I deeply thank my host for this opportunity to discuss the crisis millions of American patients in pain are facing—suffering because their prescription opioids are being denied to them. In previous posts on my tour, I told readers about our Valiant Veterans being denied their usual prescription narcotics for their war-injury pain; about patients with all kinds of severe, lifelong conditions being tapered to too-low-opioid-doses making them ineffective for analgesia; and about the suicides of patients suddenly cold-turkeyed off their years’-long effective opioids. It’s caused by the virulent actions of government bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Veterans Administration (VA), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
This healthcare outrage is so severe that it’s spread from those once long-effectively treated with prescription opioids for their chronic pain to every conceivable painful condition—lifelong, somewhat-prolonged, and even acute. You can now go to your local ER with a severe injury or painful acute illness and be denied crucial, medically indicated morphine relief. Forget about narcotic pain relief after surgery! Those government “OxyMORONS” intimidated your surgeon. After your root canal, forget about opioid pain relief! Those government Cold Turkeys “warned” your dentist. In hospice or end-of-life care? Forget about your opioid analgesic! Got cancer? Forget about your rightful opioid! Teenager in Sickle Cell Crisis? Forget about your essential morphine infusion! My book reports in-depth on these tortures affecting even children whose pediatricians are being “cautioned” by non-medical government functionaries. Now they’ve targeted your pets.
Besides the feds, even local municipalities have been suing every legitimate, scientifically based pharmaceutical manufacturer that has the temerity to develop and market the opiates morphine and codeine and their analog opioids (chemical spin-offs). To date, more than 1,200 suits have been filed against Johnson & Johnson (Tylenol and Duragesic) and Purdue Pharma (OxyContin). It robs these companies of funds essential for Research and Development of new and better drugs, causing the inflation of prices for yours and my prescription medications. This untreated pain causing epidemics of death from health deterioration and suicides is being totally ignored by the CDC, the agency that exists “to prevent epidemics.” Paradoxically, the CDC published a clueless “guideline” for opioid-prescribing physicians that was supposed to be a mere “recommendation,” but which morphed into fiat.
When I learned of the terrible cost in human suffering and suicides the CDC, the VA, the DOJ, and its DEA continue to inflict on some 50 million Americans, I became distressed, tearful, angry, and determined to do something about this. As both a registered nurse and a long-published medical-science and prescription-pharmaceuticals writer, I felt it my duty to thoroughly research this catastrophe, to bring the diverse facts together in a book, to expose our government agencies’ actions. The result is American AGONY: The Opioid War Against Patients in Pain, published by Fresh Ink Group. Many related issues, plus patients’ and physicians’ personal stories, are quoted throughout this 24-chapter book. It includes legal, legislative, and voting solutions; 237 references; and a roster of heroines, heroes, and paincare advocates whose voices are getting louder and louder, soon to reach critical mass.
Thank you to my host. I’m very much heartened by this invitation to share this vital national medical emergency.
—Helen Borel, RN, MFA, PhD
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About the Author: Dr. Helen Borel wrote poetry and played piano as a child growing up in two orphanages. She became a registered nurse, then earned her master’s in creative writing. After 18 years as a medical, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical copywriter, she published books, literary criticism, satire, and fiction. She became a doctor in psychoanalytical studies with her own website, PsychDocNYC.com. Always outspoken for the underdog, her intense research is the basis for her passionate expose of government wrongs and the legal rights pain victims must assert. Find her at PsychDocNYC.com and on Twitter: @BorelMedWriter or @PsychDocConnect.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar fashion, please click HERE.
Wow! This is a serious situation with so many illnesses that cause the patient excruciating pain. Thank you for hosting today, Karl!
where is my comment???
I think your book is comment enough. Fresh Ink Group and I have been fielding questions and requests all week. I knew this book would “touch a nerve” (pun not intended) with people, but I’m still amazed by how many people are touched by this problem either directly or through people they know and care about. Thanks for devoting so much of your time to thoroughly researching and writing this valuable catalyst to what many hope will be real change in a positive direction.
Thank you, Jan. And thank you for recognizing the dire situation this country is in
by the way American medicine is now mistreating and abandoning patients in pain.
And, thank you, Karl for hosting this leg of my book’s blog tour.
where is the comment I made in answer to Jan?
Nothing appears where I’ve written my reply to Jan.
I’m enjoying your tour and look forward to reading your book.
Thanks for hosting, Karl.
Publishing this important story is the least I could do. So many Americans were misled into addiction, and the toll in human lives is just astonishing. Perhaps we will learn a lesson, but that happens all too infrequently.
I’ve already read this important book. This one sets the record straight where truth and falsehoods tend to become entangled. The truth is, there are many who suffer with chronic pain. There is a need for these opiates. And while there are those who would abuse these drugs, those who need them shouldn’t be punished. Great piece of work, Dr. Helen.