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CVS is finally trying to do something about the opioid epidemic:
Drug-store chain CVS Health announced Thursday that it will limit opioid prescriptions in an effort to combat the epidemic that accounted for 64,000 overdose deaths last year alone.
Amid pressure on pharmacists, doctors, insurers and drug companies to take action, CVS also said it would boost funding for addiction programs, counseling and safe disposal of opioids.
[...] The company's prescription drug management division, CVS Caremark, which provides medications to nearly 90 million people, said it would use its sweeping influence to limit initial opioid prescriptions to seven-day supplies for new patients facing acute ailments.
It will instruct pharmacists to contact doctors when they encounter prescriptions that appear to offer more medication than would be deemed necessary for a patient's recovery. The doctor would be asked to revise it. Pharmacists already reach out to physicians for other reasons, such as when they prescribe medications that aren't covered by a patient's insurance plan.
The plan also involves capping daily dosages and initially requiring patients to get versions of the medications that dispense pain relief for a short period instead of a longer duration.
[...] "The whole effort here is to try to reduce the number of people who are going to end up with some sort of opioid addiction problem," CVS Chief Medical Officer Troyen Brennan said in an interview.
It appears this initiative is limited to initial filling of prescriptions — there is no mention of changes in the handling of refills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @03:22PM (6 children)
I'm not sure I understand your position. Are you saying something like 50% of people currently alive would have died as infants 100 years ago, and those are the people who now need to take pills to live well? Also, I am not someone in particularly good shape. I have been very sedentary for many years until recently. But I had an experience doing medical research and as a result no longer trust that field to advise or help me at all. So I have been trying harder and harder to follow those rules I put forward.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 25 2017, @03:32PM (2 children)
You... you... blasphemous sinner!
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @06:25PM (1 child)
Not sure what you mean, but I really wouldn't rely on them to not mess you up more. Would you trust a mechanic who didn't have any idea how a car worked to fix your car?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 25 2017, @09:28PM
Going against the "religion" of pharma selling you pills as the only solution you'll even need, losing "faith" in them and "preaching"/practising this lost faith.
Unchecked, this can result in lost pro... jobs, I mean. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @05:29PM
Surely, there must be some grey area here!
(Score: 4, Informative) by choose another one on Monday September 25 2017, @10:04PM (1 child)
I thought the position was clear - but then I pretty much lost the genetic lottery too.
Nothing to do with the changes in infant mortality, which is largely environmental rather than genetic, or Darwin, since most of the people on the drugs you list are beyond breeding age - I am definitely done with breeding. There are genetic components (sometimes a small increase in risk, sometimes a massive one) to many of the long term conditions that kill people in their 40s/50s/60s, cancers, cardiovascular, autoimmunes, etc., and that genetic factor may well be the difference between getting to your 40s or to your 80s.
"eat moderate amounts of fruit, meat, and vegetables;" - check, also almost always cooked from scratch so I know what's gone into it, and limited salt (almost never use it in cooking, never add it after)
"get moderate amounts of exercise;" - check, in fact through my 20s and into my 30s I got far more than most people would say was "moderate", probably "moderate" into my 40s
"limit your consumption and other activities of pretty much everything else to minimal levels". - check
also, maintain healthy weight/BMI, healthy cholesterol etc. - check
in fact the doctors couldn't understand why I was there in the hospital with a stroke in my 40s, I didn't appear as high risk in any way.
Basically your rules didn't work. I am now on half the drugs on your "dangerous" list, and a few more that really are (far more) dangerous, to keep me alive. Turns out (after a few years of diagnostic work) I have two autoimmune conditions both of which are thought to have a genetic component, one of them my mother has, and there are multiple stroke victims on my father's side which may be related to the other one. Maybe with a dose of genetic risk from each parent my immune system went haywire earlier in life than it did for them.
Your rules might work for you, they might even work for a majority of people, but there are those that your methods will not work for, simply due to genetics - those people will require pills, or worse, to live, and we do not know who those people are. It could be you, it is me. In fact, I thought along the same lines as you, right up until it was me.
Another example: Exercise may prevent or resolve 80% or more of diabetes, which is great, BUT that still leaves 10-20% (all the type-1s for a start) who you could exercise all day every day but it will not help. You cannot therefore say "diabetics, your meds are bad for you, forget the insulin and exercise instead". Even if you are right for 80% of them, you will kill the other 20%. We don't know exactly why those people have diabetes, but we do know there are significant genetic risk factors. You can't change your genes, you can't exercise them away, or diet them away.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @11:02PM
Yes, definitely there are no guarantees. Another example is living as healthy as can be (even having perfect knowledge of that, which we are not even close to), but getting in a plane crash, etc. At this point in history (as well as all prior points) you are pretty much guaranteed your body will slowly stop functioning in a myriad of ways at some point as you get older. This is no matter what you do.
In your case, perhaps you contracted some weird virus strain at some point. Maybe it was even something like poison ivy you brushed up against one too many times, we still don't know why that substance is such a problem for some humans (but pretty anything else can eat it with no problem). Maybe you exercised too much without breaks and whatever is going on with delayed onset muscle soreness got to you.
My position is we lack basic info about almost everything regarding the human body (how many cells in each tissue at various ages, etc), so believing that anyone has the expertise to help you is a mistake. All they can do is try out different things and check if you seem to be improving, basically brute force on the acute symptoms while disregarding the long-term effects.
I don't know about this:
Why do you believe they have a handle on your problem now when they had no idea earlier? It is the old counterfactual problem, what would have happened if you didn't get input to the healthcare system? And keep in mind I really do think these concentrated chemicals can be useful tools, like putting some grease on the squeaky wheel in the drier.