Salmonella OUTBREAK: CDC Blames Herbal Supplement Kratom

An outbreak of salmonella in 20 states is being blamed on kratom.  According to the CDC, Americans should stay away from kratom for now, until the origin of the outbreak can be pinpointed.

According to federal government health agents, a popular herb called kratom is linked to an outbreak of salmonella that has made 28 people sick in 20 states. Eleven people have been sick enough to need hospitalization. The government agency, the CDC also claims the “most of the people who have been made seriously ill in the outbreak remember having recently used some form of kratom.” Most?

“At this time, CDC recommends that people not consume kratom in any form. The investigation indicates that kratom products could be contaminated with Salmonella and could make people sick,” the CDC says on its website.

Kratom has been the focus of a storm of controversy. The Food and Drug Administration has issued increasingly urgent warnings about the herb, saying it acts like an opioid drug and advising people to stay away from it. –NBC News

Kratom enthusiasts say it’s enjoyable to use recreationally, but they also say it is also useful for treating withdrawal symptoms from opioid use and can be used to treat pain. “Kratom is not a drug,” the American Kratom Association says on its website. “Kratom is not a drug. Kratom is not an opiate. Kratom is not a synthetic substance. Naturally, occurring Kratom is a safe herbal supplement that’s more akin to tea and coffee than any other substances.”

Kratom is a natural botanical native to tropical Southeast Asia that is part of the coffee family. It’s also known by its scientific name, Mitragyna speciosa. The people of Southeast Asia have used Kratom leaves as an herbal supplement and traditional remedy for hundreds of years. When taken in appropriate amounts, Kratom can provide increased energy, minor pain relief and many find relief from a variety of other mental and physical ailments. Today, people in the U.S. are consuming Kratom, as they do other herbal supplements and traditional remedies. –American Kratom Association

Salmonella is a very common bacteria that causes what we all know as food poisoning. The CDC says it is not clear how the bacteria could have gotten into supplies of kratom. But genetic testing links the cases that have been reported. Salmonella has been linked to supplements before and caused an outbreak in food powder in 2016.

“In interviews, ill people answered questions about the foods they ate and other exposures in the months before they became ill. Eight (73 percent) of 11 people interviewed reported consuming kratom in pills, powder, or tea,” the CDC said.  There doesn’t appear to one particular brand or type of kratom taking the blame, just kratom in general.

The Salmonella bacteria could have been on the plant itself, before harvesting, or in the irrigation water used on the plants, said Benjamin Chapman, an associate professor and food safety specialist at North Carolina State University. It’s also possible that the supplements became contaminated with Salmonella somewhere during the manufacturing process, he said. (Salmonella bacteria typically live in animal and human intestines, and get into the environment through fecal matter, according to the Mayo Clinic.)

FDA Just Falsely Declared Kratom to Be an Opioid—Ensuring Big Pharma a Lifetime of Profit

The FDA is proving its loyalty to big pharma and is putting the final nail in the coffin that is the legal, safe, and natural painkiller, kratom.

The post FDA Just Falsely Declared Kratom to Be an Opioid—Ensuring Big Pharma a Lifetime of Profit appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

FOIA Docs Show FDA’s Data on Kratom Deaths is Complete Propaganda

As the FDA fearmongers over alleged Kratom associated deaths, documents on these deaths reveal that the American people are being lied to.

FDA Loyalty to Big Pharma Exposed in Move to Ban Plant that’s CURING Opioid Addiction

The FDA is now pushing to ban the highly beneficial plant kratom, which is curing opioid addiction. If we look deeper, we can see why they want it illegal.

A Sad 1st in America: Heroin Overdoses Outpace Gun Homicides

In a report published December 8, 2016, the CDC said that in 2015, heroin deaths spiked by more than 2,000 cases since 2014, resulting in a sad milestone: There were more heroin-related deaths that year than gun homicides. As recently as 2007, gun homicides outnumbered heroin deaths by more than 5 to 1. [1]

Source: The Washington Post

The number of opioid deaths increased by 30,000 from 2014 to 2015 – another first for the U.S. – up from 5,000 in 2014. But for the first time since at least the 1990’s, heroin deaths outnumbered deaths from traditional opioid painkillers, like hydrocodone and oxycodone.

