American Pain

Author : John Temple
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2015-09-29
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9781493019595

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American Pain by John Temple Pdf

* Finalist for the Edgar® Award in Best Fact Crime * New York Post, “The Post’s Favorite Books of 2015” * Suspense Magazine’s “Best True Crime Books of 2015” * Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year in True Crime * Publishers Weekly, Big Indie Book of Fall 2015 The king of the Florida pill mills was American Pain, a mega-clinic expressly created to serve addicts posing as patients. From a fortress-like former bank building, American Pain’s doctors distributed massive quantities of oxycodone to hundreds of customers a day, mostly traffickers and addicts who came by the vanload. Inked muscle-heads ran the clinic’s security. Former strippers operated the pharmacy, counting out pills and stashing cash in garbage bags. Under their lab coats, the doctors carried guns—and it was all legal… sort of. American Pain was the brainchild of Chris George, a 27-year-old convicted drug felon. The son of a South Florida home builder, Chris George grew up in ultra-rich Wellington, where Bill Gates, Springsteen, and Madonna kept houses. Thick-necked from weightlifting, he and his twin brother hung out with mobsters, invested in strip clubs, brawled with cops, and grinned for their mug shots. After the housing market stalled, a local doctor clued in the brothers to the burgeoning underground market for lightly regulated prescription painkillers. In Florida, pain clinics could dispense the meds, and no one tracked the patients. Seizing the opportunity, Chris George teamed up with the doctor, and word got out. Just two years later Chris had raked in $40 million, and 90 percent of the pills his doctors prescribed flowed north to feed the rest of the country’s insatiable narcotics addiction. Meanwhile, hundreds more pain clinics in the mold of American Pain had popped up in the Sunshine State, creating a gigantic new drug industry. American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill, and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis, the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. The narrative swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, and is populated by a gaudy and diverse cast of characters. This includes the incongruous band of wealthy bad boys, thugs and esteemed physicians who built American Pain, as well as penniless Kentucky clans who transformed themselves into painkiller trafficking rings. It includes addicts whose lives were devastated by American Pain’s drugs, and the federal agents and grieving mothers who labored for years to bring the clinic’s crew to justice.

Author : Institute of Medicine,Board on Health Sciences Policy,Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2011-10-26
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780309214841

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Relieving Pain in America by Institute of Medicine,Board on Health Sciences Policy,Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education Pdf

Chronic pain costs the nation up to $635 billion each year in medical treatment and lost productivity. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to enlist the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in examining pain as a public health problem. In this report, the IOM offers a blueprint for action in transforming prevention, care, education, and research, with the goal of providing relief for people with pain in America. To reach the vast multitude of people with various types of pain, the nation must adopt a population-level prevention and management strategy. The IOM recommends that HHS develop a comprehensive plan with specific goals, actions, and timeframes. Better data are needed to help shape efforts, especially on the groups of people currently underdiagnosed and undertreated, and the IOM encourages federal and state agencies and private organizations to accelerate the collection of data on pain incidence, prevalence, and treatments. Because pain varies from patient to patient, healthcare providers should increasingly aim at tailoring pain care to each person's experience, and self-management of pain should be promoted. In addition, because there are major gaps in knowledge about pain across health care and society alike, the IOM recommends that federal agencies and other stakeholders redesign education programs to bridge these gaps. Pain is a major driver for visits to physicians, a major reason for taking medications, a major cause of disability, and a key factor in quality of life and productivity. Given the burden of pain in human lives, dollars, and social consequences, relieving pain should be a national priority.

Author : Patrick Radden Keefe
Publisher : Bond Street Books
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2021-04-13
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780385697552

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Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe Pdf

A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions—Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis. Empire of Pain begins with the story of three doctor brothers, Raymond, Mortimer and the incalculably energetic Arthur, who weathered the poverty of the Great Depression and appalling anti-Semitism. Working at a barbaric mental institution, Arthur saw a better way and conducted groundbreaking research into drug treatments. He also had a genius for marketing, especially for pharmaceuticals, and bought a small ad firm. Arthur devised the marketing for Valium, and built the first great Sackler fortune. He purchased a drug manufacturer, Purdue Frederick, which would be run by Raymond and Mortimer. The brothers began collecting art, and wives, and grand residences in exotic locales. Their children and grandchildren grew up in luxury. Forty years later, Raymond’s son Richard ran the family-owned Purdue. The template Arthur Sackler created to sell Valium—co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s addictiveness—was employed to launch a far more potent product: OxyContin. The drug went on to generate some thirty-five billion dollars in revenue, and to launch a public health crisis in which hundreds of thousands would die. This is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes.

