Doctors or criminals? How misleading narratives hurt innocent lives

Physician
May 25, 2024

When it comes to journalism and health care prosecutions, today’s “papers” are so yellow that they could damage vision like a 580 nm laser. I have personally seen and suffered from this unbalanced approach to reporting and felt a need to provide a counternarrative based on reason instead of hyperbole. After studying hundreds of cases, I will argue that in roughly fifty percent of these, the government has paid hundreds …

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Doctors or criminals? How misleading narratives hurt innocent lives

Xylazine: the lethal ingredient hiding in your pills

Meds
May 21, 2024

Xylazine has been found to be adulterating pills in America, and doctors will need to understand this new threat. First, xylazine is not “krokodil,” although it produces somewhat similar-looking skin ulcers.  Krokodil is a pseudonym for desomorphine, which is created from a precursor chemical called alpha-chlorocodide. Desomorphine is dihydrodesoxymorphine and was developed in Germany in 1932. It is a very fast but short-acting, semi-synthetic opioid used mainly in Russia.  Xylazine …

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Xylazine: the lethal ingredient hiding in your pills

Can weight loss medication interfere with ADHD meds?

Meds
May 20, 2024

Why bother going to work? If I didn’t work, I wouldn’t get paid, so there was that. But it seemed like a pointless exercise. I would stare at my monitor until it was time to go home. On some level I knew I should be, well, working, but I couldn’t collect my scattered thoughts enough to do it. I was also manic. Not the fun kind of mania where everything’s …

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Can weight loss medication interfere with ADHD meds?

The hidden dangers of mislabeling pain patients: a medical crisis

Physician
May 15, 2024

I am very concerned about the mislabeling of patients who suffer from pain that is being carried out in a wholesale fashion by some in the American medical community. This mislabeling is the result of the most dangerous combination in the world: good intentions and avarice. These two have recently combined to create distortions that are now to the point of wholesale fraud. Calling something what it is not can …

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The hidden dangers of mislabeling pain patients: a medical crisis

DEA shuts down pharmacy for fulfilling addiction treatment prescriptions

Physician
May 1, 2024

On August 8, 2023, DEA agents shut down the Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy in the Southern District of West Virginia. Their crime? Having filled more than 2,000 prescriptions for Subutex over more than two years “in the face of obvious red flags of drug abuse and diversion,” according to the U.S. Attorney for that district. I guess someone needs to explain to the government what the heck Subutex is prescribed …

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DEA shuts down pharmacy for fulfilling addiction treatment prescriptions

Too many older adults are taking risky sedative medications

Meds
April 14, 2024

A recent investigation in Quebec uncovered a concerning trend: benzodiazepines — medications commonly used for sleep or anxiety — are being overprescribed. This investigation has prompted the Quebec College of Physicians to closely examine the usage of these medications.

But this issue extends beyond Quebec’s borders; across Canada, these medications are being prescribed at alarming rates.

Benzodiazepines and other sedatives are often prescribed to older adults aged 65 and up for …

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Too many older adults are taking risky sedative medications

Polypharmacy and prescribing cascades [PODCAST]

Podcast
April 11, 2024
YouTube video

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Join us for a discussion on medication awareness and prescribing cascades with Paula Rochon, a geriatrician. As we embark on a new year, many focus on diet and exercise resolutions, but overlooking medication …

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Polypharmacy and prescribing cascades [PODCAST]

How Enhanced Recovery After Surgery solves our opioid problems

Meds
March 28, 2024

In retrospect, we were an addicted nation waiting to happen. Not from a self-indulgent culture, not from an unwillingness to suffer hardship, nor any of the generational criticisms of lack of grit. Our opioid crisis derives from an impatient culture that fears loss of health more than health care profit. With pain as most people’s proxy for health, we were …

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How Enhanced Recovery After Surgery solves our opioid problems

Topoisomerase inhibitors and chronic pain

Meds
March 23, 2024

Topoisomerase inhibitors emerged in the American medical landscape in 1971, thanks to the discovery by Dr. Jim Wang of the E. coli omega protein. Topoisomerase I, an enzyme identified by Dr. Wang, plays a crucial role in DNA unwrapping from supercoiling. Supercoiling involves tightly wrapping DNA for storage and protection, requiring unwrapping for reading, a process in which topoisomerase is indispensable.

