What AMA President Patrice A. Harris MD Needs to Say Tomorrow.

Mike Magee The lead in this morning’s New York Times story read that Rudolph W. Giuliani, personal attorney to Prsident Trump, had assumed a “new role: as personal science advisor to a president…” But if that is a suggestion that this is uncharted territory for Giuliani, nothing could be farther from the truth. More on […]

Day of Reckoning on Opioids: Pharmacy Chains

For those responsible for igniting the manmade opioid disaster, a day of reckoning is fast approaching. Of course Pharma is in the cross-hairs – notably Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, J&J, Endo Health Solutions and Actavis. Then come the wholesale drug distributors including AmerisourceBergen Corporation (NYSE:ABC), Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE:CAH) and McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK). Now giant retail conglomerates like […]

Stains Outlast Gains as Industry Encroaches on Physician Prescribing Power

Opioid Czar & Czarina Mike Magee When the AMA helped empower Purdue Pharma funded Pain Management by granting specialty status in its’ Federation in the 1980s– and with that legitimacy of pain as the “5th vital sign”; and when everyday physicians (especially primary care physicians who were targeted by Purdue Pharma) became easy marks […]

Off-Label Prescribing – Where Lupron is the Rule, Not the Exception – and Doctors Never Have To Say They’re Sorry.

Credit: U. Michigan Health Lab Mike Magee After a remarkably turbulent decade in the shadows of America’s Medical Industrial Complex – a span that has witnessed the creation of a manmade opioid epidemic, the treatment of thousands of 2 and 3 year old’s with Adderall, the placement of EpiPen’s out of the financial reach of […]

Sloppy Prescribing and “Unlearned Intermediary” Law

Movantik Ad for OID Mike Magee The term “learned intermediary” is a legal term, first used in 1966, and defined by the Fifth Circuit Court as follows: “Prescription drugs are likely to be complex medicines, esoteric in formula and varied in effect. As a medical expert, the prescribing physician can take into account the propensities […]

Iglehart and Thompson: Does the AMA Need “A Different Model of Advocacy”?

John Iglehart and Jeff Thompson MD The AMA’s vigorous opposition this week to the FDA’s consideration of mandating training for opioid prescribers to curb the current opioid epidemic (which the AMA’s liberal policies toward specialty designation and pharmaceutical underwriting helped create), called to mind the words in 2009 of Gundersen-Lutheran neonatologist and CEO, Jeff Thompson in […]

The Man-made Opioid Epidemic: Part 3 – Opioids Are The Tip of the Iceberg.

NOAA Mike Magee The Man-made American Opioid Epidemic represents a supply chain failure and a management challenge if system flaws are to be corrected. In its simplest terms, the process involves approval, production, distribution, prescribing, dispensing, and consuming. For all pharmaceuticals, the goal should be to personalize and customize the prescription with the intent of […]

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