How Government should be run – the Taffy Howard Way.

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Headline:

Louisiana Doctor Indicted for Illegally Dispensing Over One Million Doses of Opioids and for $5.1 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme

WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury in New Orleans, Louisiana, returned an indictment on August 26, 2021 charging a Louisiana physician for his role in distributing over 1,200,000 doses of Schedule II controlled substances, including oxycodone and morphine, outside the scope of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose, and for maintaining his clinic for the purpose of illegally distributing controlled substances. Today’s indictment also charges the physician with defrauding health care benefit programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, of more than $5,100,000, given that the opioid prescriptions were filled using health insurance benefits.

Read that here.

That’s not good. Maybe instead, we should try Government – The Taffy Howard Way:

Or Maybe Not.

14 thoughts on “How Government should be run – the Taffy Howard Way.”

  1. I disagree. As a former Pharmaceutical investigator, I investigated many doctors who were inappropriately prescribing drugs to their patients. Many narcotics addicts began their addiction by abusing opioids prescribed by their doctors. Most states now have PDMP’s (Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs) to keep track of the volume of pills prescribed and the relationships between patients and doctors. Many patients who misuse pharmaceuticals do so by visiting several doctors at the same time. Pharmaceutical drug abuse is the most serious drug problem we are experiencing…We lost over 100,000 people last year to opioid abuse…much of it is based in pharmaceutical drugs.

      1. Mr. Santana at 2:09… Good info. One correx: The 100,000 overdose deaths last year were almost entirely fentanyl- and meth-related, and not related prescription drugs.

          1. As is Meth Amphetamine. That they are also sold on the street does not obviate their primary intended use.

            1. Only pointing out that it’s the illegal stuff — which is many times more potent — that’s killing people. The prescription stuff is too tame for the thrill-seekers. Perhaps I’m missing your point.

              1. Cliff, can you provide sourcing for this? I have two family members who have died from prescription opioids. This idea that the “illegal” drugs are the ones we should fear is complete dog crap. Prescriptions were killing people a long time before the raw materials started getting cut into street drugs. Most of the sources of these raw materials are from the pharmaceutical companies themselves.

              2. There were a lot of claims about potency levels here that aren’t backed by evidence. It’s not that the legal stuff is more “potent,” but rather that drugs are frequently cut with other substances people aren’t expecting. People aren’t usually taking the fentanyl intentionally, but rather that other drugs are being cut with it and overdosing as a result. You are conflating a couple things here and it paints a misleading picture of what is actually happening.

  3. So because one doctor is a crook, all doctors shouldn’t have the authority to treat patients the way they want? Covid sure has brought out the nanny state in you, Pat.

    1. All doctors should know the parameters of normal prescribing practices. As long as they treat their patients according to their Hippocratic oath and the standards of their profession, they should feel safe to do so. When they go outside of those parameters is when they attract attention…usually by pharmacists who have to fill those prescriptions or PDMP’s that monitor prescribing practices. Law enforcement only gets involved when a physician exceeds the parameters of their profession, but even then, it never gets to the prosecution stage until a physician’s peers (other doctors) agree that their prescribing is excessive. There are plenty of safeguards in place for good doctors. Some suspect doctors claim that the simple fact that someone is looking at their prescribing causes them to not prescribe to patients who need proper treatment. How many other professions could get away with saying “if you look at how I do my job, I won’t do it”?

  4. This is going to be nothing for an embarrassment for the state of it passes, as the Governor will be expected to sign it, and then the headlines will be that she’s recommending Ivermectin as a treatment for Covid and we’re all a bunch of yahoos here.

    Other than that, HB 1267 does absolutely nothing, as the drug is already approved for human use and already requires a prescription and practitioners are already allowed to prescribe it for off-label use. They just don’t want to.

    It is true it is a macrolide and macrolides like Zithromax and Erythromycin have been prescribed for people with Covid, but they work best to prevent secondary bacterial infections. Not everybody with Covid is getting prescriptions for other macrolides, either,

    HB 1267 needs to be kicked to the 41st day, and left there to die.

    And the rest of us have to wonder why somebody who seems hell-bent on embarrassing all of us, making us all look stupid, should represent us in Congress.

  5. Anonymous at 7:36 and 8:08…

    From the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency… “There is significant risk that illegal drugs have been intentionally contaminated with fentanyl. Because of its potency and low cost, drug dealers have been mixing fentanyl with other drugs including heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine, increasing the likelihood of a fatal interaction.”

    Also, “According to the CDC, synthetic opioids (like fentanyl) are the primary driver of overdose deaths in the United States.”

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