No, We Don’t Vaccinate
Posted by katetiejte on May 13th, 2011 at 10:00 am
It’s been mentioned a few times on here that I don’t vaccinate my kids. And it’s true: I don’t. My reasons are pretty complicated, but since I’ve been sharing my reasons for a bunch of my decisions this week (like why I need to breastfeed, and why I’m choosing home birth), I thought I might address this one too.
Most babies are given their first vaccine when they’re only hours old: the Hep B shot. And obviously, we’ve skipped it. A lot of parents are on the fence about this, even if they do choose to vaccinate for the most part. Keep reading to find out what my pediatrician said about this…and why we personally choose not to vaccinate.
I know, I know: it’s an extremely hot issue right now. There are people who say you’re basically killing your children if you don’t…or if you do. I’m not going to tell you that. I know every parent has their own reasons for the decisions that they make and that they are trying to do their absolute best based on what they know and what they believe. The answer’s not the same for every family.
There was a point where we didn’t question vaccines, before I got pregnant with my first. But we were working then as therapists for children with autism. I know, it’s so cliche. But the moms we talked to basically said they had concerns…and encouraged us to look into it more. Although it started over a potential concern with autism, that’s actually very low on our list of reasons for choosing not to vaccinate now.
Then we thought we’d just do selective and delayed vaccines. We thought that we’d get vaccines for the “scary” diseases, like measles, but we’d definitely leave out chicken pox, rubella, and others that we knew weren’t so bad. (Rubella’s not, unless you happen to contract it in the middle of your first trimester of pregnancy.) But, I wasn’t satisfied to take anyone’s answers. I need to do the research for myself. I set out with a long list of questions I wanted answered, and I began searching through every book, journal article, health website (both mainstream, like WHO, and non-mainstream), and so on that I could get my hands on.
What I found was very interesting…and shocking. The more I read, the more I became convicted that I did not want to inject my children with vaccines, ever. I know that places me on the far, far outer edges…most people are willing to consider some vaccines, under some circumstances. I really can’t think of any situation in which I’d allow a vaccine. But, of course, this is up to each family to choose.
So here is a (very) brief summary of my reasons (please note I’m not a doctor or medical professional; I’m trying to explain these to the best of my knowledge but I’m sure I’ll make some mistakes along the way. Always do your own research and talk to your doctor):
1) The way they work – This is a super, super long explanation being very condensed here. Most natural infections enter the body through the mouth or nose, and are fought off by the mucous membranes, the gut flora, etc. It’s called the TH-1 system. This is bypassed when a vaccine is administered directly into the body and only the TH-2 system is stimulated (the body’s secondary defenses). This doesn’t produce permanent immunity (and in some doesn’t produce immunity at all). The body, when the TH-2 system is activated, is more susceptible to future disease. And although typically the system would “calm down” soon after a vaccine, when a baby is born, it is TH-2 dominant (so it’s mother’s body won’t reject it), and vaccines prolong the time before the immune system matures. There’s some evidence to suggest that the immune system never learns to work properly and this places the child at risk to more serious illnesses like cancer. There’s a lot more to this, but this is my primary concern.
2) Ingredients: I know that most people are concerned with thimerosal, and it’s been removed from most vaccines. Not all, and it is used in the production of the vaccines and then removed later (i.e. there are still trace amounts). But the vaccines also contain tissue from monkey kidney cells, human diploid cells (read: aborted fetal tissue), or chicken embryos, depending on what the vaccine was cultured in. Regarding the human cells, they’ve been using the same ones since around the 1950s, and I’m not convinced they haven’t mutated or in some way become contaminated. Vaccines also contain adjuvants to boost their efficacy, and most of these are based on aluminum, which is another heavy metal toxin. There are also antibiotics and various other ingredients. To me, this just doesn’t sound like something I’d want in my body…or my children’s bodies.
