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Pharmacists and Advocacy for Patients in Pain | TWIRx · Pharmacy Podcast Network

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is wait. While I always say that this
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is this is this is this week in Pharmacy, it's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: like two, this is his, this is his, this is Twerk's.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Very special show today with my friend Pharmacy fifty. Most
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: influential for I think it was the Alumni twenty twenty
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: five class, Shane Jerreminsky. How are you?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: What's going on? Todd? How are you nice to see everybody?
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Hey, we have two returning guests to the Pharmacy Podcast
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Network and it wasn't called Twerks back then. I didn't
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: have my own podcast until I had Twerks because the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: network was supposed to be off by itself and I
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: was supposed to have hosts come in and talk about
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: specific things. So I get my own my very first
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: podcast of doing this seventeen years back in twenty twenty three.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And Claudia in BEV you haven't been on Twerks, but
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you were on other shows that we've had, So welcome
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: back to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having us, Claudia Ah, thanks for having us back.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, I want to start with the two
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of you. Bev, you were the first guest that I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: had back you said in twenty twenty, it's making me
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: feel old because of how fast time's going. Yeah, set
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the stage for us, tell us who you are, a
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: little bit about yourself and your relationship and partnership with Claudia.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: So my name is Bev Shackedman. I am the vice
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: president of the Doctor Patient Forum. I first reached out
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: to Claudia in twenty seventeen. We both have chrome disease
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: and she was on a Chrohn's group on Facebook after
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: a horrific hospital stay where I was denied opioids for
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: kidney stones because of a question I answered on the
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Opioid Risk Tool about pre adolescent sexual abuse. They use
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: that to deny me opioids in the hospital for kidney stones.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I reached out to Claudia painally started from that and
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: then where we had rallies in all fifty states, and
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: then the Doctor Patient Forum I think it started twenty
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: nineteen something like that. The nonprofit and I do a
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: lot of the research and the back end stuff, a
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: lot of the putting together the videos, taking clips, listening
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: to all the CMEs, and Claudia does a lot of
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: the front face stuff on social media where she gets
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: to get attacked and I get to sit back and
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: not get attacked.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Listen, Claudia is like a social media slash media and
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: it wasn't even called social media when Claudia first started
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: doing this. You are a powerhouse when it comes to media.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Even if you weren't talking about pain management, if you
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: were out talking about you were one of TMZ's you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: reporters or something like that. You're just a good reporter
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: of what's going on, and you do you do it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: with passion for patients. So give it an introduction of
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: yourself and what you do.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: I think I'm so passionate because I'm a theater kid,
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: and I think theater kids are always going to be
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: a little more passionate than you know, people who I
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: spent a lot of time in the theater and I'm
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: an Italian scorpio, so I am one hundred percent passionate
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: about what we do. You know, there's a growing suicide list.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: I went on social media two thousand gosh, I think
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: it's twenty seventeen, and I announce I would organize a
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: national protest for people who couldn't get their pain treated.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Fast forward to today, we have about I don't know
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: altogether people who follow us on TikTok Facebook, probably seven
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: hundred thousand who follow our efforts. We've got chapters in
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: all fifty states, and I am primarily the spokesperson, so
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: I'm the person that people see on a regular basis.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know why we're all here today
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: is because of a video that I made several weeks ago.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: My job is to make videos get the message out there.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't have an easy job. I have
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: the job of telling people to make OxyContin bread again,
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: which is triggering for a lot of people, but we've
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: got to stop the bleeding. So my videos can be
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: extremely controversial to people, and I understand there's some big
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: feelings with my videos. But I made a video in
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: response to what I'm seeing on social media with a
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: lot of the younger farm d's and it was just
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: very scary to me, a bit appalling, because so many
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: of the younger farm de's were boasting about not dispensing
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: pain medication. And I had texted Bev and I said,
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: there's a theme here they're never talking about withholding abortion
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: medication or seboxa, and it was only it was always
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: confined to this is why I'm not going to fill
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: pain medication. But there was like a sense of arrogance
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: in some of the younger farm de's. But let me
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: say one thing. I have immense respect for the pharmacist
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: role in medicine. You know, I've got a friend whose
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: daughters worked very hard to become pharmacists. So I have
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: a healthy respect for the pharmacists. What I don't like
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: is I don't like to see these arrogant farm ties
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: on social media boasting about not dispensing pain medication and
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: accusing people of being drug seekers. Which is why I
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: made the video and uh the message need you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: I need. I had to make the video. It's my
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: job to raise awareness to every aspect of the pain
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: patient being attacked. Uh, And I think, you know, let's
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: face it, that's why we're here today. Many farm farm
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: ds were outraged by the video sparked a lot of controversy,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: but not one pharmacist was willing to acknowledge that we
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: have a problem. They all, you know, ran, they all
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: stitched the video. I was slaughtered on social media. I'm
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: unfhased by that. That my job is the voice and
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: the face. So but the but then it got then
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: it took a nasty turn, as it so often does
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: on social media. Once again, I'm not phased by that,
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: but I didn't know Shane was the accidental pharmacist. I
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: think I think a pharmacist said that his wife. Somebody
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: was wishing ill will on his wife, And I don't
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: know if that was you, Shane, because I'm really not
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: I'm not tech savvy, which a lot of people find
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: this hard to believe. I'm I'm the spokesperson and basically
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: Bev does all of the heavy lifting. So I'm awful
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: sorry if that is you, Shane. And if somebody was
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: saying ugliness to your wife, I've been on I'm listen,
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: I'm on that. I'm on the same end that your
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: wife is on. So but I'm awful sorry that that happened.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: But we how can we? You know that that's for
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: that's for a different show. But I do want to say,
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: if if anybody was wishing ill on your wife, that
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: shouldn't have happened.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: Well, thank you for saying that. I appreciate that, and
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: it comes with the territory. You're absolutely right. You and
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: I probably agree on a lot more than you would
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: imagine Claudia, I am the same thing. I am in
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: the mouthpiece for a lot of areas in pharmacy, and
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: I say some of the things that need to be
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: said that a lot of other pharmacists won't because they're
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: tied to a corporation that would fire them immediately. So
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: I have become the default face in some situations, and
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: I do. First, First off, let me say I respect
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: the idea of saying those things that need to be said,
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: to creating a space for discussion, bringing to what seemingly
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: opposing groups coming together to have that discussion is important.
