come my name is not a sherman and i am your host a month or two ago there was a televised new jersey town hall dealing with the epidemic of opioid and heroin addiction in new jersey new jersey has more than triple the national average heroin now outnumbers suicide homicide and car accidents as a cause of death in this state in two thousand and fifteen nationally there were approximately fifty two thousand deaths due to drug overdoses in one year i looked up this information american military deaths in vietnam over a fourteen year period were a little over fifty eight thousand over a fourteen year period and we are still dealing with the repercussions but we are not effectively dealing with fifty two thousand deaths a year what makes the current drug crisis unique is that it largely began with legal drugs marketed sold by major pharmaceutical companies a two thousand and fifteen analysis by the centers for disease control and prevention found that people who are addicted to prescription painkillers are forty forty times more likely to be addicted to heroin my guest today appeared at the town hall meeting they are attorneys from the law firm of i can crush loans as low as mcelroy a new jersey personal injury and medical malpractise law for so first i'd like to introduce you barry barry i can welcome you are one of the partners thank you and darrell that is low because you are also one of the partners so welcome thank you for having us i am so happy you're here and i think i'll be doing a series of these shows but i  thought i'd start with you because i was impressed with what you focused on in the jersey town hall and that's the whole idea of accountability so i know as attorneys accountability is part of what you look at but you know as a life coach also accountability to excuse me took that is a big deal i went down the wrong way so in training to live affectively so i wan ask you to talk a little bit about accountability in this whole opioid heroin addiction that's fine ok so who would like to start barry off the line with me i'll tell y a funny question accountability especially living in the united states right because we have a corporate culture in the united states and that corporate culture is that this bloodless soulless heartless organization called a corporation who doesn't have to answer to anybody is concerned with what profits only profit that's their only goal to extract as much money as they can at any cost so that demick only to the drug industry it's a lot of industries isn't it yes so when you start putting health profit above people's health and safety you have a problem in this country and it's not getting better it's getting much worse so if a young man has a young family and he can't afford to feed that family and stamos story and he has to i don't know take a loaf of bread he'll do jail time but if corporate america wall street for instant short's their own clients and causes bankruptcy of policemen and firemen and public workers there is no consequence when to ever none the government says you know what here's a bag of money there's no restrictions on this money pay yourself with them you know not only do you get to reap your losses back but you get to pay yourself bonuses with them and that's the problem now what happened here with opioids well it was never approved for chronic long term pain and there's not a scintilla of evidence that it efficacious for long term use of chronic pain as a matter of fact the only information is that with long term use for chronic pain your it can actually make your pain worse a condition called hyper analgesic so what are the companies do there making amount of profits a year i think when this thing began the whole drug industry an opiate was making forty one million dollars a year and then there was a concerted effort to know let's advertise and let's let people's doctors specifically start her scribing this for long term use how do we do that well let me market to the physicians with life with fraud let me say this stuff is efficacious for long term use that addiction that's a made up thing so drug seeking behavior and addiction are different how that got across to the physicians is beyond me and then if you read the new england law journal i have a copy here in april of two thousand and seventeen they referenced that back twenty years ago they decided we're going to push this for long term use we're going to give all this information to physicians and they went from making forty five million dollars a year to twenty billion dollars a year you know it's staggering and there's a lot that goes on in my mind about it but one of the things that in my research  used to be that the f d a was funded by our tax dollars which apparently you know that would have you be accountable but then apparently america was behind in the length it took to approve those drugs so in order to create more people who could work for the f d a they started this application process from pharmaceutical companies that they now had to apply but this became the money making source for the a so when it first started i think it was some thousands of dollars and now it's up to two million dollars so the f d a then hired a bunch of people who could then push the drugs and the approval quicker of the physicians who are prescribing these medications and based on the propaganda that barry was alluding to before there may have been a reasonable excuse at the beginning of this problem that the physicians themselves were being sold a bill of goods by the pharma big pharma and that's why they were not complicit in the problem they were just being unfortunately victimized we have long since passed that