3) Natural Immunity: I’m concerned with my children gaining natural immunity. Vaccines don’t last forever and their efficacy is in question since they work differently at different ages, weights, immune system development and other individual body chemistry differences. Some studies I’ve read suggest they are far less efficacious than we think they are, and that immunity does wane significantly after 10 – 20 years (so, the adults who don’t get boosters — almost all — probably aren’t protected from most diseases anymore). In contrast, for most people, natural infection does offer protection/immunity forever (in a few rare cases it doesn’t). It has also been shown to “train” the immune system to fight off more complex illnesses, although this research is very sparing. For children with strong immune systems, many of these illnesses are just not that bad. We all had chicken pox as kids and it wasn’t a fun week; but we’re fine. Parents today are terrified of chicken pox! (That vaccine was created primarily so parents wouldn’t have to miss work and suffer “lost productivity” as a society while caring for sick children — not over any concern that chicken pox was a dangerous illness.) Looking into what the likely course and worst-case scenario (and what would likely lead to the worst-case scenario) of each disease was a major part of my research. It’s always interesting to me, however, to note that the children I know who aren’t vaccinated (several) are usually not the children who are sick very frequently. While some people I know brag that their kids have “only” had a few ear infections, a few bouts of croup or bronchitis or needed antibiotics a couple times a year, I can say that mine have never had any of these things. Do vaccines play a role, or am I just lucky? I don’t know, but I’ll take it.
4) Potential environmental issues: Kids today have skyrocketing rates of asthma, allergies, ADHD, and yes, autism. I don’t believe that vaccines are the sole cause of any of these conditions. But I do believe, along with many other factors, they play a role. Children who are born with fragile health or are genetically “sensitive” could be at risk for developing one of these things because a vaccine was the trigger or final straw. Cases before the so-called vaccine court have paid many families under conditions like this. If I can minimize my children’s exposure to toxins in any way, then I will.
5) Little research: What I’ve found as far as research hasn’t been extremely comforting. A lot of research is reaching pretty far, like studies that we say “we assume protection is lifelong” but cite no proof (have they tested people who were vaccinated several years ago? In a large study? No.). Studies compare vaccines against previously licensed versions or against the same chemical combo without the virus itself, not a true placebo (saline solution). Kids are usually followed for only 6 weeks. Long-term or late-arriving reactions aren’t documented. The medical community appears to have a very cavalier attitude towards all drugs and vaccines, at least as far as I’ve seen: that they just aren’t that bad. But how many times have we later seen these same “miracle” drugs recalled? How many parents have said “I think my child is having a vaccine reaction” and been reassured it’s ‘normal?’ I just don’t think the research is adequate. I couldn’t even find journal articles to answer all of my questions, and the figures stated on the WHO or CDC’s websites were not linked to any actual research. That, to me, is a big red flag.
Suffice it to say, we’ve chosen, for these reasons and many more (these being the most important) not to vaccinate. It’s a very personal choice, which each family must make.
If you’re curious what our pediatrician said, he recommends Hep B in the teen years (when the child might actually be at risk under ordinary circumstances), and will also mention HiB and Pertussis if asked. But he doesn’t push any on families and he said that he thinks the current schedule is “definitely too much, too soon.” Yes, this is a mainstream, board-certified pediatrician, not an alternative doctor.
http://blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/2011/05/13/no-we-dont-vaccinate/
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Pediatricians turn away kids who aren't vaccinated
Pediatricians turn away kids who aren't vaccinated
by Jessica Ashley, Shine staff, on Mon Jul 11, 2011 4:17pm PDT
When an investigation proved early this year that research linking autism and vaccines was fraudulent, it seemed the debate over when or whether to immunize children might quiet down. But new voices have piped up in the vaccine controversy, and this time, they belong to pediatricians.
While most parents do choose to vaccinate their children on schedule with their doctors' recommendations, the trend of delaying or opting out of scheduled shots worries many pediatricians. And some pediatric practices are responding by requiring patients to get immunized on schedule or to find another doctor -- no shots, no service.
Why would a pediatric practice show anti-vaccine families to the door? Dr. Scott J. Goldstein of the Northwestern Children's Practice in Chicago, where a vaccine policy was implemented June 1, said they do it to protect children and to provide better care for all the patients he and the seven other staff pediatricians see.
