The Baker-Sudders “Opioid Law” is on the Wrong Side of History

By: Bharani Padmaabhan – Dec. 2018

Federal agencies including SAMHSA and the DEA released data for years documenting that overdose deaths were due to illegally-imported fentanyl and Heroin®. Despite the wide availability of real data, Charlie Baker and Marylou Sudders chose to defame, demonize and destroy patients who suffered chronic pain from various bad medical conditions and received legal pain medicine through their physicians.

Now this is the very same Sudders who has tenaciously blocked any change in laws that would require psychotic killers to be admitted into locked psychiatric units before they go out and murder people.

Under Sudders’ watch we have had at least two horrendous murder events, one in Taunton and one in Winchester, where it was plain to everyone that people were going to be killed. The Taunton man even went to Morton Hospital himself seeking inpatient admission. It was that man’s and our utter misfortune that he carried only Medicaid insurance. Sudders’ people deliberately blocked him from receiving inpatient psychiatric care. He left the hospital and murdered 3 people that same morning. Sudders claimed she still supported the rights of the psychotic to avoid locked wards even if they kill people.

Sudders however was perfectly happy to violate the rights of productive people in pain who took pain medicine, so they could be independent and not a burden on society. Sudders had absolutely no compunction about viciously destroying all those innocent lives. Being law abiding members of society naturally they could not ever purchase illegal Heroin® on the street even though they were in severe pain. They became bedridden and then killed themselves.

In the past two weeks we have had some welcome developments.

Firstly the delegates of the American Medical Association passed a resolution strongly condemning laws such as the Baker-Sudders “Opioid” Law that have directly harmed thousands of genuine patients who had been getting by on pain medicine and now were abandoned by compliant unprofessionals. Thousands of those patients have committed suicide nationwide, including my friend Bo who I wrote about here in 2017. See AMA Resolution 235 (Inappropriate Use of CDC Guidelines) passed 11/13/2018.

This was followed by a strong statement published this week by 160 pain specialists who also condemned the deliberate denial of access to life-supporting pain medicine to thousands of chronic pain patients by laws such as the Baker-Sudders “Opioid” Law and termed it a “large-scale humanitarian issue.”

“We, the undersigned, stand as a unified community of stakeholders and key opinion leaders deeply concerned about forced opioid tapering in patients receiving long-term prescription opioid therapy for chronic pain. This is a large-scale humanitarian issue. New and grave risks now exist because of forced opioid tapering: an alarming increase in reports of patient suffering and suicides within and outside of the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in the United States.”

See HERE

So, 160 pain specialists and the entire AMA have both repudiated the Baker-Sudders destruction of patients with genuine medical illnesses.

The arc of justice bends far away from Baker and Sudders as well as from their no-bid vendor, the Massachusetts Medical Society. Baker and Sudders are also responsible for the massive HIV outbreak in Lawrence that began in 2014 and still rages. Under their watch Lawrence became a manufacturing hub for fentanyl. Baker and Sudders are directly responsible for consciously creating a large-scale humanitarian disaster.

And why did they do it? In order to distract from the very real flood of illegal Heroin® and fentanyl washing through from China, Mexico, and now manufactured locally in Lawrence itself. And perhaps, long term, to set the stage for all pain patients to be shifted from generic oxycodone to expensive brand-name Suboxone® from Indivior. Now that is what I would call a golden retirement package. And knowing both Baker and Sudders, I wouldn’t put it past them. Not for a New York minute.

As expected right here in this VP column, a federal court has ruled that denying methadone to an inmate violates his medical care. Now major sections of the medical profession have condemned the Baker-Sudders approach as a humanitarian disaster. Meaning thousands of pain patients were unlawfully denied legitimate medical care that they had already been receiving by right.

Can’t wait for all the crime against humanity lawsuits against Baker and Sudders to fly.

Bharani Padmanabhan MD PhD is a neurologist who specialized in multiple sclerosis in the Boston area until July 2017 when the medical board stole his license on behalf of competitors. scleroplex@gmail.com