Jeffrey A. Singer
@dr4liberty
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General Surgeon,Senior Fellow Cato Institute, Visiting Fellow Goldwater Institute, defender of individual sovereignty and autonomy. @CatoHealth jsinger @cato .org
Phoenix, AZ
Joined October 2016
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@HenMazzig
Why no outcry from feminist and women's rights groups? Why aren't we hearing from
#MeToo
? This 2 and a half minute video is in English.
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A business columnist who does not know how to analyze medical science research joins the list of Cochrane Deniers.
@VPrasadMDMPH
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Stop saying "opioid crisis." It's a fentanyl crisis. Actually, it's a prohibition crisis.
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@chelicheesefry
@davidminpdx
@UTexasLaw
You’re only allowed to take down posters of children and babies that Hamas abducted from their homes in Israel after murdering their parents in front of them.
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Even such extreme/inhumane Zero-COVID policy won't stop spread of the virus.China's public health officials are just delaying the inevitable & inflicting great harm/suffering on the people.Yet some "experts" in the U.S. still urge us to emulate China.
@PhilWMagness
@MartyMakary
Patients packed elbow-to-elbow and contact cases living in leaky container-houses: Shanghai residents have been thrown out of their apartments after the government requisitioned their homes to house COVID patients.
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Andrew Yang seems to be the only one on the stage who knows the wealth tax was abandoned by European countries.
#DemDebate
#Cato2020
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So Drs. Gillibrand and Gardner KNOW how much medication each individual in the US patient needs for pain? I've been a doc for 40 years and I can't claim to be that all-knowing. They just reveal how ignorant they are of the science.
"No one needs" says...who?
How about you just get out of the way, stop worrying about recreational users, and let pain patients and their doctors decide what's needed?
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As a general surgeon myself I know how useless Tylenol can be for postop pain. The hysteria and disinformation continues--and patients suffer.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
Need General Surgery? Ignore The Surgeon General
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It is morally wrong to make working class people pay for college educations for people who, as a result, are more likely earn more and be wealthier than them. That's redistribution from poor to rich.
#DemDebate
#Cato2020
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@APApsychiatric
You should clarify that roughly 90% of opioid overdose deaths involve ILLICIT fentanyl. Using the word "opioids" in the generic sense can give a false impression that these are prescription pain pills.
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Drug prohibition corrupts the corruptible: doctors, pharmacists, politicians, prosecutors, police, and DEA agents. Prohibition brings out the worst in people. Time to END IT.
@CatoHealth
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"But the evidence is overwhelming that acetaminophen fails to provide adequate pain relief for any condition. Yet, hospitals will dispense the pills like candy and/or an expensive and useless IV form of the drug."
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Want reproductive freedom? How about having the US join 102 other countries and make oral contraceptives OTC. Women shouldn’t need permission slip from another adult.
@CatoInstitute
#Cato2020
#DemocraticDebate
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What do you call doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result?
After boosting the fentanyl market, drug warriors promise to eradicate it. Here is why they will fail.
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From the JOURNAL OF PAIN RESEARCH. Government data show opioid policy misguided. It was never about doctors and patients and prescriptions. It was always about nonmedical users in the black market fueled by prohibition.
@Surgeon_General
@CatoInstitute
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The fentanyl overdose crisis is the direct result of the Iron Law of Prohibition. It will only get worse if we continue doubling down on the futile war on drugs.
#GOPDebate
#Cato2024
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Two opioid crises, two prohibitions. Overdose crisis caused by drug prohibition, pain crisis caused by prescription prohibition. Opinion: Opioid crisis not helped by panic via
@detroitnews
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I'm glad readers added context to this unscientific, drug war hysterical claim.
@BreitbartNews
and
@joelpollak
should be embarrassed. But I'm sure they won't be.
SCOOP: Israel Prepares for Possible Fentanyl-filled Rockets from Hamas, Hezbollah via
@BreitbartNews
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“Yes, the government says nearly 80 percent of heroin users first misused opioid prescriptions, but the research being cited refers to people who illegally obtained those prescription opioids. Not patients.”
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85% of opioid related overdose deaths due to illicit/black market fentanyl. Prescriptions are down 60% since 2012. When will we stop punishing patients and recognize this is a problem caused by drug prohibition?
@CatoHealth
@cobrown
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Considering how scientific knowledge evolves, making CDC frequently revise COVID guidelines, why do policymakers still force healthcare practitioners to follow CDC opioid prescribing guidelines from 2016 that CDC even then said was largely based on "type 4"(weakest) evidence?