Pointing to a strong scientific record supporting vaccinations, Goldstein said his practice's policy serves the most vulnerable children -- like infants and those with critical illnesses who are not able to be immunized -- by protecting them from diseases. All of those children could be in the waiting room together, some pediatricians note, and the unvaccinated ones could be putting the more vulnerable ones at risk.
"Vaccines are safe and have been studied for a long time and continue to be studied," Dr. Goldstein told Shine. "Vaccines are responsible for saving millions of lives and keeping millions of other children safe and healthy."
Vaccinating most children contributes to "herd immunity," which helps kids who are too ill to be on the recommended schedule and lowers the overall risk of disease outbreaks.
"It is a minority of our patients who opt to go off the schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and CDC (Centers for Disease Control) or not have vaccines at all," Dr. Goldstein said. "This makes it very complicated for our staff to follow. We don't just ask those families to leave. We give them every opportunity to ask questions, to schedule vaccines, to work with us."
Some parents may not feel the need to put the brakes on vaccines, but do want to compromise by slowing the schedule. Dr. Goldstein said this also poses a danger.
"Vaccines are scheduled to be given at the time when children are most vulnerable to that disease. Slowing down the process only puts the child at a higher risk of contracting the illness," Dr. Goldstein said.
The main fear of vaccinating children, he said, is that kids will contract autism, even though research has put to rest those concerns. Other parents are simply afraid that their child will be exposed to too many things early on in their life. Dr. Goldstein said it will take better communication with parents to change the fear-based mindset against vaccinations.
So far, Dr. Goldstein's practice has mostly heard positive reactions from parents about the new vaccine policy.
"They are happy we are taking a stand," he said.
This stand might seem harsh but the wording and the strictness varies among pediatricians. One Massachusetts-based practice puts it bluntly in the policy that takes up a full page of their website: "Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are not a good fit for our practice and will be referred elsewhere."
The policy goes on to offer parents who "insist on diverging from the recommended vaccine schedule" a waiver taking responsibility for any risks that result from delaying or opting out of vaccines and offers research, literature, and further conversation to parents on this "worrisome subject." They also thank parents for entrusting the practice with the care of their children, but the pro-vaccination message is clear.
A pediatric practice in New York takes a gentler, storytelling approach to explaining the historic debate and reasoning around vaccinating, but makes its position very clear (in bolded print on its website): "If, despite our recommendations, you feel you cannot follow the CDC and AAP recommendations for these vaccines, we will ask you to find another health care provider who shares your views."
The AAP warns that vaccination policies may undermine children's access to health care, stating: "Families with doubts about immunization should still have access to good medical care, and maintaining the relationship in the face of disagreement conveys respect and at the same time allows the child access to medical care. Furthermore, a continuing relationship allows additional opportunity to discuss the issue of immunization over time."
Although instituting a policy has been working well for Dr. Goldstein's practice, he said he hopes that refusing to see unvaccinated children does not become a trend nationwide.
"I know the AAP has cautioned against these policies. If I was the only doctor around, I certainly wouldn't want to throw these families to the wind. In our case, in a neighborhood and city with many pediatricians and options for families, we are choosing to protect kids' health," Goldstein said. "We are not making them sick. We are not forcing them. We are not neglecting them."
by Jessica Ashley, Shine staff, on Mon Jul 11, 2011 4:17pm PDT
When an investigation proved early this year that research linking autism and vaccines was fraudulent, it seemed the debate over when or whether to immunize children might quiet down. But new voices have piped up in the vaccine controversy, and this time, they belong to pediatricians.
While most parents do choose to vaccinate their children on schedule with their doctors' recommendations, the trend of delaying or opting out of scheduled shots worries many pediatricians. And some pediatric practices are responding by requiring patients to get immunized on schedule or to find another doctor -- no shots, no service.
Why would a pediatric practice show anti-vaccine families to the door? Dr. Scott J. Goldstein of the Northwestern Children's Practice in Chicago, where a vaccine policy was implemented June 1, said they do it to protect children and to provide better care for all the patients he and the seven other staff pediatricians see.