point and now we know going back to the accountability that four out of five people who get addicted to heroin started with the prescription opioid the physicians are aware of that and that becomes why what we did was hold them accountable if they're prescribing these medications in a way that's a departure from the accepted standards so what's in it for the physician to ignore the evidence but i don't think it's a matter of ignoring it it's a matter of remembering that their first  do no harm so if they're prescribing an opioid to or a person who is not you graduated high school we know statistically that there's a thirty three percent increase in the likelihood that a person will abuse opioids if they were prescribed opioids before they graduated high school so a physician must first determine what is the best long term goal in treating this patient the patient is in high school don't prescribe opioids as quickly as you have if the person has a history of drug or alcohol abuse don't prescribe opioids try a different mechanism we know that opioids are not as useful in treating chronic pain physician well this isn't a secret and once again it's in jama and anybody was in medical background who doesn't and is just interested they could pull the article but there is a portion right here that says a two thousand and nine article summariser promotion  oxycontin by produce pharma between ninety six and two thousand and one those efforts included hosting forty all expense paid speaker training competence for five thousand physicians so what do they get out of it to answer your question well they get full expense paid trips right and it's not a few it's five thousand physicians but it's criminal you know it's interesting because four or five years ago i had to have a tooth extracted and i was terrified and it was you know it seemed very tricky and whatever and i went to this dentist who was highly recommended and i you know you fill out the form i'm allergic to coding he did an incredible job i mean i wanted to kiss him afterwards it was so painless and he then handed me a prescription and said just in case you have pain now first of all i didn't have any pain i didn't even need to take a pallet now i mean how did me a prescription for i really apologize for interrupting you know you had a question for darrell ok i don't remember as a ok but what i want to ask you is ok so we're all part of that we're each link in this chain so we all have a part to play so as individuals that we have some accountability so why aren't we challenging our physicians why aren't we beating up all the information i tell my sons don't take anything until you've done all the research you know you know them to expect every person who receives a prescription to read everything that's in what the p t are is the same information that's in the the physician or the medication insert package it's unrealistic why well first of all there's a lot of medical terminology that's going to be too abstruse for the average person right on the other thing is we all have a self defense mechanism that's going to be what it's not going to be may it's not going to be me and i hate say it but that is again why we put so much responsibility on the physicians who are prescribing these medications and their duty is to do what's in our best interest and it's not just the short term interest it's the long term interest so if somebody comes in with an acute injury and there's no long term history of abuse and they're saying they're not a minor they may very well benefit if they're in acute pain from a dosage ok if there's no reasonable alternative but to prescribe it as a reflex to patients for more than a few weeks when you know there is a significant increase risk of addiction that becomes what we say and what we do is a departure from the accepted standards of care you're now not doing within that patient's best interest and you're not doing what you should be doing to protect the patient and again that's why you hire retained an attorney to investigate that and with record spurts and determine whether or not they did something wrong yeah well not only is it the level of sophistication but you're talking about doctors in certain circumstances being fed information that is purposely incorrect if the doctors are getting accurate information and they understand the medicine how would a layman be able to critical it be able to say hey you know what i would do as i ask questions at all i think there's some you are not being responsible either one hundred percent we can't play the ostrich defense which is we stick our head in the sand and then we act like we didn't know anything but there's a big difference between a patient who is looking for medical treatment a justifiable reason they were in a bad motor vehicle accident they fell off a ladder and broke their leg they are now worried about paying their bills making sure their kids can be true and then going to the physician who has a duty to do what's right so they have that ability and in that type of situation the physicians have the ability to sit down with the patient and explain before i write this script to you or for you yes this or that these are the risks down give the patient the informed decision you know what they want to do in their best interest i have another question test for you yes why do people vote against their own interest  talking about in elections why do certain people vote against their own interest they pick a candidate and they say this guy's going to make my life better when in fact that same person is going to be affected way more adversely i think it's  same thing it's again first of all it's