Additionally, deaths involving potent synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, rose by nearly 75% from 2014 to 2015.

But according to the CDC’s data, deaths may involve more than 1 individual drug category, so the numbers may not be mutually exclusive. For example, many opioid deaths involve multiple types of opioids, or opioids combined with alcohol.

CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement:

“The epidemic of deaths involving opioids continues to worsen. Prescription opioid misuse and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are intertwined and deeply troubling problems.”

Michael Botticelli, Director of National Drug Control Policy, also said in a statement:

“The prescription opioid and heroin epidemic continues to devastate communities and families across the country—in large part because too many people still do not get effective substance use disorder treatment. That is why the President has called since February for $1 billion in new funding to expand access to treatment.”

Congress recently passed a spending bill allocating $1 billion to fight the opioid epidemic. That amount includes money for addiction treatment and prevention.

The CDC data was released just a week after the DEA closed its open comment period on kratom, an herb that many credit with helping them safely withdraw from opiates.  [2]

Read: DEA Decides NOT to Ban Kratom … For Now

Opioids in 1996, to the Late 90’s, to Today

Opioid use exploded in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, but the opioid epidemic may have started in 1996, the year OxyContin was introduced to the U.S. market. In its first year on the market, OxyContin earned its maker, Purdue Pharma, $45 million. By 2000, that number ballooned to $1.1 billion. Ten years later, OxyContin raked in $3.1 billion for the pharmaceutical company, and accounted for about 30% of the painkiller market. [1] [3]

Source: attn:

OxyContin rose to the top of the opiate heap because Purdue was giving doctors kickbacks for prescribing the pain reliever, and heaping massive bonuses on sales execs who convinced doctors to prescribe OxyContin over other opioids.

Read: “Hillbilly Heroin” OxyContin Approved for Use in Children

This is not the only cause of the opioid crisis, but it may have been the jumping-off point. And as the crisis ballooned, state and federal authorities started issuing tighter restrictions on painkillers, driving opioid addicts to the illicit market to get their hands-on heroin.

Grant Smith, deputy director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, said:

“Criminalization drives people to the margins and dissuades them from getting help. It drives a wedge between people who need help and the services they need. Because of criminalization and stigma, people hide their addictions from others.” [1]

Sources:

[1] The Washington Post

[2] Gizmodo

[3] The Week

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

Ohio Sets Major Precedent, Sues Big Pharma for Deliberately ‘Fueling Opioid Epidemic’

Five goliath pharmaceutical companies have been served with a lawsuit from the State of Ohio for their role in the opioid epidemic, because, as state Attorney General Mike DeWine alleges, they “helped unleash a health care crisis that has had far-reaching financial, social, and deadly consequences in the State of Ohio.”

Ohio now joins a number of states in attempting to hold Big Pharma responsible for fueling the crisis of oft-ruinous addiction to legally prescribed opioid medications and their deemed illegal brethren, such as heroin.

Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and its subsidiary, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson and subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Allergan have all been named in the lawsuit.

“This lawsuit is about justice, it’s about fairness, it’s about what is right,” DeWine opined in an announcement from southern Ohio’s Ross County — an area crushed by the epidemic in fatalities from overdoses to legal painkillers and illegal heroin — as quoted by Southwestern Ohio NBC affiliate, WLWT. “These drug companies knew that what they were saying was wrong and they did it anyway and they continue to do so.”

Figures for 2016, which have yet to be released, are expected to handily top the distressing 3,050 fatal overdoses Ohio experienced in 2015 — figures wholly unacceptable to DeWine, and cogent of the nation’s struggle to rein in rampant over-prescribing and other facets of the opioid scourge.

NPR reports the lawsuit “accuses the companies of engaging in a sustained marketing campaign to downplay the addiction risks of the prescription opioid drugs they sell and to exaggerate the benefits of their use for health problems such as chronic pain.”

“We believe the evidence will also show that these companies got thousands and thousands of Ohioans — our friends, our family members, our co-workers, our kids — addicted to opioid pain medications, which has all too often led to use of the cheaper alternatives of heroin and synthetic opioids,” the Ohio attorney general asserted in a press release excoriating the five pharmaceutical companies Wednesday. “These drug manufacturers led prescribers to believe that opioids were not addictive, that addiction was an easy thing to overcome, or that addiction could actually be treated by taking even more opioids.