Pointing to a strong scientific record supporting vaccinations, Goldstein said his practice's policy serves the most vulnerable children -- like infants and those with critical illnesses who are not able to be immunized -- by protecting them from diseases. All of those children could be in the waiting room together, some pediatricians note, and the unvaccinated ones could be putting the more vulnerable ones at risk.
"Vaccines are safe and have been studied for a long time and continue to be studied," Dr. Goldstein told Shine. "Vaccines are responsible for saving millions of lives and keeping millions of other children safe and healthy."
Vaccinating most children contributes to "herd immunity," which helps kids who are too ill to be on the recommended schedule and lowers the overall risk of disease outbreaks.
"It is a minority of our patients who opt to go off the schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and CDC (Centers for Disease Control) or not have vaccines at all," Dr. Goldstein said. "This makes it very complicated for our staff to follow. We don't just ask those families to leave. We give them every opportunity to ask questions, to schedule vaccines, to work with us."
Some parents may not feel the need to put the brakes on vaccines, but do want to compromise by slowing the schedule. Dr. Goldstein said this also poses a danger.
"Vaccines are scheduled to be given at the time when children are most vulnerable to that disease. Slowing down the process only puts the child at a higher risk of contracting the illness," Dr. Goldstein said.
The main fear of vaccinating children, he said, is that kids will contract autism, even though research has put to rest those concerns. Other parents are simply afraid that their child will be exposed to too many things early on in their life. Dr. Goldstein said it will take better communication with parents to change the fear-based mindset against vaccinations.
So far, Dr. Goldstein's practice has mostly heard positive reactions from parents about the new vaccine policy.
"They are happy we are taking a stand," he said.
This stand might seem harsh but the wording and the strictness varies among pediatricians. One Massachusetts-based practice puts it bluntly in the policy that takes up a full page of their website: "Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are not a good fit for our practice and will be referred elsewhere."
The policy goes on to offer parents who "insist on diverging from the recommended vaccine schedule" a waiver taking responsibility for any risks that result from delaying or opting out of vaccines and offers research, literature, and further conversation to parents on this "worrisome subject." They also thank parents for entrusting the practice with the care of their children, but the pro-vaccination message is clear.
A pediatric practice in New York takes a gentler, storytelling approach to explaining the historic debate and reasoning around vaccinating, but makes its position very clear (in bolded print on its website): "If, despite our recommendations, you feel you cannot follow the CDC and AAP recommendations for these vaccines, we will ask you to find another health care provider who shares your views."
The AAP warns that vaccination policies may undermine children's access to health care, stating: "Families with doubts about immunization should still have access to good medical care, and maintaining the relationship in the face of disagreement conveys respect and at the same time allows the child access to medical care. Furthermore, a continuing relationship allows additional opportunity to discuss the issue of immunization over time."
Although instituting a policy has been working well for Dr. Goldstein's practice, he said he hopes that refusing to see unvaccinated children does not become a trend nationwide.
"I know the AAP has cautioned against these policies. If I was the only doctor around, I certainly wouldn't want to throw these families to the wind. In our case, in a neighborhood and city with many pediatricians and options for families, we are choosing to protect kids' health," Goldstein said. "We are not making them sick. We are not forcing them. We are not neglecting them."
Monday, July 11, 2011
Prescription drug deaths soar in Michigan
Prescription drug deaths soar in Michigan
1:00 AM, Jul. 11, 2011
Michigan, like the nation, is experiencing a troubling increase in prescription drug abuse -- medicines for pain, hyperactivity and anxiety are triggering a rise in emergency hospital visits, overdose deaths and treatment for addiction.
In Michigan, more residents now die from prescription drug abuse than from heroin and cocaine combined, a federal registry shows. In 2009, the latest year data are available, 457 Michiganders died of overdoses from one or more prescription drugs, up from 409 deaths the year before.
"We're seeing an alarming trend that continues to increase," said Larry Scott, manager of the prevention section of Michigan's Bureau of Substance Abuse and Addiction.
Health officials and others say the drugs are easier to get now, and the rise mirrors rocketing rates of prescriptions written by doctors and dentists.
