Should NYU faculty and their dependent children receive full tuition remission?
The House of Representatives passed its health care reform bill by a chillingly close margin Saturday night. Now the ball is in the Senate's court, where the uphill battle will be much steeper. A nationalized system of medicine, paid for by a graduated tax system that would lower costs and insure all Americans — while decreasing the federal deficit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — seems like an easy sell in a country where nearly 46 million go uninsured. But conservative members of Congress have managed to whip up a fervor against any reform of health care. "They want to control you; they want to control your children, your parents, your doctor, your nurse," talk-radio host Mark Levin fulminated at the "Congressional House Call" protest on Nov. 5, sponsored by the group Americans for Prosperity.
This is the root of the argument against health care reform in America: Health care corporations are against the measure because government involvement in their field would translate into fewer profits for themselves. In order to protect their interests they have to convince (or rather, deceive) the public into believing that their interests are the people's interests. And they do this by catering to our basest emotion: fear. Fear of falsities like "death panels," as well as fear of abstract notions like the encroachment of "socialism," "Marxism" or "communism." Fear of a loss of individual rights to privacy and choice (when in fact the public option is just that — an option).
The government, on the other hand, does not concern itself with profits, and ideally, neither would the people who run it. But it is no secret (thanks to campaign disclosure forms) that those who lead us are not entirely beholden to us. The campaigns of Congress members are sponsored by many different lobbying interests, including health care companies. I will look at one senator in particular here: Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
Lieberman has been the one member of the Democratic caucus who has promised to filibuster a vote on a health care bill with a public option. He drew criticism in an article from Monday's Boston Globe for receiving "about $800,000 since 2000 from insurance industry sources." The article also notes: " ... industry-affiliated political action committees have given more generously to his campaign fund than those from any other sector." And Globe correspondent Sasha Issenberg writes, " ... insurance interests [are] more densely packed in Connecticut than any other state."
The largest of these medical industry donors is Purdue Pharma, more infamously known as the producers of OxyContin. Since 1989, Lieberman has accepted $150,100 from that company, according to opensecrets.org. Purdue Pharma is a prime example of corporate interests and people's interests rarely aligning. In 2007, Purdue Pharma was found guilty of intentionally downplaying the addictive qualities of OxyContin, as well as fabricating market campaigns and scientific studies. David Haddox, then in charge of risk management for the company, poo-pooed the plight of the thousands unintentionally hooked on the drug who had to undergo a traumatic withdrawal process. Haddox described them as merely being "pseudo-addicted" in a 2003 conference on addiction at Columbia University. Purdue Pharma was profiting not from curing their customers of their ailment, but from getting them addicted to their product.
Unfortunately, money talks, and it talks loudly. Let's just hope that the truth talks louder.
georgedearman
Nov 10, 2009
4:12 a.m.
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Marianne Skolek
Nov 10, 2009
7:19 a.m.
In 2003, I traveled to New York to attend a conference at Columbia University on addiction. The reason I wanted to attend this conference was because a medical director employed by Purdue Pharma was a speaker. His name was J. David Haddox.
Haddox was a dentist turned psychiatrist who became an illustrious speaker for Purdue Pharma. Haddox worked his way up Purdue Pharma's corporate ladder to I believe now being a medical director and in charge of "risk management" for the company. One of the reasons Haddox fascinated me was the word "pseudo-addiction."
The meaning of the word "pseudo" is "not genuine but having the appearance of". Pseudo-addiction is defined as an abnormal drug-related behavior making chronic pain patients look like addicts.
Interestingly, this behavior ceases when opioid doses are increased and pain improves (Weissman and Haddox, 1989).
It further is stated that this drug-related behavior is actually a search for relief – “pseudo-addiction.” It is noted that there is little specific evidence for the concept of pseudo-addiction, which originated from one case report (Weissman and Haddox, 1989).
With the exception of one large-scale report as an abstract (McCarberg and Laskin, 2001) – no studies on pseudo addiction exist. Although the pseudo-addiction concept lacks significant scientific support – it has become widely accepted within the pain-physician community.
So here I was in the audience sitting in front of Haddox as he dazzled his cronie physician attendees and others in the audience with his brilliance. At one point during a question and answer segment, a well spoken physician looked over at Haddox and said "Dave there you go again." It appeared that others on the panel weren't as impressed with "Dave" as Dave was with himself. So drug related behavior is "actually a search for relief -- or pseudo-addiction." And Dave was involved with the one case report on pseudo-addiction. This could be very good news for all the drug rehabilitation facilities all over the country trying to save the lives of their patients who are hopelessly addicted to OxyContin. They are not, in fact, addicted and may be "pseudo addicted." So the conference at Columbia University breaks up and the speakers leave the stage and walk through the audience. I find myself walking up the aisle and Haddox coming toward me. I was in awe. What a brilliant man before me. As we passed each other, Dave somehow lost his footing and ended up crashing into the folding chairs in the audience and was on his knees with the clammer of chairs around him. I couldn't help but think that this is the position that people addicted to OxyContin find themselves when they are going through horrendous withdrawal. But then they were never addicted were they? It was nothing more than pseudo-addiction. There's a book very popular right now called "The Seven People You Meet in Heaven." I hope one day someone writes a book entitled "The People Who Will Be Found in Hell."
Bill
Nov 10, 2009
5:16 p.m.
Thank you Sam for identifying the speaker at the rally as Mark Levin. Also, you correct my figure of Joseph Lieberman accepting $150,100 from Perdue Pharma from "for the 2005-2010 election committee" to "since 1989." The OpenSecrets.org website was not very clear. While it it is true that his total career contributions (his Senate career started in 1989) from Perdue Pharma total $150,100, Perdue Pharma did not even crack his top 20 contributors until 2004, so he received most of this money fairly recently. Today, Perdue Pharma is his third biggest contributor.
It was unfortunate that a couple of sentences detailing the truth behind the organization "Americans for Prosperity" had to be deleted in the interest of space. They were located after Mark Levin's quote and just before "This is the root of the argument against health care reform in America." I will reproduce them here:
Rachel Maddow confronts the President of this self-described “grassroots” organization on her show, which in reality is funded by the massive corporation Koch Industries and wealthy Republican donors. “I think you and the folks who do what you do are a parasite who gets fat on Americansʼ fears,” Maddow states.
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