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: And what you did, you said You're a theater kid,
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: and I can see it. But what it is is
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: like a little bit of sensationalizing. And sometimes sensationalizing is necessary,
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: but it is a little bit of that.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't feel like we sensationalized. I
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: think that people don't understand that our passion comes from
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: the fact that every day, all day, literally every day
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: all day, our inbox is flooded with messages from people
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: with a gun in their hand, ready to end their lives.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Like we are not being sensationalistic. The fact is it
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: has been left up to pain patients, to fight for
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: patient abandonment or sopioid tapers, harms from the PDMP and
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: and and analytics, and lack of continuity of care. When
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: there's an entire industry fighting for people to have access
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: for medication for opioid use disorder, this has been left
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: up to us. People reach out to us for their
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: last resort. We've had people reach out to us that
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: we knew were going to kill themselves that ended up
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: killing themselves with their wife and a double suicide. So
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: I don't feel like I know that part of the
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Maybe it's a bit of the younger generation of like
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: trying to sensationalize for social media. We actually don't do that.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: That's just not we really don't. These are actual This
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: is real life for us, Like for us, it's not
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying it's a game for you, but for us,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: it's not about making memes. It's not about creating waves.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: It's not about you know, having a meme with a cigarette.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: Like.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: This is real life for us, and we're the only
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: ones fighting for this, and we have no voice other
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: than us.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: The real story, the real story, there's real stories behind
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: all of this. But when you say something like make
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: oxy content grade again. That is triggering and it's also
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: sensationalizing in my opinion, because to to to go online
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: and say the answer to people with guns in their
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: heads is to make oxy cotton greade again does not
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: sit well with the healthcare community. Uh, you know, the
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: oxy cotton has a very good place in that.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I'll let talk bring this in because I know you're
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: getting off.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Let me let me do something. Because both of you,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Bev and Claudia, I want to thank you. You set
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the stage for what I'm what I'm trying to pan
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: out for both sides so that there's there's audiences that
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Bev and Claudia are bringing to us that we don't
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: normally get. And I just want to say thank you both.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And I also want to shout out to those people listening,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: those pain patients. This is ultimately about bringing relief to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you and management of your pain and being empathetic to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: what your pain is. Remember, guys, I've said this to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Claudia and Bev before. I'm the patient on this show,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just like you are. I mean, I'm I'm not a pharmist,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not a you know, I'm I'm I'm a technologist
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and marketer and somebody that's been in pharmacy for a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: really long time and sees what pharmacists are actually doing.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: But before we get into the into the I wanted
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: this to turn out to be a movable debate. I
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: want to just set some some basics, and that is,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the two of you are exposed to people that are,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, they're they're they're bleeding inside,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: they're they're in literal pain. They don't know what to do,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and you experience this on a on a constant basis
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: boom boom, boom boom, and and it's very intense. And
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: by the way, dentists are are known to want to
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: leave the profession because when they inflict pain on there's
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: a whole psychological write up on this. When they inflict
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: pain on their their patients and they could see grim,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: grimpsing of the face. It literally took an effect on
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: these people because I think it's like a human thing
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you can't help, but you see somebody in pain and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you're less like fuck, like, let's get them some help. Look,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: they're in pain. So we know that you both are
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: sincere in that and people can look you up on
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: social media and see that passion. Now I want you
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: to turn off your pain advocacy hat for a second.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I want you to come to pharmacy Land. So there
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: are listeners that are raised in different generations. I'm closer
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: to your generation, like I said, gen xers, and we
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: just think a little differently than what I see millennials
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and definitely gen Z thinking about. But there is a
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: pharmacist out there. It's a story that she watched her
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: dad as a pharmacist and she wanted to be nothing
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: more than be a pharmacist. And she watched her dad
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: bring in people with problems they had, you know elements
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: they leukemia, and like compounding medications and specializing, and she
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: grows up seeing that the impact that he has on
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: people's lives. He knows them by name, he knows their
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: family history, he knows if little Jimmy's lying. Like the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: whole thing. So the whole fundamental of starting this all
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: off is pharmacists and what their purposes, what their goals
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: are as healthcare professionals, because they've dreamt about becoming pharmacists
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: since they were like little kids or you know, something
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that they're working on and in that batch of people
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: out of the three hundred and thirty million Americans that
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: they're taking care of, at least in the United States,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: obviously much more worldwide. Their whole existence, in their nerdiness
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of doing it. They want to take care of seniors.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: They're the pediatric specialists, they're the you know, the community
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: pharmacists that's doing more of like the whole tackle box
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: of stuff. There's the researchers and the medical science liaisons.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: What they have in common is that pharmacological study of
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: how medications literally work on the DNA of individuals in
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: transition and titration and compounding, and your enzymes and your
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: pharmacogenomics and how your genes respond to opioids, and oh
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: my goodness, we could this this is like, this could
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: become a podcast, a new podcast show for the four
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of us of how long it would take to get
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: all of this out.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: That's what they do.
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: You're you're right, there's there's a huge there's a lot
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: to this argument. But I think the one thing that's misunderstood,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: and this is where I'd like to start with this.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: What's misunderstood about opioid therapy is we've.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Turned it into a binary argument.
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: We've turned it into either opioids are dangerous drugs that
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: should be avoided at all costs, or opiates are essential
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: medications that should be dispensed without question by pharmacists in
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: every situation.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Who is saying that, Shane, Who is saying that that's
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: what we've been You've attributed that to us, You've made
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: memes about it, saying we want everyone to who has
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: ever said that because we.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: Well, you guys keep you guys keep put pushing up
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: that that uh report from the American Medical Association, which
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: essentially with YAMA is advocate the article talking about how
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: the AMA thinks that pharmacists are withholding drugs and using
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: their clinical judgment to supersede anything that comes out there.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: And they're using an example of an ophthalmologist or an
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: optometrist who wrote, um, sorry optalmologists who wrote for a
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: cream for roseata and the pharmacists denied the prescription. But
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: then they go on to like trying to put their
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: trying to change the law to say that pharmacists can
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: be held legally responsible if they don't dispense the medication.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Well, the thing, so let me just let me clear
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: this up now, because it's probably better at the beginning.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: We have never advocated for opioids to be first line,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: second line, third line, or on their own. Not one
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: time have we ever said that we have a very
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: healthy respect for the possible harms and benefits of opioids.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Can I just say one thing right there?
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: Someone who has a healthy respect for opioids wouldn't have
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: a mantra like make OxyContin great again.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: It's not true because here's the thing, Shane, there's two
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: separate issues here. Okay, when you have an opioid naive person,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: there's a different set of rules as far as someone
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: who has been what they call a legacy patient who
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: has been on opioids. Seventeen seventeen studies show, regardless of dose,
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: duration or combination of medication, it is always more harmful
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: to cut a patient off of opioids that has been
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: on them than to let them remain on them. The
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: patient population we are fighting for, for the most part
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: is that population where maybe they should never have been
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: put on opioids to begin with, but that's actually moot
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: point at this It is actually a moot point because
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: they have been on them and they're becoming abandoned they're
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: on higher doses that maybe they should have never been
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: put on, but the fact is they have been. And
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: so for pharmacists to joke and make fun on social
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: media saying, oh, my patient on this amount of medication,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to give it to them, like it's
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: a joke. When these people are going home and we
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: have so much evidence behind, do not force taper these patients.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: And that's the difference. Like yet, make oxy content great again,
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: because right now everything has been about vilifying the pholagonist everything,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: and you know we've said that pharmacists, We've gotten from
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: you guys like, oh, well, don't fight the DEA. It's
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: not our fault. But when it comes to sebox zone
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: that the NABP and the NCPA their mud guidelines, they
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: know how to fight for sebox zone. They know how
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: to fight against the DEA. The pharmacists know how to
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: fight against the red flags for cash only pay and
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: distance from patient to provider, what it has to do
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: with a certain population of people, and when it has
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to do with pain patients, all of a sudden, the
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: suspicious order reporting, the narcs care, the PDMP analytics, the
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: cash pay, the red flags, the DA all of a
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: sudden that becomes our job to fight. How come you, guys,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: pharmacies in general, pharmacists in general will fight for one
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: group of patients who have a voice. These people have
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: key opinion leaders, then money and a platform, and will.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: Not You really are seeing the rid of the problem,
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: and I am. I think this is one place we
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: are both in absolute agreement that we pharmacists are trapped
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: inside a system that's that.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Is is making it easier for us.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: To dispense a drug like suboxone than it is for
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: us to dispense a full agonist opioid. And the reason
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: why you were not you're not saying individual pharmacists, but
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: you were talking about organizations that are advocating for this.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: And the reason why those organizations are advocating for this
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: is because the money they're taking from companies like CBS
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: and Walgreens. There's liability that exists with full agonist opioids
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: that don't necessarily.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Exist the same way with things like suboxone.