Author : Barry Meier
Publisher : Random House
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2018-05-29
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780525511090

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Pain Killer by Barry Meier Pdf

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter who first exposed the roots of the opioid epidemic and the secretive world of the Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma, Pain Killer is the celebrated landmark story of corporate greed and government negligence that inspired an upcoming Netflix series. “This is the book that started it all. Barry Meier is a heroic reporter and Pain Killer is a muckraking classic.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin. In Pain Killer, Barry Meier tells the story of how Purdue turned OxyContin into a billion-dollar blockbuster. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers. But Purdue launched an unprecedented marketing campaign claiming that the drug’s long-acting formulation made it safer to use than traditional painkillers for many types of pain. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive. As OxyContin’s use and abuse grew, Purdue concealed what it knew from regulators, doctors, and patients. Here are the people who profited from the crisis and those who paid the price, those who plotted in boardrooms and those who tried to sound alarm bells. A country doctor in rural Virginia, Art Van Zee, took on Purdue and warned officials about OxyContin abuse. An ebullient high school cheerleader, Lindsey Myers, was reduced to stealing from her parents to feed her escalating Oxy habit. A hard-charging DEA official, Laura Nagel, tried to hold Purdue executives to account. In Pain Killer, Barry Meier breaks new ground in his decades-long investigation into the opioid epidemic. He takes readers inside Purdue to show how long the company withheld information about the abuse of OxyContin and gives a shocking account of the Justice Department’s failure to alter the trajectory of the opioid epidemic and protect thousands of lives. Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.

Author : Richard F. Groves,Henriette Anne Klauser
Publisher : Celestial Arts
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2015-12-16
Category : Self-Help
ISBN : 9780399578410

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The American Book of Living and Dying by Richard F. Groves,Henriette Anne Klauser Pdf

For most people, the thought of dying or caring for a terminally ill friend or family member raises fears and questions as old as humanity: What is a “good death”? What appropriate preparations should be made? How do we best support our loved ones as life draws to its close? In this nondenominational handbook, Richard F. Groves and Henriette Anne Klauser provide comfort, direction, and hope to the dying and their caregivers through nine archetypal stories that illustrate the most common end-of-life concerns. Drawing from personal experiences, the authors offer invaluable guidance on easing emotional pain and navigating this difficult final passage. With a compelling new preface, this edition also features an overview of the hospice movement; a survey of Celtic, Tibetan, Egyptian, and other historic perspectives on the sacred art of dying; as well as various therapies, techniques, and rituals to alleviate suffering, stimulate reflection, and strengthen interpersonal bonds. The American Book of Living and Dying gives us courage to trust our deepest instincts, and reminds us that by telling the stories of those who have passed, we remember, honor, and continue to learn from them.

Author : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,Health and Medicine Division,Board on Health Sciences Policy,Committee on Pain Management and Regulatory Strategies to Address Prescription Opioid Abuse
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 483 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2017-09-28
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780309459570

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Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,Health and Medicine Division,Board on Health Sciences Policy,Committee on Pain Management and Regulatory Strategies to Address Prescription Opioid Abuse Pdf

Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

Author : Travis Rieder
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2019-06-18
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780062854667

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In Pain by Travis Rieder Pdf