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Don't blame the drug-blame the prohibition. Drug prohibition brings out the worst in people. It corrupts docs, pharmacists, cops, prosecutors, politicians with the lure of easy money.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
@KatMurti
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“The narrative requires that mask mandates work; the reality is that they don’t. In a rational world, scientists would simply put out the evidence and let the political actors do their thing.”
This article is 100% accurate
The Cochrane review on masking is correct and the editor in chief, like many others, doesn't know what she's talking about.
If you can't prove something helps, you have to stop it. That's medicine. Always has, always will
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@dougducey
did the right thing.
@NancyBarto
@CatoHealth
If nurses are certified to offer anesthesia, why must a doctor watch them do it? via
@azcentral
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And explain to me again why this makes it necessary for doctors to cut back on prescribing opioids to their patients in pain?
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Prescriptions down. Deaths up. Hmmmm. Do you think this means the policy might be wrong?
3/3 We need to get a lot more sophisticated in how we measure signs of progress, because there is zero evidence that this is progress.
Opioid Prescriptions Plunge to 15-Year Low
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Gun violence "epidemic?" Opioid "epidemic." Vaping "epidemic." Epidemics everywhere!
#fearmongering
#DemDebate
#Cato2020
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"When a government agency 'recommends' a policy, it's akin to a recommendation from Tony Soprano; it is inevitably interpreted as a mandate, obeyed by state and federal agencies, health insurers, and even pharmacies."
@CatoHealth
@JoshBloomACSH
@KatMurti
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Fentanyl-related drugs temporarily made Schedule 1 from 2019 thru 2024 & OD deaths soared. Making this permanent won't change things. Schedule 1 hasn't stopped heroin/cannabis either. Drug warriors doubling down on denialism. It's the prohibition, stupid.
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@DanLairdMD
With all due respect to Dr. Cassidy, I’m an experienced doctor. I don’t need “guidance” from law enforcement officers on how to treat my patients in pain.
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Many medical schools will hold commencement this month. Graduates should consider taking an oath that puts patient autonomy first.
@CatoHealth
#CatoHealth
via
@CatoInstitute
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This is what happens when politicians-ignorant about medicine and pharmacology-presume to dictate the practice of medicine. Even DEA tells us all the fentanyl they seize is illicit made in underground labs. Fentanyl is a VERY useful drug used for years by medical professionals.
"Fentanyl has no medical use" is a type of statement that illustrates just how broken our drug policy is
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Demonstrating once again that the overdose problem has nothing to do with doctors prescribing pills to their patients. This has always been about non medical users in the black market fueled by prohibition.Fentanyl Deaths Double in 10 States, CDC Reports
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"[T]he misconceptions it reinforces have resulted in a different sort of outrage, reflected in the headline above a recent New York Times video: 'They Live in Constant Pain, but Their Doctors Won't Help Them.'" via
@reason
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Charleston, SC physicians speak out against hysterical and not evidence-based opioid policy. Place opioid blame where it belongs via
@postandcourier
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Will the evidence ever shake lawmakers/policymakers loose of the false narrative driving current policy?
@CatoHealth
via
@CatoInstitute
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After a brief respite, preliminary 2019 CDC data show ODs heading back up in much of country despite drop in opioid prescribing-because there's no relationship btwn Rx volume & nonmedical use/use disorder.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
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"Human beings should control their own body." I agree. So end the War on Drugs.
#DemDebate
#Cato2020
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Today the
@CatoInstitute
released this white paper I co-authored with
@TCBurrus
@CatoHealth
@CatoOnLaw
@LeoBeletsky
@headdock
@Peter_Grinspoon
@DrSarahWakeman
@MyHarmReduction
@coreysdavis
@RNBluthenthal
@ConLawWarrior
@jenndoliva
@valenabeety
@maiasz
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From
@johanknorberg
: "Sweden stood out from other countries, stubbornly refusing lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates. This was highly controversial and many outsiders saw it as a dangerous gamble with human lives. From a Swedish perspective, however, it looked like it
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California's Inquisition using warrantless searches is terrorizing doctors into denying treatment to their patients in pain.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
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"[D]octors frequently offer only acetaminophen to treat painful conditions despite the drug’s inability to remedy them," say
@JoshBloomACSH
and me in today's USA Today.
@CatoHealth
via
@usatoday
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Doctors not the only ones terrorized by DEA/drug warriors. Hospitals too. My hospital has me get signed consent before I give inpatient opioid for postop pain! All sorts of scary misinformation on consent form(consent not needed for antibiotics).Hysteria.
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The top 4 implicated drugs—illicit fentanyl and its analog, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine—were involved in far more deaths than any prescription opioid. Yet surgeons repeatedly encouraged to use IV Tylenol to treat postoperative pain.