Nearly one in four seeking emergency care in Michigan for the abuse was younger than 25, particularly alarming because prescription drugs are a gateway to heroin and are being mixed by teens and young adults in potentially lethal combinations to get a more intense high, substance abuse experts say.
Parents, friends and doctors can be source of drugs to be abused
Kayla Westerman's entry into the world of drugs started at 13 with the painkiller Vicodin. She got it from a friend.
Others raid parents' and grandparents' medicine cabinets for unused pills, or they trade or sell narcotics prescribed by dentists and doctors.
By high school, Westerman added OxyContin, another prescription painkiller, and her habit grew so costly, she switched to the cheaper street drug heroin at age 15.
The street price for OxyContin ranges from $10 for a 10-milligram pill to $35-$80 for an 80-milligram pill.
Two years later, high on heroin, the teen from Pinckney tried to steal items from a Kohl's department store but was caught and jailed, her first of three sentences for retail fraud. She recently completed a 37-day jail sentence and said she has turned her life around. She credits a Livingston County program that uses drug-diversion money to counsel jail inmates.
"Young kids are dying," she said. "It's not a joke anymore."
Westerman's story mirrors many tales in America's prescription drug epidemic, a problem growing nationwide and particularly prevalent among younger people, according to federal statistics.
More people in Michigan are now dying each year from prescription drug overdoses than from cocaine and heroin combined.
And health and law enforcement officials said they've seen a disturbing trend of deaths from mixing three types of drugs -- ADHD drugs, narcotic painkillers and a muscle relaxant called Soma -- sometimes inducing a fatal coma.
The mixture has been dubbed the Holy Trinity, and health officials in Detroit say the number of reported overdoses in Michigan each year crept up to 104 last year, from 84 in 2007. With more than 69 recorded this year, including two deaths, the number is on track to break last year's record.
In Michigan, the latest data, from 2009, show:
• 457 Michiganders died of overdoses from one or more prescription drugs, up from 409 deaths the year before.
• Michigan's rate of emergency hospital visits for prescription drug abuse and misuse significantly exceeds national rates. Here, 310 of every 100,000 people who go to an emergency department for an overdose are there for prescription drug abuse, compared with a national rate of 238.
• Fatal overdoses of prescription drugs were the second-leading cause of unintentional deaths, after auto accidents. By comparison, 871 people were killed in Michigan car crashes in 2009. Of those accidents, 14% involved drugs or alcohol.
• Abuse of prescription drugs accounts for growing admissions into substance-abuse programs, sometimes again and again.
"We have people in the double digits" for attempts at rehab, said Dr. Mark Menestrina, a substance-abuse physician at Brighton Hospital, a leading treatment center in the region and part of the St. John Providence Health System.
How people get the drugs
Health officials and others said the prescription drug abuse problem closely parallels rocketing rates of prescriptions written by doctors and dentists.
Dentists and oral surgeons may prescribe as many as 20 painkillers for each patient undergoing extensive work, when "probably four or five" might work, said Carol Boyd, a nurse and University of Michigan researcher in teen substance abuse. Prescription drug abuse "is so far off the radar" of many dentists and oral surgeons, she said.
U-M research has found that nonmedical use of prescription drugs among 12th-graders in Michigan is the highest it has been in 15 years, she said.
Some teens try the drugs at "bowl parties, where you put your family's pills in a bowl and help yourself; it's a form of Russian roulette among teenagers," said Susan Smolinske, a Wayne State University pharmacist and professor of pediatrics who directs the Poison Control Center in Detroit.
Others buy drugs for study, test-taking and sleeping, a common problem among college and high school students. Even dental work brings opportunities.
The drugs most in demand
The federal Drug Abuse Warning Network, started in 2003, tracks emerging trends in drug use in America. The Poison Control Center, at Children's Hospital of Michigan, collects the information in Michigan from any hospital that voluntarily provides it.
Prescription drugs that are monitored by federal and state programs because of their high potential for abuse -- including OxyContin, Vicodin, Ritalin, Percocet, fentanyl and methadone -- are the second-leading category of drug abuse after marijuana. They also are the second-leading cause of unintentional deaths, after auto accidents, according to data from a federal registry of drug-related emergency department visits in large metro areas such as Detroit.
