BOSTON - And you thought the war on drugs was about keeping cocaine out of the country and heroin out of the kids. Guess again. If the bill that flew out of the House last week becomes law, those intrepid folks at the Drug Enforcement Administration will be given encouragement to go after doctors as if they were dealers. The bill was titled, in the best Orwellian fashion, the Pain Relief Promotion Act. In fact, it was a buffed and shined-up version of last year's loser, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act. [continues 663 words]
And you thought the war on drugs was about keeping cocaine out of the country and heroin out of the kids. Guess again. If the bill that flew out of the House last week becomes law, those intrepid folks at the Drug Enforcement Administration will be given encouragement to go after doctors as if they were dealers. The bill was titled, in the best Orwellian fashion, the Pain Relief Promotion Act. In fact, it was a buffed and shined up version of last year's loser, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act. [continues 667 words]
A doctor is disciplined for undertreating pain in the terminally ill. Dr. Paul Bilder may never become a famous name in the history of end-of-life care at the end of the millennium. Bilder is no Jack Kevorkian, the pathologist who brazenly defied the law and forced the country to deal with assisted suicide. Nor is he Timothy Quill, the internist whose published admission that he helped a terminal patient to die encouraged other doctors out of the closet. But Dr. Bilder represents a landmark nevertheless. This month, the Oregon pulmonary specialist became the first doctor in the country to be disciplined by a state board of medical examiners for undertreating pain in his patients. [continues 516 words]
Sooner or later, anyone who makes a living offering up opinions gets asked the same question: ''Have you ever changed your mind?'' After the ink is dry, after the column is sent into the electronic ozone, have you ever disagreed with you? There must be so me primal anxiety behind this frequent inquiry. I suppose people all share a high school nightmare of being exposed, seen mentally unzipped, caught changing our minds in public. But since the only way to avoid changing a mind is by closing that mind, it h appens. Today I disagree with me, or rather with the me that once opposed needle-exchange programs. [continues 637 words]
Boston - AT LEAST it isn't China. In that benighted country, prisoners are subject to both the worst of the old totalitarian ways and the crudest of capitalism. On the one hand, you can still get executed in China for your political beliefs. On the other hand, you can then have your organs sold in the marketplace to the highest bidders. In China, prison authorities prep pre-executed bodies to save the parts and doctors stand by to reap the remains. It's even reported that prisoners with prime organs and ready customers get bumped to the front of the execution line. [continues 493 words]