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: So I am in agreement that that you you follow
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: the money, you will find out the reason why it
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: looks like this. And what you did say that I
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: can disagree with is that pharmacists are going online and
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: laughing or making light of withholding medication. And I'm I'm
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: advocating for those patients. You say, what you call legacy
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: patients or you know, non opiate and patients that have
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: been on opiates for a long time, that the risk
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: of of papering, the risk.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Of cutting them off is terrible.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: But we're in a situation here where it's easier for
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: us to pass the buck whe where it's saying we
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: don't have it in stock, and a lot of times
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: we don't thanks to the DIA cutting supply of that.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: Now that the wholesalers have been find yeah, the wholesalers
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: will cut you off.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Do you know that you own a if you own
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: a private pharmacy Claudia's Pharmacy, right, And all of a
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: sudden you get an email out of the blue yea
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: where they're like, oh yeah, no more, oh.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we hear listen, yes we know that.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: And we hear from independent pharmacy on a reg and
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: we did meet with Senator Sheldon white House two weeks
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: ago to discuss this this problem.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I get it, but but but the organ
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: is pharmacy organizations will fight against the handcuffs for the
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: box zone and not against opio that's my point.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: You're right, and that's a that's a great point taken.
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: I work for independent pharmacies, and the one that I
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: work at primarily is UH. We serve as hospice patients,
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: so we have end of life care, really high dose medications,
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: and every single month we're fighting with McKesson because we're
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: reaching our limit for the liquid morphine, we're riching, reaching
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: our limit for benzodiazepines.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And I've had to.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: Justify our ordering to a non pharmacist that works there,
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: just in regulatory compliance, and they're saying, well, why are
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: you dispensing this much? I wanted to say, it's because
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: we have fucking contracts all over the desert for for
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: patients that are a palliative end of life care. Why
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: do why else do you think that we're doing this?
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: So we are, we have multiple masters that we're reporting to,
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: and look, you know, pharmacists have so many things that
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: they're fighting for, and I don't want them to think
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: that pain patients aren't the important to us. I just
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: want you to understand that we have so many different
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: things that are going on. My realm I've been drawn
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: into this argument because of my platform on social media,
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: but I would never call my I'd never called myself
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: a pain advocate. I called myself a workforce reform advocate
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: because I was trying to advocate for giving the pharmacists
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: and the people behind the counter enough space to do
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: their job appropriately, if we weren't so overwhelmed, if we
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: were better staffed, if we had the resources to take
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: time with every single one of those patients that are
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: legacy opioid patients to make them become instead of customers
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: patients you understand, we understand patients when they're just a customer,
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: like the way it is in a CBS model where
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: every time you go in you see a different pharmacist.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: Every time you go in, you feel like a cattle
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: being that they know nothing about you. Then you're a customer,
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: you're not a patient. But when you're a patient, you're
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: never going to be denied because we're going to do
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: the extra work to make sure we understand why you're
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: on what you're on, make the annotations, put in the notes,
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: call the doctor's office, make sure that even when they're
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: not there, the primary pharmacist isn't there you can look
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: at that patient's profile and understand why the drugs are
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: written the way that they.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Are, and think of the attitudes like the clottie you
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: brought up, kind of the snottiness and the disheveled looking
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: you know, pharmacists. And once again I kind of started
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: this out, let's pull this whole conversation on out on
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: its head. From a generational perspective, I think differently than
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: other generations do. So if they're being smart asses or
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: they're kind of being you know, pushy about saying about
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: cutting something off even if they said that, which I
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: would shame them if that were the case, it's it's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: like it could be it could be like one or
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: two jerkohs that you know, maybe have an attitude about
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: something there don't understand pain management because they never really
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: experienced themselves. So when you take an entire industry instead
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of those individuals, and you know, you promote to your
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the power that you have, as we were saying in
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: media and now we know you were in theater. My
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: daughter's in theater and I was in theater, So yeah,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I get that. When you're pulling all of that attention
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and you start labeling them pharmacists, and then of course
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: they have to experience and try to start putting the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: jigsaw puzzle pieces together. But they only have ten percent
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: of the information, which is the most important part because
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: it's their pain. But they have no idea that the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: other ninety percent of the whole system to get them
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: their prescription, their opioid prescription is under attack of like
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: twenty two systems that all come back to the freaking
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: pharmacist and that kind of pressure on top of the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And this is a call out to independent pharmacies, by
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the way, because if you want really good pain management,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: go to an independent community pharmacies and sit down with
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: them and slow down the process and stop fast fooding medicine.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is freaking pain. Let us dial into it,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: maybe add stuff to it, or subtract stuff from it
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. But personalizing it. That isn't a harmcist.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: That is a pharmacist.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Who said pharmacists were all todd like her video literally
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: said the part that was stitched is the problem. Because
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: what her video said is I'm seeing a number of
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: younger pharmacists who I'm going to call harmacists making fun
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: of patients. That's what her video said, but the stitching part,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: it's like to sensationalize. They wanted to make it look
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: like she said an entire industry. Look, we've had pharmacists
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: on our podcast. We fight for pharmacists all the time.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: We never said an entire industry. Well, what she said
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: and what we've said is some I am seeing a
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: number of who are doing this. And it's not just pharmacists.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: It's nurses in the emergency room, it's doctors, it's nurse practitioners.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: They make fun of pain patients, they make fun of
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: denying them opioids in the emergency room, they make fun
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: of denying them in the pharmacy, they make fun of
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: cutting them off. They just they mock them for fun
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: because it's sensationalistic. But we never ever once said an
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: entire industry. That's what was portrayed by those who wanted
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: clicks and likes by stitching a portion of her podcat
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: of her video.
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: I think that they I think that they latched onto
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: it because there was a little bit, there was a touch.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Of irony to it that you know, she was saying.
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: She ultimately said harmcists, and she talked about younger pharmacists
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: looking like unmade beds and unkempt, and they're passing judgment
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: by their outward appearance. And I think that you would,
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: in the same breath say, so many pharmacists out there
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: are passing judgment by the outward appearance of a pain
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: patient if they don't look like a classic pain patient,
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: if it's pain that you can't see, if it's invisible,
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: and then they come in and they have this high
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: dose drug, you're going to start.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Out asking questions.
