I have heard that some providers and others are questioning if there is still a need for Hepatitis C support groups. While I agree these groups are no longer needed for hand holding purposes as they were in the interferon era, they now have taken on a new look. These are some of the reasons I believe there is still a very important role for these groups.
 
 As I travel the country training people, I see the lack of education about Hepatitis C, both from patients, as well as providers, particularly in rural areas.  This is why I now refer to them as Educational Support Groups.
For those of us who experienced treatment before the DAA’s, the side effects of today are minimal. But for those who are treatment naive, for some, side effects exist.  While the treatments may be for a shorter time, some patients still need help in dealing with having Hepatitis C. 

Even after cure, I am seeing some patients return to groups stating that they are experiencing post treatment issues, both physically and psychologically. For some they are not aware that they need to follow up, for those with cirrhosis knowing they should be having an Ultra sound done every six or twelve months. These are some of the things patients have told me they have learned by attending a group not from their provider.

For those aware there is a cure, but have no access to treatment due to restrictions, this has impacted them psychologically. They feel “stigma” now more than ever. I have even had a few folks say it makes them feel "unworthy".  This is to me is heartbreaking. 

For those who do not have access right now, it is a good source for how one can maintain their health while awaiting treatment.  For those who have cured, ensuring they stay cured and healthy.

When working with people who inject drugs, I have heard too many times that they are not aware that they can become REINFECTED once cured. This message must be told loud and clear. Many are not aware that the virus can live on equipment.

​There is a generation of young people who have become infected with Hepatitis C through use of injecting opioids and heroin sharing needles. More education in regard to transmission should be included in these groups.

The LGBTQ community are sharing needles for hormones and steroids. We need to be educating them.

Women of child bearing age need to be educated on vertical transmission of Hepatitis C.

​Support groups can be a good source to find patients who may want to become advocates for their own health, as well as for others who cannot speak for themselves. Part of the group can be demonstrations to patients on the few easy steps it takes to call their local and state politician’s office to help educate them on Hepatitis C. It is a good way to show patients how their voice matters!

I strongly urge those who are looking for education and support to join a group whether it is on line, in person, or thru tele-support. 

If your organization, hospital or clinic is interested in training for facilitating and setting up a group, HCMSG can be instrumental in helping.  (Free of charge) The Hepatitis C Education and Support Group Assistance Program. http://www.hepatitiscmsg.org/the-hepatitis-c-education-and-support-group-assistance-program.html

For Providers: http://www.hepatitiscmsg.org/healthcare-provider-support-and-education-program.html

We Must Make Sure that Patients Never Give Up Hope! 

Ronni Marks-Founder/ED, Patient Advocate, The Hepatitis C Mentor and Support Group- HCMSG
 

​Marc Lewis-the guardian
Never mind the ‘war on drugs’ or laying all blame with pharmas, this epidemic exists because millions live in a world without hope, certainty and structure 

• Marc Lewis is a neuroscientist and author of The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease

The number one killer of Americans under the age of 50 isn’t cancer, or suicide, or road traffic accidents. It’s drug overdoses. They have quadrupled since 1999. More than 52,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year. Even in the UK, where illegal drug use is on the decline, overdose deaths are peaking, having grown by 10% from 2015 to 2016 alone. The “war on drugs” continues – but it’s a war we’re losing.
Most drug-related deaths result from the use of opioids, the molecules that are marketed as painkillers by pharmaceutical companies and heroin by drug lords. Opioids, whatever their source, bond with receptors all over our bodies. Opioid receptors evolved to protect us from panic, anxiety and pain – a considerate move by the oft-callous forces of evolution. But the gentle impact of natural opioids, produced by our own bodies, resembles a summer breeze compared to the hurricane of physiological disruption caused by drugs designed to mimic their function.
Most street opiates (including heroin) are now laced or replaced with fentanyl – the drug that killed the singer Prince – and its analogues, far more powerful than heroin and so cheap that drug-dealing profits are skyrocketing at about the same rate as overdose deaths. The UK’s National Crime Agency said that traces of fentanyl have been found in 46 people who died this year. Users don’t know what they’re getting and they take too much. Fentanyl is recognised as a primary driver of the overdose epidemic.
Dozens of UK drug deaths linked to opioid that killed singer Prince
Society’s response has been understandably desperate but generally wrongheaded. We start by blaming addicts. Then we blame the pharmaceutical companies for developing and marketing painkillers. We blame doctors, for overprescribing opiates, which pressures them to underprescribe, which drives patients to street drugs – cheaper, home delivery via the internet, and zero quality control. We say we’re going to reignite the war on drugs, recognised by experts as a colossal failure from the 1930s onward. We also continue to view addiction as a chronic brain disease, so the benefits of education, social support, psychological intervention, and personal empowerment receive far too little attention. Yes, addiction involves brain change, but ongoing medicalisation does little to combat it.There has been some progress: There are pockets of activity here and there where prescribed opiates – like methadone and Suboxone – are made more easily available to addicts. That’s a good thing, because increasingly desperate addicts are often driven to the street, where they’re most likely die. The availability of naloxone, which works as an antidote, is slowly wending its way through the drug policy jungle, providing a simple resource to deal with an overdose on the spot. But in most segments of most communities in the US and elsewhere, it is still too difficult to obtain.
There are smarter answers at hand – but also smarter questions to be asked. The overdose epidemic compels us to face one of the darkest corners of modern human experience head on, to stop wasting time blaming the players and start looking directly at the source of the problem. What does it feel like to be a youngish human growing up in the early 21st century? Why are we so stressed out that our internal supply of opioids isn’t enough?

​TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/10/people-dying-opiate-overdoses-society-drugs?CMP=share_btn_link

 
New Guideline: Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Infection with Direct-Acting Antivirals (DAAs)

 
The Office of the Medical Director, New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) AIDS Institute (AI), is pleased to announce the publication of a new clinical practice guideline: Treatment of Chronic HCV Infection with Direct-Acting Antivirals (DAAs). 
 
Developed by the NYSDOH AI Hepatitis C Virus Infection Guideline Committee, this guideline provides clinicians in New York State with the information and evidence-based recommendations they need to treat patients with chronic HCV infection. 
 
The availability of safe and effective oral DAA regimens has revolutionized HCV care for many people with chronic HCV infection. To benefit from treatment, candidates must be: screened for and diagnosed with HCV infection, engaged in care, and have access to treatment that is managed by an informed clinician. Toward that end, this new guideline covers all aspects of HCV care, with the aims of increasing the use of curative DAA therapies among NYS residents living with HCV infection and reducing the growing burden of mortality associated with chronic HCV infection. 
 
http://www.hivguidelines.org/hcv-infection/treatment-with-daa/#
 
G

Jay Fallis, Special to the Packet & Times
​Wednesday, July 5, 2017 6:47:37 EDT PM

Following the federal government's announcement that approval for supervised drug-injection sites would be made more obtainable, the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre (SHCHC) in Ottawa became one of the first to submit an application. After receiving confirmation provincial funding would be provided earlier this year, the centre is anxiously awaiting final federal approval.
I visited the SHCHC to speak with Rob Boyd. He is a former Orillia resident, and director of the Oasis Program largely responsible for the SHCHC's drug-treatment services. We sat down, in the room where the supervised injection site is planned to be established, to discuss what will be the centre's newest initiative.
"Once we have our injection service up and running "¦ people will be able to connect with case-management services, they'll be able to go to the drop in afterwards to connect with the staff, and go to the clinic if they have any other health concerns. Or, if the nurse who's in here identifies something that they might want to have checked out, they will immediately be able to connect with the primary care services; they are going to be available right across the hall," Boyd said.
When consuming hard drugs on the street, away from medical care, users can put themselves at high risk of overdose and death. By promoting safer drug use on location, emergencies will be less common and handled more swiftly. Additionally, users would be exposed to a host of services that could help to treat their addiction and other medical and socioeconomic problems.
It was also clear from our conversation that in order to deal with this problem effectively in Canada, focus needed to be put on managing and decreasing use, not just eliminating it.
"Very few people actually achieve abstinence. But, to make that the goal for everybody actually sets people up for failure "¦ So, this idea that we have to completely eradicate drug use, it's not even an aspirational goal; it's a delusional goal."
Drug use is a reality our society will always face. If we are to deal with drug use in a meaningful way, we need to change our approach to it.