"Thirty thousand people a year are dying from prescription drug abuse in America; 10 years ago, it was half that," said Dr. David Kloth, a spokesman for the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.
Nearly one-third of all abused prescription drugs are painkillers sold generically as hydrocodone, and as OxyContin, the leading brand name, according to Michigan data.
Even so, written prescriptions for nearly all other types of controlled drugs also are up in Michigan. Some of the biggest jumps have been for methadone, used for heroin addiction; amphetamines and stimulants such as Ritalin, for hyperactivity, and pain-relievers morphine and fentanyl.
With the increase in the drugs' legal use, access to them has gotten easier through friends, doctors and dentists and, of course, on the street.
"The common thing we hear is that they started using prescription drugs" in middle and high school, said Francine Sumner, the Livingston County probation office who started Project Opiates last year. It has an active public education campaign that taps inmates serving drug-related sentences to talk to the public. Its next forum is 7 p.m. Aug. 17 at Pinckney High School.
More accountability sought
Michigan has a statewide system that tracks prescriptions of controlled drugs. The system monitors all controlled drug prescriptions for more than two days of use that are written outside a hospital in-patient unit or nursing home.
Doctors and pharmacies identified as frequent-prescribers are followed closely, state officials said.
But savvy patients shop for doctors and hospitals. The worst example the Michigan system found was a patient who saw 27 doctors in a month for prescription drugs, said Mike Wissel, who oversees Michigan's controlled-prescription monitoring program.
Many emergency departments and pain doctors have new systems in place to identify drug-seekers. But it can be difficult to distinguish drug-seekers from "others with serious pain conditions," said Dr. Michael Mikhail, regional director for emergency medicine for the St. Joseph Mercy Health System just outside of Ann Arbor.
"Some people are very bold; they'll say, 'I was at Garden City Hospital yesterday for my back pain,' " said Joanne McKay, administrator of emergency services for the Oakwood system. The hospitals in the system now limit most patients to a three-day supply of controlled drugs, and "we are holding our medical staff accountable" for curbing the problem through quarterly data reviews, she said.
Others are calling for more accountability from drug companies.
"We're calling on drug companies to take responsibility for prescription drug abuse the way oil companies have to clean up their messes and auto companies have to improve their products every year," said Dr. Harry Leider, chief medical officer of Ameritox, which makes a new generation of urine drug tests to identify opioid prescription drug abusers.
Test results are fed into a database of 1,000 patients with chronic pain that "tell the doctor exactly what a person is taking," Leider said.
April Vallerand, a Wayne State nurse specializing in chronic pain issues, said other changes under way would require patients who get certain controlled drugs to undergo more-frequent tests. Pharmaceutical companies also are working on new forms of drugs that won't work when crushed and snorted, a method abusers often use to intensify or speed a drug's effect.
"We're all in limbo waiting to see what the companies come up with," she said.Pain specialists also are demanding more health care accountability. They lobbied Congress in Washington, D.C., last month for legislation requiring health care professionals to receive specialized training to prescribe controlled substances.
The problem will take years to fix, most specialists agree -- even in places such as Livingston County, which began extensive public education programs after 22 people there died of prescription drug or heroin overdoses in 2009. Livingston officials are working with several other counties to help them develop similar programs.
"This is killing people alarmingly," said Sumner, the Livingston County probation officer.
"Certainly alcohol does, too. But the number in just one county is too much. So many people have their heads in the sand and think it doesn't happen."
http://www.freep.com/article/20110711/NEWS06/107110334/Prescription-drug-deaths-soar-Michigan?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
Find out alternatives to pain medication at www.Wellness4LifeChiro.com
1:00 AM, Jul. 11, 2011
Michigan, like the nation, is experiencing a troubling increase in prescription drug abuse -- medicines for pain, hyperactivity and anxiety are triggering a rise in emergency hospital visits, overdose deaths and treatment for addiction.
