CNN:
As tens of thousands of Americans die from prescription opioid overdoses each year, an exclusive analysis by CNN and researchers at Harvard University found that opioid manufacturers are paying physicians huge sums of money -- and the more opioids a doctor prescribes, the more money he or she makes. [...]
"This is the first time we've seen this, and it's really important," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a senior scientist at the Institute for Behavioral Health at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, where he is co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative.
Whether opioid manufacturers are encouraging doctors to prescribe their products with these payments or are rewarding high-volume doctors after the fact is not clear.
On average, doctors whose opioid prescription volume ranked among the top 5% nationally received twice as much money from the opioid manufacturers, compared with doctors whose prescription volume was in the median. Doctors in the top 1% of opioid prescribers received on average four times as much money as the typical doctor. Doctors in the top 10th of 1%, on average, received nine times more money than the typical doctor. [...]
"It's not proof positive, but it's another very significant data point in the growing evidence base that marketing payments from drug companies are not good for medicine and not good for patient care," said Carlat, a psychiatrist who blogs about conflicts of interest. "It makes me extremely concerned."
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On this date at Daily Kos in 2010—Local Jobs Proposal Demonstrates Smart Approach:
While the worst of the layoffs in the private sector are over, we're on the cusp of major layoffs, furloughs and paycuts in the public sector as states and municipalities face revenue shortfalls that could total more than $350 billion in the next two years. State and local payrolls have already been trimmed by 191,000 jobs from August 2008 until January 2010. How bad the situation may become is illustrated by a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, which noted that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued pink slips Friday to 17,000 of the city's 26,000 workers. Most will be rehired for a shorter workweek amounting to a 6.25% pay cut. Los Angeles has begun cutting 4000 city workers from its payroll. And it's the same from Abilene, Texas, to Columbia, South Carolina.
Rep. George Miller is seeking support in the Democratic Caucus for his Local Jobs for America Act, H.R. 4812, a two-year $100 billion that he hopes will leverage a million public and private sector jobs. It's precisely the kind of medicine the economy needs. But Republicans and deficit hawks among the Democrats aren't likely to find it to their liking.
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