Doctors are at the heart of opioid epidemic: Dr. Marc Siegel

NYU Langone Medical Center professor Dr. Marc Siegel discusses his interview with Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar about the opioid crisis.

[edwconr]

The fact that doctors who do NOT prescribe opioids were NOT being paid for seeing patients is not even mentioned in this insurance companies have a huge role in what type of 'care' they 'reimburse' for!

[craxd]

When physicians claim that an opioid works no better than Tylenol, ask yourself, how many have tried Tylenol for an abscessed tooth, which did not work, and a Dentist had to prescribe Tylenol with Codeine, in order to relieve the moderately severe pain, while they were treated for the infection? Also, palliative care covers more than cancer, especially certain bone and nervous system disorders, which are inoperable, and can only be treated with narcotics. Sadly, there are some physicians who would allow someone to suffer, because they do not want to write a prescription for fear of the DEA. It would be fair to show two physicians on either side of the debate, especially if one is a pain specialist. Pain is relative, and no physician can tell if someone has an addictive personality when they present themselves to be examined. They are placing too much blame on physicians, instead of the drug pushers and gangs.

This country has a culture of young adults, who have been allowed to do anything that they wish, with no repercussions, especially experimenting with drugs. They end up on harder drugs to chase that dragon (high), in order to forget the shitty socialist life that their parents are bestowing on them. They are causing those who need pain treatment to do without. Prescriptions for narcotics have been down for a good while. It is the left's open borders allowing those illegal drugs to flow in, that caused the majority of it. Yes, there are some pill mills, but there are not as many as there used to be, by a long shot.

[sandragambrel]

No, it was people telling them what to do. I remember, like 15-20 years ago, maybe even longer, Doctors weren't prescribing all these pain pills, till the people complained that doctors weren't treating them for their pain. They developed the Pain scale 0 - 10, blah, blah, blah. If you tell the Doctor your pain is at 10 all the time, they have to give you something. Doctors can't tell you whether you are in pain or not by looking at you, or giving you an x-ray, etc.. They're fighting a loosing battle. The whole system is broken, like the rest of the world.

[NtroPtoXtroP]

Back in the ‘80s, I had a girlfriend who was a prescription drug addict. Really sweet girl but an addict. When I made up my mind to help her, I was shocked at the vast number of doctors and dentists she had all across the Bay Area giving her prescriptions for massive quantities of all kinds of shit. And I was even more shocked at how violently confrontational they got with me when I approached all of them one by one and told them to knock off their bullshit. You want to see a doctor get pissed? Tell him to stop prescribing meds to an addict. Pathetic. Ultimately, she committed suicide using none other than prescription medication.

[NeverSober]

I haven't taken a single prescription pain killer in 10 years. My pain killer has no negative side effects though. Can't over dose in any way. But god forbid my version be accepted by modern medicine.