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: And the thing is is I think that asking questions
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: is not evidence of arrogance or cruelty.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: That's something that's really important.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: Let me say one more time, asking questions a pharmacist
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: asking questions is not evidence of arrogance or cruelty.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: It's part of our job.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: We never said it was, Shane. And this is why
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: when you made the meme or whatever saying Claudia wants
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: us to just feel every whatever that was roll up
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: in the car or whatever one of the memes you
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: made that we just want unending doses. That's really not
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: fair and it's actually very harmful to us because we
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: have never, ever, ever, one time advocated for anything like that,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: nor would we because it can harm patience. And so
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: the fact that you say there's like it's bin it,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: it's not binary. I'm not seeing I actually haven't seen
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: any patient advocates or doctors advocating for paying patients say
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: on ending doses all the time, no matter what the dose,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: to everyone or none. Like, I've really don't see that
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: very much. I haven't come across it in our advocacy.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: We certainly have never advocated for that, but it's being
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: portrayed as though we do to kind of almost as
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: a straw man to attack us, as though we want
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: everyone to get opioids all the time for everything, and
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: that's just not the case.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: Well, when you're saying that in one thing, you're saying
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: that you don't want just patience to get opiates for everything.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: You're vilifying all these other drugs.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: You're saying that Gavin Penton has a holeless side effect.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: You're saying, but I'm sorry, it's Shane.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Right, shamee. Yeah, I get shot.
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: I get Sean all the time and Jane on the phone,
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: so don't worry I respond to any one of them.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: So I have a twenty five year old daughter and
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: a twenty one year old daughter and when my twenty
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: five year old daughter walks out of the house, it
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: looks a certain way. I say, you're not leaving like that,
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: are you? Are you angry at yourself? Get back in,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: fix yourself up. So I'm showing my age. I'm you know,
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: I'm fifty eight years old, so I probably think a
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: little bit differently than you do. Maybe a little bit
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: differently than BEV does it. You know, I'm ten years older.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: So with each generation, I think we learn a little
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: bit more. I think what was sensational was hundreds of
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: pharmacists stitching my video accusing me of being funded by
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: Purdue Pharmaceuticals. Let's be honest here, if we could just
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: be honest for a minute, how dear pain patients have
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: a voice? And when we do have a voice, the
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: default is always to say that we are funded by Perdue.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've got a doctor who made an account
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: on X calling me Karen Sackler, So I think it's
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: just so easy to assume we're funded by pharma because
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: of our advocacy. What wasn't funny is when I was
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: accused of drug seeking and because of that interaction, I
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: left the hospital with a colostomy bag. And I think
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: if the pharm dees who have stitched my video and
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: mocked me, I think if you folks walked a day
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: in my shoes or bed shoes, you'd probably look at
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: it a little bit differently. I think so many of
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: the younger farm D's are viewing pain through the lens
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: of addiction. And I'm confident that your education has a
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: lot to do with this. We know what's going on,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm in Rhode Island, University of Rhode Island.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: I've met I've met with farm with these uh with
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: these students, and they're telling me what they are being taught.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: You know, we've skewed if somebody needs paying medication, we're
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: always going to the place of these are drug addicts,
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: because so many people are getting their science from that
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: fictional series Dope Sick. My my ninety second, my, I mean,
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: I think my video is ninety seconds. Because I'm the
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: most visible, I'm always going to be the person that
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: gets attacked the most, which is fine, But I think
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: farm D's also, you know, put their touch on my words.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: My words are always being WEAPONI but we have a
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: very serious crisis on our hands and many, many independent
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: pharmacies have reached out to us over the years. There
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: are pharmacists incarcerated with some of our doctors, so we
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: understand every aspect of what the pharmacist is going through,
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: which is why we retunely why we re TOOO routinely
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: meet with senators who conduct oversight of the DOJ because
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: that's what we need. We need a dea oversight hearing.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: And those are the people in the United States who
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: have the power to make this happen. And so many
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: pharma deees, well, why don't you do.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: What are you doing?
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Why don't you challenge the policies. We do challenge the policies.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: I got a law passed, so forty nine states would
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: take a version of my bill and you know, tailor
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: it to their state. We're only two people. I can't
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: be in all fifty states. I can't be the voice
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: for pharmacists. But we are making headway, which is why
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: we're meeting with these senators. If you're a farm dee
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: who's listening to this, please support our efforts because I
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: would like nothing better than to have fifty Claudius, fifty
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: BIPs and all fifty states where they can meet with
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: their senator. I think we've got twenty something senators who
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: conduct oversight of the DOJ. That's what we should all
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: be working towards is removing these red flags. The red
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: flags have caused red flags. Suboxon has become the savior,
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: OxyContin has become the devil, and we need to get
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: back to a place of normalcy. We certainly don't advocate
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: for unfettered access to opioids. But because we advocate for opioids,
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: and because people are getting their science from the fictional
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: series Dopesic, that's how this comes off to people like,
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: how dare you advocate for pain medication? How dare you
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: want to you know not? How dare you mentioned Gabba
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: Penton's linked to dem oh dear you mentioned Seboxon's link
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: to catastrophic dental decay. I don't get money to promote
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: any of those lawsuits, but once again, I have a
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: job to do. My job was to let our followers
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: know sixty five million scripts I believe were written for
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: Gaba Pentin. You know, people have a right to know.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: If you're experiencing cognitive decline and you're on Gabba, it's
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: something to you know, to look into and.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: That's to address yes, and to address what you said, Shane.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: The reason we so called villify those things is because
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: an entire industry that we call opioid elimination has been
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: made out of eliminating opioids.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: And I think when anyone is getting any medication, whether
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: that is remiicaid or methotrexy like idad or simsia, or
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: opioids or sabox owner gaba, pentin or even a medical device,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: everyone should be should have informed consent. They should be
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: told possible harms and possible benefits period. That includes addiction risk,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: but the accurate addiction risk, not upstated or overstated. That
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: includes dementia risk, that includes all of it. And what's
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: happening that I don't think, maybe you don't know, maybe
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: you do know, but maybe you don't know, is that
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: patients are being extorted. So what happens is pain patients
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: are being told at these interventional pain clinics, they'll be told, listen,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: you can get your fifteen vikan in a month, but
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: you must get these procedures abdural sarah injection. This, you
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: must take gabapentin, you must take symbalta, you must see
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: a therapist, you must, must, must, and they tell them
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: nothing about possible harms of any of those things. And
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: that's the problem we have. The reason we're talking about
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: harms from those things is because they're not being told
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: to the patient. We don't have to talk about the
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: harms of opioids because it's everywhere, literally every day, everyone's
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: talking about produced.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: Still, those things should be explained to the patient. And
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: if armists are doing their jobs, if doctors are doing
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: their jobs and working together, those those risks.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Are explained for everything. And I would let me start.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: There's a lot.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: There's a lot to unpack in those two things you said.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: First of all, pharmacists are not getting their science from
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: stories like dope you know.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: I wasn't, no, no, you know.
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: I understand people the general public might see might see
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: something like dope sick and say, oh, everyone who's on
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: opiates is drug seeking.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: But it does, it does show the risks of.
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: What can happen for the wrong patient starting on that
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: or staying on it for more than for an extended
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: period of time.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: A shot.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: But why aren't we talking about the risks of somebody
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: being on seboxa.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: And for a long should be, we should be, we
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: should be To ask you, what do you think that
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: what I what were you taught is the addiction risk
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: of a patient on long term opioids? What would you
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: say in the most recent studies is the risk of addiction?
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: What would I say the most recent movie.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: In the in the most recent studies, like the most
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: recent statistics out there? What do you consider a percentage
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: of risk of addiction for a patient on long term
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: opioids chronic opiotev or what you want to say it
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: for pain? What? What? What do you think the risk
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: of addiction is?
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: How many people?