NPR Best Book of 2019 A bioethicist’s eloquent and riveting memoir of opioid dependence and withdrawal—a harrowing personal reckoning and clarion call for change not only for government but medicine itself, revealing the lack of crucial resources and structures to handle this insidious nationwide epidemic. Travis Rieder’s terrifying journey down the rabbit hole of opioid dependence began with a motorcycle accident in 2015. Enduring half a dozen surgeries, the drugs he received were both miraculous and essential to his recovery. But his most profound suffering came several months later when he went into acute opioid withdrawal while following his physician’s orders. Over the course of four excruciating weeks, Rieder learned what it means to be “dope sick”—the physical and mental agony caused by opioid dependence. Clueless how to manage his opioid taper, Travis’s doctors suggested he go back on the drugs and try again later. Yet returning to pills out of fear of withdrawal is one route to full-blown addiction. Instead, Rieder continued the painful process of weaning himself. Rieder’s experience exposes a dark secret of American pain management: a healthcare system so conflicted about opioids, and so inept at managing them, that the crisis currently facing us is both unsurprising and inevitable. As he recounts his story, Rieder provides a fascinating look at the history of these drugs first invented in the 1800s, changing attitudes about pain management over the following decades, and the implementation of the pain scale at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He explores both the science of addiction and the systemic and cultural barriers we must overcome if we are to address the problem effectively in the contemporary American healthcare system. In Pain is not only a gripping personal account of dependence, but a groundbreaking exploration of the intractable causes of America’s opioid problem and their implications for resolving the crisis. Rieder makes clear that the opioid crisis exists against a backdrop of real, debilitating pain—and that anyone can fall victim to this epidemic.

Author : Timothy R Deer,Michael S Leong,Asokumar Buvanendran,Vitaly Gordin,Philip S. Kim,Sunil J. Panchal,Albert L. Ray
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 1104 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2013-02-11
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9781461415602

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Comprehensive Treatment of Chronic Pain by Medical, Interventional, and Integrative Approaches by Timothy R Deer,Michael S Leong,Asokumar Buvanendran,Vitaly Gordin,Philip S. Kim,Sunil J. Panchal,Albert L. Ray Pdf

Edited by master clinician-experts appointed by the American Academy of Pain Medicine, this is a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary textbook covering medical, interventional, and integrative approaches to the treatment and management of pain. It is designed as a practical and comprehensive primary reference for busy physicians and is also an up-to-date resource for preparing for certification examinations in pain medicine. · Written and edited by world-class authorities · “Key Points” preview contents of each chapter · Leading edge medical topics, such as monitoring opioid use and abuse, and the emerging role of cannabinoids in pain treatment · Expert guidance on full range of interventional techniques · Clinical anatomy and physiology for the interventionist · Behavioral dimensions of the experience and management of pain · Integrative approaches for treating the “whole person” · Legal issues, such as failure to treat pain · First-hand patient accounts

Author : United States. Management of Cancer Pain Guideline Panel
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Cancer pain
ISBN : UOM:39015031776035

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Management of Cancer Pain by United States. Management of Cancer Pain Guideline Panel Pdf

Author : DIANE Publishing Company
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 1995-08
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9780788120619

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Management of Cancer Pain by DIANE Publishing Company Pdf

Cancer is diagnosed in over one million Americans annually, & one of five deaths in the U.S. -- about 1,400/day -- result from cancer. This Guideline provides recommendations about the assessment & management of cancer pain. Describes the uses of analgesics & adjuvant drugs, cognitive/behavior strategies, physical modalities, palliative radiation & antieoplastic therapies, nerve blocks & palliative & ablative surgery. Developed by an interdisciplinary panel of clinicians, patients, & experts in health policy. Tables of scientific evidence. Glossary, bibliography & acronyms. Charts & tables.

Author : Chris Pasero,Margo McCaffery
Publisher : Elsevier Health Sciences
Page : 898 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2010-10-04
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780323082631

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Pain Assessment and Pharmacologic Management - E-Book by Chris Pasero,Margo McCaffery Pdf

Pain Assessment and Pharmacologic Management, by highly renowned authors Chris Pasero and Margo McCaffery, is destined to become the definitive resource in pain management in adults. It provides numerous reproducible tables, boxes, and figures that can be used in clinical practice, and emphasizes the benefits of a multimodal analgesic approach throughout. In addition, Patient Medication Information forms for the most commonly used medications in each analgesic group can be copied and given to patients. This title is an excellent resource for nurses to become certified in pain management. Presents best practices and evidence-based guidelines for assessing and managing pain most effectively with the latest medications and drug regimens. Features detailed, step-by-step guidance on effective pain assessment to help nurses appropriately evaluate pain for each patient during routine assessments. Provides reproducible tables, boxes, and figures that can be used in clinical practice. Contains Patient Medication Information forms for the most commonly used medications in each analgesic group, to be copied and given to patients. Offers the authors' world-renowned expertise in five sections: Underlying Mechanisms of Pain and the Pathophysiology of Neuropathic Pain includes figures that clearly illustrate nociception and classification of pain by inferred pathology. Assessment includes tools to assess patients who can report their pain as well as those who are nonverbal, such as the cognitively impaired and critically ill patients. Several pain-rating scales are translated in over 20 languages. Nonnopioids includes indications for using acetaminophen or NSAIDs, and the prevention and treatment of adverse effects. Opioids includes guidelines for opioid drug selection and routes of administration, and the prevention and treatment of adverse effects. Adjuvant Analgesics presents different types of adjuvant analgesics for a variety of pain types, including persistent (chronic) pain, acute pain, neuropathic pain, and bone pain. Prevention and treatment of adverse effects is also covered. Includes helpful Appendices that provide website resources and suggestions for the use of opioid agreements and for incorporating pain documentation into the electronic medical record. Covers patients from young adults to frail older adults. Provides evidence-based, practical guidance on planning and implementing pain management in accordance with current TJC guidelines and best practices. Includes illustrations to clarify concepts and processes such as the mechanisms of action for pain medications. Features spiral binding to facilitate quick reference.

