A chilling parallel. Terrifying - and their complete lack of empathy and critical thinking skills is readily apparent in this effort by the OHP & HERC. Hoping it fails miserably and Oregon’s patients can continue to live productively. I guess if they don’t, the state will happily kill them!

I'm trying to find out more about the people behind this and their collective mindset. What is really going on here? There must be more than meets the eye.

Could it be the root of all evil today? Money? Maybe look into who will profit from this travesty. Or, see who will save money. There's always more than meets the eye. #CullingTheAmericanPoor

BAMMMM there you go...
Follow the money Trail it will lead you to all the answers you're looking for!

Reefer Madness. The Temperance movement. Prohibition. All from people who believed with all their hearts that they have the right to lie and bully those who dare thwart their "morally superior" knee-jerkism. It seems that the possibility that they could be wrong about chronic pain patients has never crossed what passes for their minds, These are not reflective people.

For one thing, many of the task farce members are practitioners of the "alternative" methods they're going to try & force people to try in lieu of their medicine. There are several acupuncturists, & chiropractors & suchlike. Why the &)(*&% no one seems to notice there are blatant conflicts of interest going on here is a question I've never found anyone to answer.

Josh, one of the most unique and accurate comparisons I have seen. You’ve really tapped into something activist can use as a possible legal angle and of course so well written and informative. It is horrifying that they are violating medical ethical code in plain site with depraved indifference. I see PROP and CDC all over this humanitarian crisis and can only hope stronger defining ethical codes are drafted to prevent this from ever happening again. Kolodny, Lembke and every other member of PROP should be charged with crimes against humanity. I suspect pushing Suboxone on afflicted bodies when safer opiate relief options are both legal, affordable and medically necessary is a clear violation of the Belmont Code which was designed to stop another Tuskegee. This should be investigated further by the powers that be but our country has gone opiate hysteria insane. Denial of treatment for experimental alternatives is another violation. The magnitude of deliberate unavoidable destruction to humanity cannot be measured to anything in modern history.

https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/re...

https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/re...

It will REALLY be interesting if Suboxone makes the list in Oregon. Then we have a major scandal on our hands, because buprenorphine is an opioid, just like the others that the state is tying to ban. No way, right?

Suboxone is the only opiate that will be offered in Oregon. I asked the OHA main line and then the addiction line to double check. I felt bad lying telling them I lived there but NYS is just as blue and vulnerable. Josh I’m going to start send you links, all roads lead to PROP and CDC. This is Tuskegee on super steriods.

Do you have it in writing?

I didn’t record the conversations but I was transferred to a OHA director (who I left a message). His name in Dr. John Mcilveen that I did some creative google searches using certain key words and bonanza. I sent you lots already, more to come.

Oregon may be the blue state that is to mandate what Insanity is yet to come. I'm a chronic pain patient and I don't want to be negative but I believe that this is part of a larger anti opiate group. I agree with you re: PROP, CDC and Jeff Sessions. I'm sure big pharma has some place in this EXPERIMENT...
Thank you, JMK and Josh Bloom.

Yes, they do!

Josh, take a look at all the ailments chiropractic and acupuncture claim to treat and cure and ask why are these people allowed to make medical decisions.

Suboxone does little to nothing for chronic pain...it keeps a person from experiencing the horrific systemic effects of withdraw.
Then dependancy sets in and tapering off Suboxone is also a horrific and lengthy event.
Suboxone should ONLY be prescribed to ADDICTS and for a very short period of time... And I had to accept the Suboxone prescribed, off label, for pain control.
This is a chronic cluster fuck. Agreed.
P.S...my chronic pain issues are from a serious MVA in 1998.

Check out Kolondy's husband...his financial interests/investments, follow the money trail! I'm forgetting his name right this moment last name is .. TU

I read an article that stated there a couple of chiropractors and acupuncturists on the Oregon board (can't remember what the board is called). Cha-ching … follow the $$ trail.

I'm looking to this now. If that's what is driving this it's going to get ugly

Josh, the two super nice woman I have lengthy conversations with at the OHA are completely in the dark about what to say to very scared poor incurables. It is not their fault, nobody at the top has even provided them with any information. Thanks to you showing us our our too distant shameful past we know this is in complete violation of one national and two international medical ethics agreements. I’ve seen familiar PROP names pop up often the deeper I went into this clusterfuck.

