GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Doctors, addicts and greed

domingo, 25 de noviembre de 2018

BioEdge: Doctors, addicts and greed

BioEdge: Doctors, addicts and greed

Bioedge

Doctors, addicts and greed

by Michael Cook | 24 Nov 2018 |

Here’s a cautionary tale from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Not all of bioethics is as subtle and Byzantine as debates over abortion or surrogacy. The homespun virtues of being honest and law-abiding and not being greedy are part of the package, too.

A prescribing physician at an opioid treatment pleaded guilty this week to distribution of controlled substances, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and health care fraud.

Dr Ruth D. Jones, 57, was illegally distributing prescriptions for buprenorphine, a Schedule III controlled substance. With a co-defendant, Dr Michael Cash, she also created and distributed illegal prescriptions for buprenorphine. Police found more than 2,000 pre-signed prescriptions with Jones’ or Cash’s signatures.

Then she submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare for payments to cover the costs of the illegal prescriptions.

The prosecution alleged that Drs Jones and Cash saw about 43 patients for no more than three to five minutes every day.

Jones faces up to 30 years in prison, a fine of US$1,250,000 or both.

Buprenorphine is an active ingredient in Suboxone, a popular opioid for alleviating addicts’ withdrawal symptoms and drug cravings and for discouraging drug abuse. Obviously it can be misused as well.

The US government caps the number of patients that a doctor can treat with buprenorphine to 30 for the first year after being certified, 100 in the next year, and 275 thereafter, upon application.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

With people as wise as former US Vice-President Joe Biden asserting that transgender equality is the “civil rights issue of our time”, it’s no surprise that the world’s leading science journal agrees. In a scathing editorial late last month Nature argued that the Trump Administration’s “proposal for defining gender has no basis in science”.

There is no doubt that many bioethicists would agree with Mr Biden. In fact, a psychotherapist raised a storm in the British media this week with his interpretation of the crisis. It’s just that he took a view 180 degrees opposed to Nature. “In 20 years’ time, I believe we will look back on this folly as one of the darkest periods in the history of modern medicine,” wrote Bob Withers.

Despite trans Twitterstorms twisting and weaving their way across the bioethical landscape, it seems that the science and ethics of transgender issues is far from settled. It’s worthwhile listening to both sides of the debate.