In Michigan, more residents now die from prescription drug abuse than from heroin and cocaine combined, a federal registry shows. In 2009, the latest year data are available, 457 Michiganders died of overdoses from one or more prescription drugs, up from 409 deaths the year before.
"We're seeing an alarming trend that continues to increase," said Larry Scott, manager of the prevention section of Michigan's Bureau of Substance Abuse and Addiction.
Health officials and others say the drugs are easier to get now, and the rise mirrors rocketing rates of prescriptions written by doctors and dentists.
Nearly one in four seeking emergency care in Michigan for the abuse was younger than 25, particularly alarming because prescription drugs are a gateway to heroin and are being mixed by teens and young adults in potentially lethal combinations to get a more intense high, substance abuse experts say.
Parents, friends and doctors can be source of drugs to be abused
Kayla Westerman's entry into the world of drugs started at 13 with the painkiller Vicodin. She got it from a friend.
Others raid parents' and grandparents' medicine cabinets for unused pills, or they trade or sell narcotics prescribed by dentists and doctors.
By high school, Westerman added OxyContin, another prescription painkiller, and her habit grew so costly, she switched to the cheaper street drug heroin at age 15.
The street price for OxyContin ranges from $10 for a 10-milligram pill to $35-$80 for an 80-milligram pill.
Two years later, high on heroin, the teen from Pinckney tried to steal items from a Kohl's department store but was caught and jailed, her first of three sentences for retail fraud. She recently completed a 37-day jail sentence and said she has turned her life around. She credits a Livingston County program that uses drug-diversion money to counsel jail inmates.
"Young kids are dying," she said. "It's not a joke anymore."
Westerman's story mirrors many tales in America's prescription drug epidemic, a problem growing nationwide and particularly prevalent among younger people, according to federal statistics.
More people in Michigan are now dying each year from prescription drug overdoses than from cocaine and heroin combined.
And health and law enforcement officials said they've seen a disturbing trend of deaths from mixing three types of drugs -- ADHD drugs, narcotic painkillers and a muscle relaxant called Soma -- sometimes inducing a fatal coma.
The mixture has been dubbed the Holy Trinity, and health officials in Detroit say the number of reported overdoses in Michigan each year crept up to 104 last year, from 84 in 2007. With more than 69 recorded this year, including two deaths, the number is on track to break last year's record.
In Michigan, the latest data, from 2009, show:
• 457 Michiganders died of overdoses from one or more prescription drugs, up from 409 deaths the year before.
• Michigan's rate of emergency hospital visits for prescription drug abuse and misuse significantly exceeds national rates. Here, 310 of every 100,000 people who go to an emergency department for an overdose are there for prescription drug abuse, compared with a national rate of 238.
• Fatal overdoses of prescription drugs were the second-leading cause of unintentional deaths, after auto accidents. By comparison, 871 people were killed in Michigan car crashes in 2009. Of those accidents, 14% involved drugs or alcohol.
• Abuse of prescription drugs accounts for growing admissions into substance-abuse programs, sometimes again and again.
"We have people in the double digits" for attempts at rehab, said Dr. Mark Menestrina, a substance-abuse physician at Brighton Hospital, a leading treatment center in the region and part of the St. John Providence Health System.
How people get the drugs
Health officials and others said the prescription drug abuse problem closely parallels rocketing rates of prescriptions written by doctors and dentists.
Dentists and oral surgeons may prescribe as many as 20 painkillers for each patient undergoing extensive work, when "probably four or five" might work, said Carol Boyd, a nurse and University of Michigan researcher in teen substance abuse. Prescription drug abuse "is so far off the radar" of many dentists and oral surgeons, she said.
U-M research has found that nonmedical use of prescription drugs among 12th-graders in Michigan is the highest it has been in 15 years, she said.
Some teens try the drugs at "bowl parties, where you put your family's pills in a bowl and help yourself; it's a form of Russian roulette among teenagers," said Susan Smolinske, a Wayne State University pharmacist and professor of pediatrics who directs the Poison Control Center in Detroit.
Others buy drugs for study, test-taking and sleeping, a common problem among college and high school students. Even dental work brings opportunities.