“They knew they were wrong, but they did it anyway — and they continue to do it.  Despite all evidence to the contrary about the addictive nature of these pain medications, they are doing precious little to take responsibility for their actions and to tell the public the truth.”

Explicitly, DeWine notes, the lawsuit contends the medications at the core of the epidemic include OxyContin, MS Contin, Dilaudid, Butrans, Hysingla, and Targiniq from Purdue; Endo’s Percocet, Percodan, Opana, and Zydone; Actiq and Fentora made by Teva and Cephalon; Johnson & Johnson and Janssen’s Duragesic and Nucynta; and Kadian, Norco, and several generic opioids manufactured by Allergan.

DeWine told NPR’s All Things Considered the companies purposely deceived physicians and medical practitioners on the perils of the opioid medications — purely to rake in profits — to the horrific detriment of thousands of families whose loved ones became addicted or lost their lives.

“We believe that the evidence will show that these pharmaceutical companies purposely misled doctors about the dangers connected with pain meds that they produced, and that they did so for the purpose of increasing sales,” he asserted. “And boy, did they increase sales.”

“My daughter’s been gone over a year and it still doesn’t seem real,” Ohio father Roger Winemiller, whose daughter and son died within nine months of each other — both from overdoses on heroin — told WLWT.

Echoing one of the most common paths to illegal heroin, Winemiller described the lost battle with addiction his daughter faced, recalling that, to treat anxiety, she “started using pills and tried stuff that the doctor prescribed but it just didn’t work, then went to pills on the street then graduated to heroin.”

Included in the state’s lawsuit is an injunction demanding the companies cease deceptive practices — inflation of benefit and deflation of risks — surrounding opioid prescriptions.

Rather than pegging doctors equally responsible the opioid plague, DeWine told NPR’s Robert Siegel the weight of blame lies with the mendacious practices consciously undertaken by the five Big Pharma giants and their subsidiaries.

“This was not something that the pharmaceutical companies just woke up some day and just started to do a little bit of it,” the attorney general explained.

“I mean, there was a concerted effort for an extended number of years to really pound this into the heads of doctors. And when you’re told something time and time and time again and there’s a lot of advertising that is being spent, yeah, it takes a while to turn that around.”

Naturally, Big Pharma pushed back against the lawsuit — a spokeswoman for Janssen castigated the premise as “legally and factually unfounded.”

“Janssen has acted appropriately, responsibly and in the best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications,” Jessica Castles Smith told the Cleveland Plain Dealer by email, “which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about the known risks of the medications on every product label.”

Purdue, however, appeared to capitulate somewhat — agreeing the epidemic must be addressed.

“OxyContin accounts for less than 2 percent of the opioid analgesic prescription market nationally,” the company told the Plain Dealer, “but we are an industry leader in the development of abuse-deterrent technology, advocating for the use of prescription drug monitoring programs and supporting access to Naloxone — all important components for combating the opioid crisis.”

NPR noted the state estimates more than 200,000 Ohioans currently battle addiction to opioids.

DeWine elaborated further, telling the Plain Dealer 80 percent of heroin addicts first were prescribed legal opioid medications — and that, although this particular lawsuit aims to hold manufacturers accountable, he refused to rule out future litigation against distributors.

Opioids continue to be doled out with alarming regularity for both acute and chronic pain, while viable alternatives to both treat pain and reduce opioid dependency — such as cannabis and kratom — remain unattainable thanks to the Federal Government’s laughable war on drugs.

In the meantime, a growing number of states and localities — including Everett, Washington, and the states of West Virginia, Mississippi, and Kentucky — as well as the Cherokee Nation, have employed legal means to call Big Pharma to task for recklessly allowing the opioid crisis to fester unhindered.

“It’s not the whole cause, but it’s a big part of the cause,” Winemiller said of the targets of the lawsuit. “I mean, there’s many, many people that’s gone to pain clinics, had surgeries or whatever, and they take this medication and they get hooked on it, and then they get cut off and so they go the cheaper route and end up with the heroin.”

He added, “I’ve lost two [children]. It’s just like a bad dream that won’t quit.”