your own vested interest that you see something that a lot of people latch on to one thing that's been promised and they don't look at all the other information but the other thing is we're not doing our due diligence we're losing the war on drugs right we're losing the war on drugs we're losing a lot of things and everyone's at the end of the day acting as though it's not happening until it happens to them and their loved ones we have a governor right now and you could say whatever you want about politics one way or the other but it's very important to him before he leaves office to continue to put the spotlight on this we have a number of wonderful physicians who have finally come out and spoken against what they understand to be a systemic problem the prescription of these medications and we have attorneys like my partner who are willing to stand up and say to big pharma to tickle companies anough is enough so we all have skin in the game i mean our best resource is not oil it's not natural gas it's the youth and more and more we're seeing children of adolescent age being prescribed this medication ultimately leading to her own abuse and then killing families we're only going to say very well we're move we're losing more than just the war on drugs where you we're losing the war on human rights yes i agree and there is no more america and i'll take it from a movie this isn't a new line we're not a country anymore we're a business yes and that's a real shame for our children  yes you have things like defunding the you have things like getting rid of dodd frank really who's going to protect us against wall street now nobody is and i find our country is going into a tailspin and i am concerned yes for my children i agree so again you know citizens united sorry citizens you know corporate america can give corporate america is infiltrating wall street look at who is the head of all the head appointments right now and see what their connection is to wall street see what it is to big business and citizens united to as you know what i can donate as a corporation bill you know if i want to any  how do you fight that to trickle down effect is disastrous to all of us it's a disaster yes so again there are only so many battles we can fight you know but i think that we are so up against the wall at this point that something's got to give because we are what it's trying to give is elected officials are trying to change the law to protect the people to make it less accountable so if their corporation does something wrong or you know makes a medication that ultimately is is proven to be dangerous or a physician makes mistakes and prescribing these medications we want to protect the corporations by putting caps on lawsuits that's a really good point physician makes a mistake you and i drive our cars down the street we grab a text we do something wrong that we shouldn't be doing and we cause astronomical damage you and i are responsible there's no protection against our our being sued but if a physician does something just as negligent doesn't matter what your attempt is when you pick up that cell phone you or you cause an accident if a physician commits malpractise why is it that there are certain politicians certain legislative branches and certain political parties if you will that are supporting what we want to insulate them from responsibility of protect them and ensure that they're not held accountable in court as though you and i would be it's criminal it's criminal and you know it's not every day and by the way yes now with with and i don't want to beat a dead horse but with citizens united now do you think all your legislators care about your dollar they're going for corporate dollars yeah they're not going to alienate their money yeah they're not legislators for you for we the people  anymore it said the charleston gazette reported in december how drug companies shipped nearly nine million hydrocodone pills over two years to one pharmacy in the town of kermit west virginia population three hundred ninety two all told the newspaper reported drug wholesalers distributed seven hundred eighty million pills of oxy code own and hydrocodone in the state over six years the unfettered shipments amounted to four hundred thirty three pain pills for every man woman and child i know that statistic very well i could've quoted it to you and then the other thing is that pharma they don't care they'll just blast the drug through and they've sold billions of dollars so you know if they were hundred fifty six billion dollars of profit today the fine fine that was against one company and the only fine i know of to date was four hundred sixty three million four hundred sixty three million dollars that is one tenth of one percent of the profit so what is it that you know again it's a drop in the bucket for that so this is a cost of doing business that they are just going to do business as usual when you know as attorneys i mean a battle every day and not allow our government to take away the rights for our clients who've been victimized to be heard by a jury of their peers there's a systemic approach that those in power those with wealth let's make sure we keep at it we keep it we prevent access to the courts i do we keep it we put caps of what we can be found liable for how do we keep it we change the that are supposed to be you know you define the e p a for instance i'm sure there is some kind of name let's make america beautiful and yet do you understand for t v in funding the e p a it's they play this country and the people are access to care for patients first we can go on and on and always yes or you come up with this very catchy name