Author : Helen Borel
Publisher : Fresh Ink Group
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2020-01-18
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 9781947867703

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American AGONY by Helen Borel Pdf

Managing pain with opioids is a science—except politics, money, and overzealous law enforcement are denying American patients the relief they so desperately need. Demonizing the best pain reliever we have leads to needless suffering, even suicides, and it drives the rise in deadly street drugs. Helen Borel gathers and presents the evidence, the intimidation, the raids of clinics, the chilling effect on those very professionals we trust to care for our loved ones and ourselves. She looks hard at the Veterans Administration, Drug Enforcement Agency, Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chapters include “The Suboxone Hoax,” “The Wrong Arms of the Law,” and “The Epidemic of Death,” plus an entire section on solutions for this widespread crisis. Read American AGONY now—or youmight be the next one hurt.

Author : Simon Dagenais,Scott Haldeman
Publisher : Elsevier Health Sciences
Page : 498 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2011-01-01
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780323072939

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Evidence-based Management of Low Back Pain by Simon Dagenais,Scott Haldeman Pdf

An interdisciplinary approach enables health care providers to work together. A logical, easy-to-follow organization covers information by intervention type, from least invasive to most invasive. Integration of interventions provides information in a clinically useful way, so it's easier to consider more than one type of treatment or intervention for low back pain, and easier to see which methods should be tried first. 155 illustrations include x-rays, photos, and drawings. Tables and boxes summarize key information. Evidence-based content allows you to make clinical decisions based on the ranking the best available scientific studies from strongest to weakest. Patient history and examination chapters help in assessing the patient's condition and in ruling out serious pathology before making decisions about specific interventions.-

Author : Leora Kuttner
Publisher : Crown House Publishing
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2010-05-05
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781845904555

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A Child in Pain by Leora Kuttner Pdf

This comprehensive book is designed to help pediatric health professionals of all disciplines gain understanding and skill in how to approach and treat children's pain, and how to help children make sense of and deal with their own pain. Pain is the most common reason for children to seek a medical consultation - and sometimes a common reason for avoiding it. Unaddressed fears and anxiety complicate pain management and recovery. A central theme in this book is the examination of children's fears and anxieties that accompany their need for pain relief, and the communication skills and words that can help calm these fears. This book is addressed to all disciplines, in its valuing of the professional-patient relationship and in the language used to allay anxiety, address fears and promote relief and well-being. It is organized into three parts:Part I explores our scientific understanding of pain as a part of children's development. Part II explores pain treatments themselves, their efficacies and how to combine them for therapeutic impact. Part III uses this understanding to help translate knowledge into clinical practice in three domains of pediatric medicine: the physicians' practice, the dental practice, and in the hospital. This volume also includes contributions by Dr. Jonathan Kuttner, on the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of pain, Dr. Carl von Baeyer on pain assessment, and Drs Stefan Freidrichsdorf and Helen Karl on the pharmacological management of pain.Without doubt, this volume will stand as the "bible" on pediatric pain management for years to come.

Author : Barry Meier
Publisher : Rodale
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2003-10-17
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1579546382

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Pain Killer by Barry Meier Pdf

Examines OxyContin, the so-called miracle prescription drug that swept the nation but led to overdoes and addiction, providing a look at the multi-billion-dollar pain managment business, its excesses and its abuses.