@CatoHealth
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@DanLairdMD
Risk of developing "misuse" of opioids post found to be 0.6% according to study of more than half million patients in BMJ 2018. (Risk goes from 0.15% with no refills to 0.29% with one refill.) Opiophobia deprives patients pain needed control.
@CatoHealth
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Prohibition denialism: doing the same thing over and over for 50 years and expecting the same result.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
@LeoBeletsky
@DrugPolicyOrg
@MyHarmReduction
@ConLawWarrior
via
@CatoInstitute
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The Opioid Crisis is really a Prohibition Crisis. Harm reduction addresses it practically and humanely. Harm Reduction: Shifting from a War on Drugs to a War on Drug-Related Deaths via
@CatoInstitute
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The delay in widespread availability of coronavirus tests is largely due to the top-down control exercised by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had control over the test and needlessly limited private labs' ability to make them
#DemDebate
#Cato2020
#CatoHealth
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What's a worse mischaracterization of Milei: a "Trump-like libertarian" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) or a "far-right libertarian" (I don't even know what that means)?
Trump-like libertarian? What does this even mean? Are there people who actually think Trump made the federal government smaller or sought to utilize less executive power?
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"It's the prohibition, stupid."
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWarMore
Research Shows It's Not The Prescriptions, It's The Prohibition via
@CatoInstitute
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Repeat after me: “A tariff is a tax on American consumers.”
Trump is bragging about hiking taxes and Republican Primary Voters are applauding him for it
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To fight for women’s reproductive rights make birth control pills OTC NOW and don’t force third parties to pay for it.
#DemDebate
#Cato2020
#CatoHealth
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@Cbedford0315
@StefanKertesz
@SparkPug
@HilaryKimMorden
@MaryKayconsult3
@DaveH_RPh
@rlamartini
@TheATIPUSA
@headdock
@DeniseGeltman
@DawsonInga
@beep1620
@DanLairdMD
@tal7291
@ThomasKlineMD
@ChadDKollas
@speakingabtpain
@maiasz
@szaafran
@Liz_Llorente
@DrNickels
@Pharmaciststeve
@CIAAG_Lauren
@neuro_pain
@ZackBergerMDPhD
@JeffreyFudin
@drrickbarnett
@MarkIbsenMD
@LynnRWebsterMD
@PainPtFightBack
@JSG_54
@KellyAnneBryan1
@lawhern1
@ACLU
@SGottliebFDA
@TJCommission
This is infuriating. It is ignorant policy makers like these who should receive punishments.
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Health care is not a plastic card in your wallet. And remember: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” If gov’t pays for healthcare, politicians and bureaucrats decide who gets what and how much. Word of warning
#DemDebate
@CatoHealth
#Cato2020
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Just a shakedown. Gov'ts own data=> there is NO correlation of Rx volume with non-medical use/addiction. Policymakers won't own up to fact that their policy, prohibition caused the crisis. Instead they extract a pound of flesh from scapegoats. via
@WSJ
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Should CDC revert to original mission as Communicable Diseases Center? We’ll seek to answer that & other questions on 12/9. Register here.
@CatoHealth
@VPrasadMDMPH
@DrJBhattacharya
@ATabarrok
@ToddZywicki
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“See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.”
― Milton Friedman
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
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@dougducey
@AZDHS
Forced drop in opioid prescribing is not "progress" in combating the opioid crisis. It is unscientific, emotion-based cruelty towards patients. NO relationship between prescription volume and non-medical use or use disorder according to US gov't data.
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"If you want to get to the ultimate cause of the overdose crisis, it's drug prohibition" I told
@janjeffcoat
this AM on
@TND
@CatoHealth
@simoneshenny
@KatMurti
@ZachWritesStuff
@Alex_Norcia
@lawhern1
@DanLairdMD
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With diversion rates under 1%, why reduce quarters further?
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
Is the DEA Branching Out Into Regulating Medicine? via
@CatoInstitute
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@ThomasKlineMD
And the press needs to stop referring to the people living under highways and bridges in Philly with needles in their arms as “opioid addicts,” like they did today in the WSJ. They are HEROIN addicts. They’re not patients and likely never even saw a doctor.
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If
@US_FDA
thinks this will prevent drug cartels from getting and adding Xylazine ('tranq") to heroin, fentanyl, and other drugs they smuggle, I have a bridge I'd like to sell to the agency.
@CatoHealth
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Just imagine how the quality of medical care would suffer if doctors were granted qualified immunity from medical malpractice suits.
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@DMarie0240
@DanLairdMD
@ThomasKlineMD
@headdock
@DrDavidCosio
@JoshBloomACSH
@DrSeanMackey
@lawhern1
@Pharmaciststeve
@MarkIbsenMD
@VanilaSingh
NSDUH shows nonmedical use of prescription opioids as well as “prescriptions pain pill use disorder “ flat from 2002-2014, while prescriptions tripled. Patients not the source of OD problem.