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: I mean, I don't want to throw throw one out
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: there because I'm sure it's you know, I think that
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: let's go back to where you were talking about how
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: in our you said at University of Rhode Island that uh,
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: these students are being taught to vilify oxycon and since
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: really pushed buper and orphan. I think that it's not
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: just that. I think that what what students are being
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: taught in school is that their license is at risk
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: for making a mistake their life there that there that
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: there is a lot of liability that ultimately ends with them,
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: even though there are so many people in this food
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: chain of getting getting the medication to a patient. Ultimately
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: it's on. And I know this because I have been
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: in situations. My wife has been deposed because of suare
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: patients getting things and then families claiming that this is
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: this was something that should have been stopped and so
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: so and and a. At a place like the University
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: of Royal And where CBS's headquarters is, will woe socket.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: I'm sure they fund that university a lot, so CVS
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: probably has a lot to say about what the education
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: should look like there.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: A lot of the pain education is coming from asam though,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: from addiction medicine. But the reason I asked you the person.
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: Something that you don't think a company like CBS though,
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: has a lot of Oh.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm not contradicting you, I'm saying in
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: addition to a lot of that, absolutely oh absolutely no.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: There was a lawsuit filed against CBS versus CVS and
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: Walgreens for the pharmacist uh not dispensing the medication. They
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: had a website Justice for Chronic Pain Patients. Uh. An
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: attorney I used to work for, he's now the judge
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: or the judge that was overseeing that case. So we
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: know this is happening.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course we know.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: We know it's a problem.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well CBS is also I mean the CVS and
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: Walgreens and all them have also been sued significantly more
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: for for dispensive medican.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: And ye're absolutely and those lawsuits are a big part
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: of the problem. Like a lot of the issue is
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: because of those lawsuits, these suspicious order reporting and the
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: thresholds from the distributor agreement. That's a huge as you know,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: like a huge part of the problem a pharmacies. We
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: totally understand. You don't get notified that you're at your
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: limit until you're at your limit.
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: And every every area has been overcorrected. And the only
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: people that are really suffering here is chronic pain patients
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: and the pharmacists who have to do all of these
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: extra things and really end up citing. You know, it's
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: defensive pharmacy practice. It comes down, I get it.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: That's why, that's why the time has come for us
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: to come together. I don't know if that's going to happen,
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: but my work will continue. BET's work will continue. We
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: have to apply pressure to the DEA. That's the only
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: way around this and I thought, I have stayed awake
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: at night. Okay, we tried this, we tried this, we
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: tried what do we There's only one solution. And Ev
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: and I did meet with the DEA a few weeks
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: ago and we had this conversation. But here's we don't
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: have an association behind us. It's just us. It's not
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: only chronic pain patients, it's you. We've collected thousands of
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: stories over the years from acute patients went to the
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: pharmacy pharmacists, Uh said, nope, I don't feel I'm not
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: going to fill it. You're better off just taking tylnal
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: and I've yourprofen or Uh, nope, I can't fill this
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: for you unless you also get this filled.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: I don't need that. It doesn't matter you need to
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: get that.
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the insurance company is the one that's doing that.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: You were saying, how you know, sometimes you went to
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: these these paint clinics or whatever, and they're saying, you
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: have to have this injection, you have to be on gabapentin,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: you have to be on these other medications. A lot
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: of times if you're if you're trying to get certain drugs,
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: certain opiates, there might be a prior authorization for it,
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: there might be all step therapy and certain things.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: So that's the reason why I don't understand that.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: But the reason I made the video to begin with
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: is this. Really, you see this right here. This has
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: robbed the younger generation of really connecting with people and
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: the doctors. I've been saying this for years. You know,
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: I have some friends there, you know, in their seventies
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: who are doctors, and they are just they shake their head.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: You know, a lot of uh older doctors contact me.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: I was just at a television station recording a segment
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: and a doctor recognized me. He's like, oh my god, please,
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: I got to tell you what's happening to my wife.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: They're not willing to give her her pain medication, just
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: subox o. My wife isn't an addict, So you know,
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: everybody is going to be affected. It may not be
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: pain medication. It may be your kid's ADHD medication, it
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: may be my muscular dystrophy. Can't patience, They can't get
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: their clients. I should say, they can't get their benzodiazepines.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: I advocated for a judge whose kid help kid had als.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: He's deceased now had to choose between the benzo and
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: or their pain medication. It all goes back to one problem,
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: two problems. Lawyers and the DEA and at the Doctor
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: Patient Forum, we remain committed to raising awareness. We lobby
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: for change on both a state and federal level. And
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: if you're a pharm d listening to this, I'm awful
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: sorry if you interpreted my video as something other than
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: it was. But I got to tell you, every day
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: I was seeing those horrible videos of these younger I
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: would text them. I was like, look at this video.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: Another one.
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: I would like you, you guys, to show me one of
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: them that really upset you so I can see as
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: an ext we would love to definitely definitely send that
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: to me. And you know what, I agree with the
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: two people that you called out there, but I would
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: also say looking at these corporations, and corporations have gone
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: above to protect themselves. They've given arbitrary MME required limits
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: on that Walmart. You know, there are certain drugs that
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: Walmart wallfill legitimate pain medications for established patients, and they've said,
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: you know what, we don't need that business. So we're
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: going to channel that to CBS and Walgreens and independent
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: pharmacies and and and those things are really so we
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: have not just the DA, not just state boards of
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: pharmacy coming after us. They you have the corporations trying
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: to protect themselves.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: But that's in response to the DEA and the lawyers,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: though it is it is.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: But also I think even even even then they they
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: like the idea of not having limiting risk. Is the
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: larger the corporation, the less they want to limit that risk.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: And if they could say these prescriptions they're not really that,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: they're not. They're not a medication that's going to increase
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: our margins enough for us to incur that risk. So
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: let's push that off to someone else. And I think
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: the same thing happens with young pharmacists. They're they're assessing
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: their own personal risk. And when you're staring down six
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: figures of student debt and you're given a situation where
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: it's on the fence, maybe one red flag, red flag
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: doesn't mean that the prescription is invalid and it shouldn't
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: be filled.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: But in a young pharmacists head, they haven't seen enough
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: of these things.
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: They haven't they realize Okay, wait, I'm a hundred prescriptions behind.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: I have this red flag. I'm trying to call the
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: doctor's office. I can't get through this. They might need
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: to diagnose this code. I don't have a lot of
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: history on this patient. Because they're filling here because they're
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: out of town or whatever. They're airing on the side
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: of caution, and they're they're doing the wrong thing for
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: that patient. And they've they because they realize, Okay, I'm
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: protecting myself. They don't realize they're going to send this
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: patient away for a weekend of agony because they can't
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: fill it anywhere else. And I I always try to
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: side with the patients when I can. I've been a
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: pharmacists for almost twenty years now. I've seen I've seen suffering.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: I've seen real suffering every day, and I feel it.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: I'm not the smartest pharmacist to ever be behind the bench,
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: but I feel like I am one of the most empathetic,
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: and when I see someone suffering, I try to do
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: everything I can within in the confines of the law
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: to help those people.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Pharmacists shouldn't have to work under this pressure, and doctors
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: shouldn't have to work under this pressure. You know, one
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: of the people from the DEA we met with, they
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: just that's their job just to go into the pharmacies
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: and start counting, you know, do an audit. So I know,
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: and you know, if I had a child that was
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: a pharmacist or a doctor, I would probably you know,
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: be sick, you know, because I would be sick to
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: my stomach, warrying, Oh my god, my kid could go
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: to prison. But I also but I got to go
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: back to because I got to stay true to who
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: I am. Like this this has been the demise. This
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: is the demise of the world the device. And you know,
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: all we ask is if you're a young nurse, if
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: you're a young farm d if you're a young you know,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: emergency room doctor, like leave your bias behind before you
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: go on social media and make a hateful video, because
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: you are you are stigmatizing. When you stigmatize OxyContin, you
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: are stigmatizing the user. And I always think back to
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: that gentleman with als, who I mean, he had to
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: choose between his liquid benzo for spasms or his pain medication.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: And you know, we just have to continue to be
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: you know, we remain steadfast in our advocacy. We have
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: to take this to the DEA. We had. The next
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: step is to get on Capitol Hill with pharmacists by
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: our side, with physicians by our side. You know, I'm
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: not the person that does what I'm told to do.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: I'm doing something because i know it's right. Yeah, and
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: that's what I just wish more providers were on our team.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: So we we got to get those people out of prison.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: We've got doctors, they're in their eighties. They are behind bars.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Did they use a lot of discernment? Probably not. Were
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: they good business men or women? No, they were far
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: too trusting. But they don't deserve to die behind bars.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: Neither do those pharmacists.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: So you know, you, guys, I'm sure there are people.