It's true Josh. The audio clip from the meeting in Oregon where they were excitedly chattering about wrecking the lives of Medicaid pain patients, an acupuncturist is heard speaking clearly and authoritatively. Ask Maia Szlavitz about this (I probably spelled it wrong). She remarked on that fact recently in her timeline.

Exactly!

Did you hear them giggling while discussing the depraved heart indifference murder of poor incurables who will be forced off of their safe controlled substances?

It’s the Oregon Pain Task Force

https://www.oregon.gov/oha/...

https://youtu.be/DxYCc5w1XNw

I am listening to this with pure horror. Tears stream down my face as my mind runs around like a hamster on a wheel trying to understand how anyone, anyone can discuss the flipping END of a person's LIFE with such abandonment of compassion, of all that is held dear to the ideals of Hippocrates oath in medicine. Oh, she made it clear one massive change was just for back.?. They are discussing crap discredited as if they are miraculous treatments. Jesus, benefit for the majority???? So was ethical cleansing in WWII.

I stand firmer on this is Nazism. The worst of human abuse is playing out while most people don't care, notice, or worse, ignore. Sounds pretty damn familiar to me.

I imagine actual Nazis having a more somber tone during The Final Soultion meeting. I called all the Democratic congressional reps in Oregon and made it clear if they let this happen the entire state will be reported to the U.N. for violating the Nuremberg Code. I told them I’m ashamed the Democratic Party is encouraging Nazism on incurable disabled and elderly. That recording needs to be saved and go viral.

Trite but......YOU GO!!!!

I've copied it and now I'm going to publish it withing a catch all book on wattpad. I'm also going to put this on BLAST.

Are we actually living in '1984'... This smacks of society run amuck.
What can be the end game for this depravity? Humans, as individuals have every right to expect, DEMAND correct treatment for their healthcare.
Targeting low income persons and SPECIFICALLY those on Medicare?
It's torturous as well as unjustified.
Thanks JMK.

YES, and one of them is an acupuncturist!

actually, 4 of the task farce members are acupuncturists & one is a chiro. quacks looking to make lotsa $$$$ & who get to sadistically torture an unknown number of people. How nice for them.

Great article. I really like the correlation. I live in Oregon and am an admin of the Oregon pain action group. We have been front and center fighting this. There are several people who are without medication already including veterans who were taken off opioids as of last December. There is a lot of suffering and if HERC votes in favor of these Prioritized List changes, there will be even more. They already passed policy denying pain medication for those with spine and back pain. Luckily, they allowed for doctors to file for an exception so certain patients could still receive treatment. The new proposal doesn’t allow for any exception. No option for doctors to practice medicine as they feel is appropriate. If passed no one will get exceptions unless you have cancers or are on palliative care with a life threatening condition.

Welcome to the People's Republic of Oregon.

Could you please email me?
Josh@acsh.org

adults have the right to choose taking the risk of addiction when they drink alcohol, but not the right to choose how they treat their pain? it is illegal to let a dog suffer, but it is ok to let a human patient suffer? imagine the number of people who will no longer be able to work and the strain it will put on the disability systems. heroin is the real opioid epidemic.

Everything you say is both correct and obvious. So ask yourself why all of this is happening. I no longer think it's mere stupidity.

Exactly.

It can't be stupidity...it has to be money. And LOTS of it.

please help Oregon pain patients
https://www.facebook.com/gr...

HERC is under the Oregon health Authority. HERC: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/...
Thank You Josh. Oregon Health Authority/ Health Evidence Review Comission are the ones in charge of this barbaric experimental policy proposal. As Wendy explained bellow, The Oregon Pain Management Commission (also under the OHA) began phase 1 of this in 2016 with Note 60, conditions of the back and spine (now called back and neck) that OHA claims was a great success. They supply no data to prove this. Exceptions were also allowed. Up until HERC/ the VbBS created this ad hoc Chronic Pain Task Force last September (archived and recent meetings page here: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/... a task force consisting of alternative practitioners (see bellow).