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That's because there is NO correlation between prescription volume and opioid misuse/use disorder. But policymakers/regulators refuse to recognize this fact.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
via
@whnt
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Law of unintended consequences strikes again. And patients suffer.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
New York State Drew Up a Tax to Punish Opioid Makers—But Found Some Unanticipated Side Effects
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FDA Head Acknowledges Suffering Caused by Opioid Crackdown
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New research brief from Cato. How the Reformulation of OxyContin Ignited the Heroin Epidemic via
@CatoInstitute
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Stop blaming the overdose crisis on the border or on
@POTUS
when the blame really belongs with drug prohibition
@willcain
&
@TuckerCarlson
. If you want to hold Presidents culpable, the most blame belongs to Nixon who declared war on drugs 53 yrs ago.
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"Why does FDA think lying is the solution to misinformation?"
Read this essay and tell me the root issue is PR
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@ZachWritesStuff
Also, this won’t reduce teen vaping. It’ll just make teen vaping more dangerous.
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Very insightful, thoughtful, and nuanced piece by a Progressive journalist. We need to stop using words like "epidemic" to describe every phenomenon that concerns us. We are up to our eyeballs in "epidemics:"
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@jacobsullum
It never ceases to amaze me how conservative politicians can say “my body my choice“ when it comes to vaccinations but not when it comes to anything else.
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"Meet the new boss...same as the old boss."
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
@speakingabtpain
@DanLairdMD
@ZachWritesStuff
@rhoadsoda
@JoshBloomACSH
@AAPSonline
via
@CatoInstitute
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The
@DEAHQ
should make a New Year's resolution to end its war on addiction doctors and doctors who treat patients in pain.
@CatoHealth
via
@CatoInstitute
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It's mendacious to say every country has single payer. Every country is completely different. Very few are actually single payer. Swiss, Dutch, German systems involve competing private insurance companies. Even the UK allows people to opt out.
#CatoHealth
#DemDebate
#Cato2020
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Attention policy makers: we docs don’t prescribe heroin in any form. Please stop intimidating us into under-treating our patients in pain. It’s not about us and them. It’s about prohibition.
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Just when policymakers are beginning to rethink misguided opioid policy based on a flawed narrative, this miniseries may cause them to backslide.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
#DopesickHulu
via
@CatoInstitute
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Will Oregonians replace something that hasn't had a chance to work with something we KNOW hasn't and won't work?
@CatoHealth
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Very telling chart from NSDUH. Imagine! Most people "misusing" pain relievers to relieve pain!
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Few people noticed—the press didn’t cover it much—but Coloradans in pain and the clinicians who treat them got relief this legislative session when Colorado Governor
@jaredpolis
signed SB 144 into law last May.
@CatoHealth
via
@CatoInstitute
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@DanLairdMD
As a clinician, I am aware that stigmas we attach to substance use make many patients reticent when asked about it. I keep that in mind when I take a history. But I don't ASSUME they are lying-not very reassuring to patients to know that learn some doctors prejudge them as liars.
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I coauthored an oped with
@JoshBloomACSH
in today's Philly Inquirer.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
Pain patients are the casualties of the War on Drugs | Opinion via
@phillyinquirer
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Stable addiction rates are incompatible with popular narrative that OD crisis was caused by docs prescribing opioids & creating a population of zombie-like drug addicts. The OD crisis was caused by prohibition fueling a deadly black market amid growing pop of nonmedical users.👇
I'll be using this image in a presentation tomorrow. Some might be surprised that addiction in the US has been stable for some time.
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"When a document is as widely misconstrued as the CDC's guidelines have been...it is fair to ask how the authors left themselves open to misinterpretation."
@CatoHealth
via
@reason
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It is easier for policymakers to focus on the number of pain prescriptions given to patients in pain than to confront the real elephant in the room: the overdose crisis is the result of drug prohibition.
@CatoHealth
#CatoDrugWar
via
@CatoInstitute
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Demonstrating once again that the overdose problem has nothing to do with doctors prescribing pills to their patients. This has always been about non medical users in the black market fueled by prohibition.
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Time to reduce the harms that are caused by drug prohibition. Harm Reduction: Shifting from a War on Drugs to a War on Drug-Related Deaths via
@CatoInstitute
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“If it were easier to transport fentanyl by crossing illegally, U.S. citizens wouldn’t be hired for smuggling jobs.”
86.3% of fentanyl trafficking convictions were of U.S. citizens, not illegal immigrants.
If it were easier to transport fentanyl by crossing illegally, U.S. citizens wouldn’t be hired for smuggling jobs
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