war on doctors is terribly wrong

Why The War On Doctors Is Terribly Wrong

   There is a war on pain doctors that has destroyed some 20,000 lives in the last 10 years. This war has been executed silently and efficiently at the expense of millions of Americans who suffer from chronic pain. It's deadly silence has been so effective that the great majority of the public and the medical community have been unaware of the atrocities endured by many.

    The war on doctors rely on special laws from the 70’s that allow military style raids and confiscation of personal wealth of doctors suspected to be directly or indirectly contributing to drug abuse, addiction and drug trafficking. Just the perception that a doctor is overprescribing pain medication or not following the standard guidelines of medicine could unleash devastating legal and administrative punishments to ruin a medical career.

    Not necessarily the goals of the war but the way it has been executed raise major ethical, moral and constitutional questions.

 Trust, confidentiality, the sanctity of doctor-patient relationship are essential for medicine. The war has caused much damage to those sacred concepts.

   Wiretapping, infiltrating examination rooms with undercover agents feigning illness with false reports, sending blackmailed criminals to trick doctors to prescribe pain medications, profiling doctors based upon confidential pharmacy records are not conducive for Hippocratic medicine. But they are routine operations for a drug-related investigation.

   Sadly neither medicine nor our judicial system has seriously questioned the obvious violations of medical ethics and our Constitution in the war against doctors.

  I personally know numerous doctors whose chances of defeating false accusations of drug trafficking were instantly eliminated on the very day that dozens of armed agents raided their office and confiscated their wealth. The financial meltdown and the automatic closure of medical practice would be a prelude to their eventual reluctant surrender to false charges just to end their lengthy torture.

   The war on doctors is terribly ill advised. Its methods are barbaric. Yes we have a problem with addiction but we also have much larger problems with chronic pain and psychiatric disorders. Doctors are healers. Medicine is sacred. Policemen and DEA have no place in  examination rooms. Arrest a doctor if there is direct involvement with criminal activity, selling drugs, trafficking drugs but not for practicing medicine good or bad. That's not a criminal matter.