Health Evidence Review Commission Members (HERC): Orthopedic Surgeon, Naturopath, Psychologist, MD Epidemiologist, Pharmacist, Consumer Representative, RN, Dentist, MD obstetrician/gynecologist, MD Family medicine, MD Oncology. 12 members. They are the ones who will be voting. We got the vote halted until October 4th.

The Value based Benefits Subcommittee (VbBS): Chiropractic, Pharmacist, MD Family medicine, Dentist, MD orthopedics, MD oncology. That is 7. This is the subcomitttee that decides if they like the proposal first. The Lead Staff, Ariel Smits, picked the members of the Chronic Pain Task Force bellow.

The Chronic Pain Task Force: pharmacist, chiropractor, rheumatology, acupuncturist, DO, MD family medicine, MD family medicine, anesthesiologist, pain representative, Physical therapist, Acupuncturist, MD family medicine, Psychologist. 13 Members.

Draft Proposal on page 4 appendix A: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/...

Naturopath??? Kill me. I guess the Tarot card reader was busy that day. The more I read the worse this looks.

Thank you so much for the information, Amara !!

Amazing work, thank you Amara, Julia, and Wendy!

Thank you for writing this article.

Great article. What they are wanting to do here in Oregon is frightening to intractable pain patients such as myself I have an incurable progressive spinal cord injury called adhesive-arachnoiditis. It's pain has been compared to stage 4 cancer. I'm in the last stage of it and my complicated protocol has been elements to it including opioids. I've gone down 62% in my pain pump meds and am at the end of my pain tolerence. I can't even imagine being forced tapered all the way off of it. What kind of unusually cruel, barbaric, and stupid response is this? They are targeting people like me who are disabled and vulnerable. I hear people say they don't care for others saying this is Nazi like behavior, but you try living in excruciating pain all for no reason other than to look like you're doing something about the opioid crisis I've heard the task force say that this is the easiest way to get the CCO's and other insurances to follow their cuts to opioids. Addiction and chronic pain need to be separated. They are two different things. Addiction is a disease and needs to be treated as such. For as long as they continue to focus on chronic pain patients and their legitimate pain medicine, illicit drug overdoses will continue to rise with little or no attention leaving chronic pain patients to shoulder the burden. You'll be seeing pain related heart attacks and strokes to escalate, along with an increase in suicides. Dispicable

Evelyn,thank you for such a spot on comment. Especially stating the fact that addiction and chronic pain need be separated. It's not rocket science to realize that addicts are always searching and will continue to, illegally, find their dealers for their opiates and other illicit substances.
Having chronic pain issues 24/7/365 due to a diagnosed physical chronic pain issue(s) becomes part of a person's daily life.
This has the aura of 'experimentation' all over it.
Health care professionals need to bring their voice to this Insanity. Pain is pain.

Have you tried high potency CBD? I have severe spine problems, and it's helped me a great deal. It didn't seem to work for everyone, but it is my answer to prayer.

I've been disabled for 20 years. I've tried just about everything. I do have cbd salve in my complex treatment protocol, but it doesn't replace opioids. It's just one of the many things I use to control my pain

It doesn't work if you have Epilepsy, Asperger's, Degenerative Disc Disease. Epilepsy meds are made from Deadly Nightshade aka Belladonna. CBD and epilepsy meds cancel each other out.
I ask my neuroscience doctor he said to ask for a low dose analgesic like hydro 5mg because CBD won't work with epilepsy meds. My primary screamed at me "Opiate are not the answer for Degenerative Disc. Disease."-"Go to drug treatment" yet I'm not on drugs I use to smoke weed 15 years ago and only on my birthday. "Lose weight and try aroma therapy." If I lose more weight, I will be even more unhealthy. I can't keep food down because the pain and NSAIDS with ulcers is just asking to puke blood.

I think that's their goal, genocide of the poor and disabled. Mind you this does include children.

I agree that banning an effective pain treatment is wrong. But the comparison to Tuskegee is a bit over the top and does not come close to decades of untreated syphilis while telling the patient he is being treated. At my age I just might opt for possible addiction instead of severe pain. Informed patient choice

We will have to agree to disagree on this. Both cases involve substandard or no treatment to poor people simply because they are/were poor.