that is completely discordant with what it's actually doing right now it's some euphemistic yes absolutely yeah again i think you know it's very overwhelming and it's hard to it's like a david and goliath battle it's hard to not feel powerless but i think again the country is made up of individuals and individuals have to start taking action as well but how can individuals be heard if corporations are drowning out everything how many how many by the us are there for every politician in washington i heard the statistic there's close to five hundred lobbyists for every person in congress citizens can't afford to pay the lobbyist millions and one tens of millions of dollars well you have to put american do we have to start you know paying attention and also again paying attention to who you put into office paying attention to him very early in a brainwashed well we can't wave a white flag so a show like this helps certainly the show we were on several weeks ago is really helping to put the problem out there not just to the people who have been directly affected i mean everybody can go down the block this this epidemic crosses all demographics it crosses all race across crosses all sets you can go from any area and it is city to any beautiful suburb and everywhere in between there's a child today or a young person who's getting addicted to opioids and then leading to heroin abuse and happens everywhere i agree with that so this helps it's a step in the right direction what should people be doing then if you're saying individuals see i don't believe individuals are powerless i think individuals you have to assume you have some kind of power some ki last we start or going to organizing in a meaningful way and letting people know and not just voting you know blindly and start educating ourself as a people that we're in a big we're in a lot of trouble as questions of your physicians were only to go ahead of your physicians of your attorneys of your politicians absolutely demand answers and that's why you can do so in a delicate way i mean so often you know physicians are going in and out of a patient's room so quickly out of my annual physical the other day it was a wonderful that my physician sat down with me and spent twenty minutes having a conversation with me about my health right now that is an exception to the rule ok because i have clients coming to me every day saying it was two seconds in out wrote me a script and i was gone demanding answers if that medical care provider that you're seeing is not going to spend minutes with you and answering your questions go find another medical care provider absolutely and i do it all the time and you're the exception but you see i think again you have insurance good insurance right so you can afford to do that there's a point there but again if you don't have that choice you know it be a demand for excellence it's like we we kind of let them get away with it by default by not challenging them by not you know asking them for excellence and you know if that position is in and out of the room i mean you know they can identify you in a lineup ten minutes after they've seen you so what kind of health you're at in the same vein you can't demand excellence from a physician when you don't have the knowledge to ask them the right questions or when you're being fed knowledge that is incorrect but i think what i'm hearing is like somehow we are helpless hapless victims of kind of you know the  status quo and i don't believe that you know i believe that we are not helpless at all we are not all that powerful in terms of let's say fighting corporations but it starts with us as individuals mobilizing getting together groups forcing you know people to pay attention we have to empower ourselves we have to empower each other there that one does come with knowledge yeah yeah but there's only one other way to do it which is which has never been done against corporate america in the history of this country and that is accountability right but they're doing everything they can to make that impossible for exactly right and that i thought only where to go without accountability it's hard i don't want to sound fatalistic but i'm telling you i think this is one of the worst points our country has ever seen but that brings us back to the inception of this interview the times for which is what can we do to hold them accountable whether you call battery you call myself or you call one of our competitors be heard ok if you think something is wrong and your loved one got hooked on heroin because something went wrong with a overdosed on opioids because somebody did something wrong it may start at the big pharmaceutical company it may be the physician it may be somebody else along the way when you're done crying pick up the phone and call somebody who will fight for you if you're too weak to fight for yourself that's great you have one minute what would you like to say before we complete or that's a loaded question i don't know there are people out there in media who are trying to make a change you are educating the public for those of you that don't listen and maybe your politics may be different than mine they may be to the right most people's are but you know i've been watching bill mare bill mair and co bear and the issues are brought to the forefront and so you get to know what's really going on rather than what hold you yeah so i find those programs educational and helpful yeah well thank you that went by very quickly  had some contribution to make to the next steps i appreciate you coming today reproach of being here thank you thank you thank you my name is not tasha sherman thank you for joining us