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: I'm sure there are people that are in situations, pharmacists
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: and doctors alike, that are behind bars because they dispensed medications.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: But there's a lot of people there. The system does work.
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: There are pill mills that have existed, there are places
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: where they've dispensed ridiculous amounts, they've taken cash prescriptions hand
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: over fist. There there are people those days.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Are long gone, Like those days are so long gone
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: where there's so many pill mills everywhere.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that those so long gone.
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: I will send you what just happened in Inland Empire,
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: how a whole clinic was just shut down down here
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: that you know that they're all all of that's just
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: happened recently. We can talk about it being like a
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: time passed. Maybe it was more proliferative back during the
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: height of the opioid epidemic, but it still exists, and
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: we do have to have some regulation in place.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I'm not.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: We have a lot of regulation in place, though, And
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: and what you were explaining about being empathetic, I want
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: to thank you for that, because I can see in
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: your face that you mean it, that you want to
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: be there for the patient and that you want to
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: help the patient, and that just sometimes the system stops
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: you from being able to do that. And I respect that.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: I absolutely. I don't know if I can explain this properly,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: but there's a difference between what you just said, Shane,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: and the pharmacists, both on social media and in real
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: life who just make fun of the patient and say
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: you think I'm gonna fill this get out here. There's
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: a difference. There's a difference.
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: Because I'm not on TikTok as much. I don't see
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: such too, but we have.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: People record their their interactions with their pharmacies where the
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: pharmacist is literally making fun of them to their face,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: calling their name out in front of everyone, saying, you
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: think I'm gonna fill your your roxy content. That's not happening,
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: and it's just not it's not okay.
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: And I'd like to see those two because we you know,
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: we put up, we put up everything, the good.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: And the bad. We call out pharmacists that are doing
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: the wrong things.
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: Any pharmacists that's ever in a situation where they're in
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: front of a patient and they're they're doing that, I
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: the whole pharmacist community, the whole health care community should
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: reject it. I've seen where healthcare communities where the healthcare
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: community has rallied behind patients when something happened. I don't
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: remember what state it was in, but that whole clinic
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: where they were taking pictures, this happened on TikTok, where
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: they were taking pictures of the fluid, the remaining on that.
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: So anything that's egregious like that gets called out. The
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: farm the medical student that was making fun of women's
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: health issues, right, because they.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Were acceptable to call out those, Shane, The vast majority
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: on social media, or at least those who are willing
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: to speak, are not going to speak up for somebody
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: on a pholagonist opioid who's treated poorly. It's actually applauded
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: at least where we are on social media what we see.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: But unless unless they're affected or their love.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've never seen.
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: Well, you advocate harder when you add, advocate harder when
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: it's your own loved one.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: And we've never seen anyone though, Shane, We've never seen
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: This is the point. We haven't seen healthcare professionals rally
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: behind pain patients or anyone who needs acute opioids for
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: a cute pain, chronic pain, end of life cancer, whatever.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: We've not seen that happen. We're the ones having to rally.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: We see them make fun of us, but we haven't
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: seen the rally. And I guess that's where my anger
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: comes from and resentment towards healthcare professionals on social media
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: because they're so willing to rally for issues that are acceptable,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: like you said, like reproductive rights or or even opioid
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: use disorder, but when it comes to someone in physical pain.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: It's just not socially acceptable to rally.
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: Also, let me out for my platform and every platform
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: that I touch. From that I would I would point
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: you to places like I know you had your issues
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: with doctor Katie Forbes, who made a crazy statement and
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: said that you I think it was in a joking way.
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: But she also did some of the same things she got.
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: She got, she got everybody talking. She she had made
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: in passing oh was she being funded by Purdue Pharma.
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: But she also brought two communities together that sometimes are
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: at odds and are getting people to talk to each other.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: I would point you to Pizzas.
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: Not working in Doctor bled Tanaway, I point you to
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: RX Comedy. All of these, all these platforms we can
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: advocate for patients. And you're right, the only way we
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: can affect change is to have both of these communities
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: come together and rally against the forces that are holding exact.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Even Buddy Carter when he came to our event, he
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: listened to her whole presentation. He spoke and literally he
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: said basically was you have to understand you have to
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: be careful. And Claudia said, because it's career suicide, and
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: he was like, yeah, So that's the issue. Like for politicians,
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: for doctors, for healthcare professionals, even those who stand up
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: for us, they have to toe that line because if
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: you are seen as someone advocating for a full agonis
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: opioid access to it could kill your career. It really can.
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: It's changing, but it's changing now because too many, too many,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: there's too many suicides, Like too many people have died
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: for this to go unnoticed. And just that last meeting
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: with the Senator's office, big big change in the conversation
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: than nine years ago when I first met. Because now
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: people are applying pressure, people are canceling surgeries, people are
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: saying no to those pain clinics. People are saying, you're
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: not going to abuse me anymore. That's it. I'm done
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: being abused. So that's that's the good part.
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: Of social media things that I think that pharmacists are
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: finding their voice as well, and the pharmacis community is
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: and sometimes they do it the wrong way and sometimes
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: they say some of those things, and you're and.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: You're seeing the worst of it.
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: I think you see the best and worst of humanity
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: online and through social media, and I say, I.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: Have the most amazing I'm still friends with two pharmacists
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: who retired many years ago. My pharmacists have they've always
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: been they're like, they're like friends. I'm in a state
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: that's teeny teeny tiny, so you know, and people ask me, well,
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: you know, as this happened to you, I was like, no,
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: I've never had a problem. I've you know, the only
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: problem I ever had was being accused of being a
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: drug seeker, which left me with a colossomy bag. But
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: other than that, it's been, you know, smooth sailing, thank god.