Topoisomerase comprises two main types, aptly named types I and …

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Topoisomerase inhibitors and chronic pain

Off-label prescriptions, side effects, and lawsuits: Navigating ethical and legal dilemmas

Meds
March 23, 2024

A recent TV advertisement attempted to recruit clients for a class action suit against a pharmaceutical manufacturer (PM) for a medication side effect (SE). The “cause of action” was unstated: was it the side effect’s existence or that the company failed to emphasize its severity?

The SE was acknowledged not only by the company but also the FDA, which nonetheless approved the medication (RX), determining that its benefits outweighed the side …

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Off-label prescriptions, side effects, and lawsuits: Navigating ethical and legal dilemmas

DEA overreach: a threat to doctors’ freedom in American medicine

Meds
March 19, 2024

Today, doctors’ liberty and property are at risk when they choose to treat a patient. Not because of some new law but because of the misapplication of old ones. The current opioid panic has essentially given the DEA free rein to target any physician whose medical practice they disagree with. This has created a serious problem in American medicine and a unique danger to health care providers in this country. …

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DEA overreach: a threat to doctors’ freedom in American medicine

Where do they come up with all those goofy names for prescription drugs, anyway?

Meds
February 22, 2024

An excerpt from Pills, Shills, and the Psychiatry Wars: Musings from the Drug Safety & Healthcare News Blog.

I was spreading pine straw around the bushes in my yard in Atlanta, Georgia, when I started thinking about … you guessed it! The goofy names that drug companies come up with for their prescription drugs.

Folks in the blue states are often interested in the customs of us red state folks since …

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Where do they come up with all those goofy names for prescription drugs, anyway?

Gene therapies for chronic pain?

Meds
February 1, 2024

Gene therapy is starting to come into its own, and it will change medicine more profoundly than anything that came before. Just like when antibiotics were discovered almost exactly a century ago, we are on the cusp of another revolution in medicine. One that is orders of magnitude greater than antibiotics.

Recently, in China, five of six children born with an autosomal recessive otoferlin deficiency deafness were cured by the injection …

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Gene therapies for chronic pain?

Ben Franklin’s timeless wisdom: a key to solving America’s opioid crisis

Meds
January 2, 2024

In 1736, Ben Franklin famously advised Philadelphians that preventing fires is better than fighting them. Mr. Franklin’s advice is just as applicable today in addressing America’s opioid crisis. Billions of opioid settlement dollars are being distributed to every state, and a portion of those funds should be allocated to preventing opioid addictions, not just buying fire extinguishers (Narcan) and fighting fires (medication-assisted therapy or substance use disorder treatment). Preventing opioid …

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Ben Franklin’s timeless wisdom: a key to solving America’s opioid crisis

Cannabis compounds and fracture healing [PODCAST]

Podcast
November 27, 2023
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!

Join L. Joseph Parker, a research physician, as we explore a recent study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. Discover how two compounds found in cannabis, cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabigerol (CBG), may revolutionize fracture …

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Cannabis compounds and fracture healing [PODCAST]

Pain medicine realities: beyond the opioid crisis

Conditions
November 23, 2023

In 1990, Ronald Melzack published a paper in Scientific American titled “The Tragedy of Needless Pain.” Many would regard Melzack as the “father” of pain science and the treatment of pain. In that paper, he described the science behind several observations that many clinicians and public health policy decision-makers would find startling in today’s hostile and fraught regulatory environment surrounding the U.S. opioid crisis.

… the fact is …

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Pain medicine realities: beyond the opioid crisis

The erosion of compassion in medicine

Education
November 12, 2023

With my first thrust on his chest, I shattered his sternum, feeling his bones crumble in my hands. His eyes were wide open but lifeless. Dried secretions crusted his lips. His dusky skin tone indicated my efforts would be futile. Nonetheless, I proceeded with cardiopulmonary resuscitation as I was trained to do.

Soon the room was bustling with medical residents and nurses. A controlled chaos ensued. We inserted a breathing tube …

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The erosion of compassion in medicine

A doctor’s thoughts on The Retrievals podcast

Physician
November 9, 2023

I recently listened to the podcast mini-series The Retrievals. It was fascinating and absolutely worth a listen. It’s the story of a Yale infertility clinic where a nurse was stealing fentanyl and replacing it with normal saline. As a result, women ended up getting egg retrievals with only midazolam, no pain control. There were interviews with women who described the horrific pain of the procedures but didn’t feel that they …

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A doctor’s thoughts on The Retrievals podcast

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