The drugs most in demand
The federal Drug Abuse Warning Network, started in 2003, tracks emerging trends in drug use in America. The Poison Control Center, at Children's Hospital of Michigan, collects the information in Michigan from any hospital that voluntarily provides it.
Prescription drugs that are monitored by federal and state programs because of their high potential for abuse -- including OxyContin, Vicodin, Ritalin, Percocet, fentanyl and methadone -- are the second-leading category of drug abuse after marijuana. They also are the second-leading cause of unintentional deaths, after auto accidents, according to data from a federal registry of drug-related emergency department visits in large metro areas such as Detroit.
"Thirty thousand people a year are dying from prescription drug abuse in America; 10 years ago, it was half that," said Dr. David Kloth, a spokesman for the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.
Nearly one-third of all abused prescription drugs are painkillers sold generically as hydrocodone, and as OxyContin, the leading brand name, according to Michigan data.
Even so, written prescriptions for nearly all other types of controlled drugs also are up in Michigan. Some of the biggest jumps have been for methadone, used for heroin addiction; amphetamines and stimulants such as Ritalin, for hyperactivity, and pain-relievers morphine and fentanyl.
With the increase in the drugs' legal use, access to them has gotten easier through friends, doctors and dentists and, of course, on the street.
"The common thing we hear is that they started using prescription drugs" in middle and high school, said Francine Sumner, the Livingston County probation office who started Project Opiates last year. It has an active public education campaign that taps inmates serving drug-related sentences to talk to the public. Its next forum is 7 p.m. Aug. 17 at Pinckney High School.
More accountability sought
Michigan has a statewide system that tracks prescriptions of controlled drugs. The system monitors all controlled drug prescriptions for more than two days of use that are written outside a hospital in-patient unit or nursing home.
Doctors and pharmacies identified as frequent-prescribers are followed closely, state officials said.
But savvy patients shop for doctors and hospitals. The worst example the Michigan system found was a patient who saw 27 doctors in a month for prescription drugs, said Mike Wissel, who oversees Michigan's controlled-prescription monitoring program.
Many emergency departments and pain doctors have new systems in place to identify drug-seekers. But it can be difficult to distinguish drug-seekers from "others with serious pain conditions," said Dr. Michael Mikhail, regional director for emergency medicine for the St. Joseph Mercy Health System just outside of Ann Arbor.
"Some people are very bold; they'll say, 'I was at Garden City Hospital yesterday for my back pain,' " said Joanne McKay, administrator of emergency services for the Oakwood system. The hospitals in the system now limit most patients to a three-day supply of controlled drugs, and "we are holding our medical staff accountable" for curbing the problem through quarterly data reviews, she said.
Others are calling for more accountability from drug companies.
"We're calling on drug companies to take responsibility for prescription drug abuse the way oil companies have to clean up their messes and auto companies have to improve their products every year," said Dr. Harry Leider, chief medical officer of Ameritox, which makes a new generation of urine drug tests to identify opioid prescription drug abusers.
Test results are fed into a database of 1,000 patients with chronic pain that "tell the doctor exactly what a person is taking," Leider said.
April Vallerand, a Wayne State nurse specializing in chronic pain issues, said other changes under way would require patients who get certain controlled drugs to undergo more-frequent tests. Pharmaceutical companies also are working on new forms of drugs that won't work when crushed and snorted, a method abusers often use to intensify or speed a drug's effect.
"We're all in limbo waiting to see what the companies come up with," she said.Pain specialists also are demanding more health care accountability. They lobbied Congress in Washington, D.C., last month for legislation requiring health care professionals to receive specialized training to prescribe controlled substances.
The problem will take years to fix, most specialists agree -- even in places such as Livingston County, which began extensive public education programs after 22 people there died of prescription drug or heroin overdoses in 2009. Livingston officials are working with several other counties to help them develop similar programs.
"This is killing people alarmingly," said Sumner, the Livingston County probation officer.
"Certainly alcohol does, too. But the number in just one county is too much. So many people have their heads in the sand and think it doesn't happen."
http://www.freep.com/article/20110711/NEWS06/107110334/Prescription-drug-deaths-soar-Michigan?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
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