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: But you know, I think the time has come now
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: for the communities to come together and to take this
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: off social media and take it to Capitol Hill. And
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: I think the pharmacists probably have a little bit more
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: power than we do as patients.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: You know, we have no funding, Like I know, I
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: think you made a grifter saying something about was that
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: you were a different pharmacist, Say Claudia was a grifter.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: We just so you know, so everyone and knows who
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: is listening. We have no grants, no funding. Our only
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: source of income is through donations and through Patreon. Claudia
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: and I make about one thousand dollars a month doing
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: what we do, so there is no grifting happening, and that's.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: The only reason for the first eight years, and I
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: you know, just you know, we people left, But I say,
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: we dedicated our life to serving others and we're going
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: to continue to do that because most of our constituents
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: are bedbound, they're too sick.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would, but I would love what you said, Claudia, like,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: if we could somehow, Shane speak off of social media
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: at my dog's gonna bark, I'm sorry, if we could
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: speak off of social media and figure out a way
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: to try to affect change together.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, you're welcome to join us on calls when
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: we meet with senators. We'd love to have the pharmacist
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: voice because that's what we need.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I am all for this.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: I have.
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: Like I said, my my focus has always been trying
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: to help with workplace reform because a lot if I
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: don't know if you use CBS or you use Walgreens,
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: I do any places, and some of them are really
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: the pharmacist is in a situation there sometimes where they're
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: just overworked and they're understaffed and there's constant turnover because
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: technicians are not paid appropriately for.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: The amount of work that they need to do.
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: It's awful and suffer because of it. There's medication errors
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: that occur constantly because of this situation. So what we're
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: advocating for is for technicians to be paid better so
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: well trained staff stay enroll and they understand all the
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: little intricacies so they can get as many medications out
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: to the patients as necessary. And you talked about all
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: those patients out there that you've dealt with that you've
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: heard of suicides and patients that have ended their life
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: because they couldn't deal with it anymore. I can't tell
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: you how many pharmacists stories that have happened over the
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: last few years, and they're increasing.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Do you havestics on that. That's something I'd actually like
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: to post and speak about if you have any information.
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: The most recent, the most recent statistic is that the
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: pharmacists have an increased risk over the general population for suicide.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: If you can send me, I would. I'd be happy
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: to speak about that, because we hear about that with physicians,
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: but I have not heard about that specifically from pharmacy.
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: One of our one of our own that was advocating
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: online for a long time. Todd and I both know
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: him doctor Eric gier He ran of the Political Pharmacist page.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Amazing, Yeah, was an amazing guy.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: All about the patient, all about advocacy helps helped to
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: start pieces not working, which then it manifested from just
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: this little hashtag into this enormous campaign. So it's it's
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: helping to to change healthcare and what the pharmaciy ss
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: are going through and how they're connected. I wanted to
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: take us upstream real quick before we have to wrap up.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: When I say upstream, there's forces that have pay grades
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: that are much greater than all of our all the
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: money that all of our families will ever make over
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the generations of families that we have, in comparison to
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical manufacturers who also are paying attention to the
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: where the money is and how money works and how
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: drugs are being developed. And I mean there's there, there's
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: human beings. There's shitty people in every sector of human beings.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: And there there's there's pharmacists who can be jag offs,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: and there's pain patients who can be jerkos, and I
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: mean there's all of us and what we go through
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: the same thing in pharmaceuticals in the in the entire
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: ecosystem that we live in. I've met with CEOs of
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: pharmaceutical manufacturing companies who are so in tune to the
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: mission because they've had a loved one or they've had
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: someone that they know has been impacted by the disease
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: that they're helping to literally eradicate or fight. And then
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I've seen, you know, the memes of that was his name,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Scolicity or something Fharma bro where he's taken advantage and
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: marking up a part. Yeah, so I mean and he
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: he you know, so we have we have people on
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: every sector of healthcare that can be jerks that make
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: the rest of us look like shitheads, and that that's
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: just the way it is. We're gonna have to deal
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: with that. But I know the pharmacists that have I've
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: gravitated towards and supporting They don't pay me. I promote
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: them over and over and over again. All of my hosts.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: None of my hosts pay me anything, and I'm putting
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: out their content. It's because I know that they're part
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: of the change, and I know that that what they're
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: going through to get there, and I don't I don't
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: think either sides of our courts really understand the other sides,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: you know, as people and as humans, and the way
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: that Shane has just reached out to everybody on the
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: planet from different sectors of and the way that the
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: two of you have advocated and been connected with. I
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: do think that there's more that we're going to be
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: able to do together our ex you know, together and
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: being together and getting something done, and we should have
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: next steps. We should we should meet back on this
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: week in pharmacy. But I want to bring a senator
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: or a state representative or someone who wants a platform,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: and then you know, sprinkle in other pharmacists who are
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: pain advocates because they're out there shout out to Like
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I said, we started this show and I mentioned doctor
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Jeffrey Feuden who's very much missed in pain management.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: So there's other thing. There's other champions too. So yeah,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Shane. I'm going to kind of
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: give you the last word on your mission because I
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: do want to give you a give a shout out
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: to the union work that you're doing if you'd give
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: us just a short update on that.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: So the update on that is the Pharmacy Guild has
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: active campaigns in almost all fifty states.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: We've won elections.
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: In Rhode Island, we have the one of the two
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: of the twenty four hour stores that are some of
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: the busiest CBS is in the country that are bargaining
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: their first contract. We have CBS Specialty in Redlands, California
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: that's close to their very first contract. We have multiple
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: stores of Safeways in Washington State. We have Providence Hospital
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: where all seventy two pharmacists have voted to win their election.
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: That won their election. So there's there's stores in Arizonas.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: We can change a workplace. The Pharmacy Guild can go
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: in and unionize a store with two pharmacists and three technicians,
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: or we can unionize a facility like CBS Specialty in Redlands.
