, train or airplane accident. Or a shooting or pit bull attack.
Bruce A. Nieveen, Riverton