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: We're all one hundred and twenty five technicians are getting
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: close to having their first contract. I think that this
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: is where the intersection of doing the best for chronic
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: pain patients and my work comes together. If we can
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: fix the labor piece inside these pharmacies, a chronic pain
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: patient who's having any difficulty filling a prescription will be
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: able to go in and have a pharmacist that can
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: give them ten minutes fifteen minutes of their undefided attention
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: and explain what they can do to get their medication today,
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: whether it be in that location. Let them know what
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: the issue is, what they have to do, whether it
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: be the insurance is stopping it, whether it's the arbitrary
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: rules of the company they're trying to fill it with anything,
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: what their concerns are. When that discourse happens and you
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: turn a customer into a patient, you avoid all of
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: those problems. And if I can, if our team and
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: the Pharmacy Guild and all the people that I work
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: with can change that culture inside of a pharmacy, we
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: can better serve every patient out there.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: So it's a win.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: And I think the way that we can work together
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: is if we're on the same team and we advocate
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: for you and you advocate for us. There's real power
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: in where you go to fill your prescriptions. I want
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: to let every chronic pain patient know. You said, Claudia,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: you're the face you're advocating for people that are bedbound.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: There's still power in numbers for all of those patients
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: to take their business somewhere else. If they're not if
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: they're not bargaining in good faith if they're an understaffed pharmacy,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: show them with your prescriptions, show them with your business
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: and your insurance and all the things that they're billing.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: Show them that you have power. You can affect change,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: and I am all in. I will help you guys
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: wherever I can, even if it's just sharing it, even
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: if we have to put up something a little bit
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: sensational to get people talking. And let me end this
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: by saying, I apologize wholeheartedly for anything that's seemed a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: little bit offensive or off color that I posted after
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: that original Harmoncist video.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: But I was.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: Doing it with the intent of getting us together and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: getting people together to make real change.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate it.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Yep, Yeah, thank you, Klaudia and Bev. You're going to
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: be coming back for sure. I want to do more,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: maybe focused groups and anything that you need for me
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: to help you guys strengthen relationships with providers, because, like
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: I said, I can't help the patients. You guys are
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: on the front line, so our pharmacists and our technicians,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: and they want what's best. I have up on the screen.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: If you're watching on YouTube or one of our live streams,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: it says the doctor the doctor patientforum dot com. That's
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: the doctor patientforum dot com. But in wrapping up, I
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: want to give last word to Claudia and Bev Well.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: I think I think they were going to be angry
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: that it wasn't more hostile. Uh, and we ended on.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: So I'm sorry listeners that because we don't come from
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: a place of hostility. We come from a place of help.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: So I hope people aren't too disappointed because i'd love
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: to have Shan Shane. I'm sorry, that's so bad. That's
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: my menopause. I probably need an increase in my estrogen.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: But we'd love to have Shane come on our podcast.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: Our You know, our constituents really need to understand what
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: pharmacists are going through because they're in a pressure cooker.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: I know, I know, I get it. I get it.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: Like I said, they're they're in prison. There's some people
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: in prison. They don't belong here. So thank you Todd
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: for this opportunity.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: I just want to say, like one thing I didn't
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: touch on, I'll do it really really fast. That I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: really want to just address is one thing we fight
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: for with the doctor pation form that has to do
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: with pharmacy is actual harms from the PDMP and for
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: data analytics programs like narks Care and the red flags,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: because these red flagging systems tend to flag the sickest
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: patients and then they cause the very thing they're trying
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: to prevent. Like you said, go to a different pharmacy,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: but see then that's a red flag for the patients,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: and then the NARS Care score can go up, or
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: if they don't have it in one pharmacy, going to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: another again. And so a lot of times there aren't
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: pharmacies within one hundred miles of a patient. A lot
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: of times the pharmacy doesn't have the medication a certain
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: MMY or whatever. We have an open NARS Care petition
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: that we submitted to the FDA, a citizen's petition asking
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: them to declare it as software as the medical device
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: so that it can be regulated and transparent so people
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: actually know what goes into it. I'm not saying the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: PDMP is just harmful, but there is not a lot
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: of focus on the harms that come from the PDMP,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: what it actually does, what we know it does, and
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: what it might do, and so I think there needs
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: to be more research there. So this is just something
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: that we focus on. Also, I just wanted to let
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: you saying that that that is part of what we
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: we focus on because I know you're given those tools
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: to try to determine things, and sometimes they're not the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: best tools that you're given. But I do appreciate your
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: your kindness and your empathy. And yeah, I like Claudia.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: I think people will be mad that we're not screaming
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: at each other, but Todd, thank you. You're always the best.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: I love Todd. I like stick up for you. Anytime
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: anyone attacks you on social media. I feel like I
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: need to be like, no, Todd's our friend.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: Don't do it.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: I'll move around.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: I always dodge it.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: I got that gen X skin too, because it's you
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: had to.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: You had to.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: I got so. I got made fun of in Catholic
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: school for having a big head.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: And you know it's Tod.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: How old are you?
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: I'm fifty fifty two.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: So we all get Yeah, so you I was seventy six,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: you were born in what seventy four?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Seventy two? You mean I'm the youngest son here?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: You are, Shane, for sure.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: I'm forty eight. I am forty eight.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: And if you were born in seventy two, you're not
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: fifty two. I just wanted to like you.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: I can't.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not getting it's.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: But Shane, we would like to have you on the podcast.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: We'd like to continue this conversation.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: I would, and I'll believe me.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: I know that people are going to be a little
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: bit upset because they're gonna say, look, but I wanted
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: to try and have that human connection. We could have
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: turned this into a debate, but I didn't want to
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: do that because I don't think that's beneficial for any
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: one of us, because we are on the same team intimately,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: and we need to fight the forces that are preventing
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: us from really doing our job and really servicing the patients,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: all patients.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Shane, can you give us your contact information after
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: so that we can send I'll send you some of
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: that stuff, and if you want that one podcast with
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: Tim Atkinson at pen Week, I can send it to
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: you if you want, so you can see what I'm
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: talking about.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: I don't. I would love.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: I called him to see if I contacted him TV
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: come on our podcast, But he said something like those
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: who he were. I don't know. He has restrictions on
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: where he can go, but maybe he can go on
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: your podcast. It's been a few years, but he's still
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: he seems great. He's fighting. He did research I guess
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: on patient abandonment and forced papers. So, Shane, are.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: You trying to organize pharmacists? Is that what you're trying
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: to do?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so myself doctor Bled Tanaway, doctor Maurice Shaw, and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: Lonnie doctor Lannie du Wong. By the way, I don't
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: call myself doctor ever. The only thing it's on is
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: my checks. So I wanted to let you know I'm
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: not part of that generation who insists on that I'm
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: a pharmacist and that's what.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: I want to be. I don't want to be a doctor.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: We started advocating years ago, but during the walkouts that
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: occurred in Kansas City, there was a bunch of pharmacists
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: who got so upset with the CBS targets out there,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: they decided to walk off the job.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: And a lot of them wanted to be.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: Able to put stuff out, but they were worried about
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: losing their job, and I ended up being the voice
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: on television to get their word out. So we organized
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: after that, like CBS tried to play it off like
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: this is very specific to this area of the country.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: It doesn't happen everywhere, but because of a platform like
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: the Accidental Pharmacist, everyone was saying, how you know this
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: is happening everywhere? Pharmacies are understaffed everywhere. There's so many
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: we're worried about making mistakes because of the way that
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: they're staffing these locations. So during that time, I ended
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: up being on Fox Business and CNBC and NBC, and
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: there was print articles everywhere. And at that point I
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: am Healthcare, which is the International Association of Machinists and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: Aerospace Workers.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: They have a smaller healthcare wing.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: They gave us the resources to launch the Pharmacy Guild,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: so we're part of IM, but we're our own entities
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: that only represents pharmacists and technicians, and we have close
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: to a thousand members right now. We're still barketing their
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: first contracts and we've grown a lot, but we still
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: need more. We have full time organizers in Florida, in Michigan,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: in California, in Arizona, and we actually need more because
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: there's lots of people that want to organize these places
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: to have safer working conditions.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: That's great. Oh god, yeah, I'm I'm pro union all
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: the way. I come from union blood, so I know
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: the importance of organized I mean I tried to organize
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: doctors years ago, but apparently it's illegal for doctors to organize.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: But I was like, who gives a shit?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: Well it says changing now. I mean it is because
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: there's lots of residents that are actually trying to organize.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: But the thing is is that it would I it's
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: very difficult if it wasn't for I am taking. I mean,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: they put a lot of resources in. We've been at
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: the American Pharmacist Association conventions every year, We've had our
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: own convention here in Palm Springs. They've really put a
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: lot of resources into trying to change this industry and
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 5: really rein in the control that CBS care.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: Mark has on what pharmacists do and what our careers
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: look like. Yeah, that's great, Shana.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: I would love to have you on our podcast just
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: to talk about that.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: Can I say something off the record, like really off
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: the sure might really? Oh no, I can't say.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Anything, all right, just let me shut let me shut
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: twarks down. We appreciate you All listeners out there. Please
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: share this with someone that you know should be hearing it,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: another pharmacist, somebody in pain management. Also reach out to
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Claudie and Bev and Shane. Thank you so much for
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: being on twerks. It's always great to see you and
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: can't wait to have you back.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Pharmacy, Han Peace,