​TO CONTINUE READING: http://www.orilliapacket.com/2017/07/05/perception-of-drug-use-needs-to-change?utm_source=addThis&utm_medium=addthis_button_

Jay Fallis grew up just outside of Orillia and is passionate about Canadian politics. He has a master's in political science from the University of Toronto. He can be reached at jjmfallis@gmail.com.

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
​​ By JAMILA MICHENER and JULILLY KOHLER-HAUSMANN JUNE 28, 2017
​

The Senate Republicans’ stalled effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is not the only profound threat to our health care system. If Gov. Scott Walker gets his wish, Wisconsin will be the first state that requires adults without children to undergo drug testing if they want to receive Medicaid. Other states could follow his plan.
This would tie lifesaving health care benefits to government procedures that force people to submit to degrading invasions of privacy. Of all the ways to help Americans with drug problems, threatening their Medicaid eligibility is among the worst options.
Much attention has rightly focused on the Senate bill to reduce federal Medicaid spending by as much as $772 billion over the next decade, which would result in 20 million fewer enrollees. But budget cuts are not the only way to weaken Medicaid and limit access to health care.
Indeed, President Trump’s insistence on giving “our great state governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid” does just that. While flexibility has at times allowed some states to expand services, others like Arizona, Kentucky and Maine are now attempting to impose conditions, such as time limits or work requirements, that would shrink the program. Because these reforms are more palatable than draconian cuts, they can easily slip beneath the radar and quietly imperil Medicaid’s long-term viability.
​It may seem like giving states the power to drug test Medicaid recipients is reasonable. Governor Walker’s administration claims that doing so will “help people get healthy so they can get back in the work force.” And drug screening shouldn’t be a problem for people who are abiding by the law, right?
Yet the history of public assistance policies shows that measures like Governor Walker’s can catalyze a vicious cycle of stigmatization and program retrenchment. Traditional cash assistance programs lost popularity as they incorporated practices like fingerprinting, surveillance, time limits and work requirements, and as political rhetoric linked the program with racist representations of African-American mothers.
In Wisconsin, where 33 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries are black or Hispanic, the spectacle of calling for drug testing marks people who rely on the government as inherently suspect. When this happens, the public becomes less willing to support such programs and people become less willing to use them, even in times of desperate need. All of this makes the program increasingly vulnerable to further cuts and eventual dismemberment.
 While no state has been allowed to drug test Medicaid beneficiaries, politicians have initiated similar policies with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The results are resoundingly clear: Drug testing is costly, invasive and ineffective. In recent years, seven states with drug-testing programs for T.A.N.F. have spent over $1 million, only to find that in six of them, fewer than 1 percent of beneficiaries tested positive, compared with about 10 percent of the general population.
There is no reason to believe that Medicaid recipients are more likely to abuse drugs than the general population. And the risks of drug testing in a health care program are unique. People in need of substance abuse treatment may respond to this policy by avoiding Medicaid altogether. This is a dangerous possibility at a time when more Americans are dying of drug overdose than in car accidents.
In fact, one of the most effective strategies for mitigating the harms of drug use has been the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, which dramatically increased the number of people with health coverage and required that states provide substance abuse treatment.
Under Wisconsin’s proposal, people who use drugs will not automatically lose benefits, but they will be forced to undergo screening, testing or treatment, or all three, to maintain eligibility, which risks driving people from the program. Given the current opioid crises, states should not erect any barriers to health care access or treatment.
And drug testing doesn’t hurt only people who use drugs. Associating all Medicaid beneficiaries with a scorned social group, drug users, poses a danger to everyone’s health. Such stigmatization can prevent people who are eligible for assistance from using it and inhibit those in need from seeking medical treatment.
Drug testing also jeopardizes our democracy. For many of the more than 70 million Americans who rely on Medicaid, state-run programs, like Wisconsin’s Badgercare, are their closest contact with the state. This is how people learn firsthand about government. For example, Medicaid recipients are more likely to participate in elections and other forms of politics when they live in states that have expanded coverage or that offer a wider scope of benefits, like dental and vision services. The opposite is true for beneficiaries who live in states that have restricted benefits and services.
1COMMENTMany Medicaid beneficiaries already feel stigmatized. A woman we met in Chicago was an uninsured diabetic in her early 60s who desperately needed health care. But she was treated so badly when she applied for Medicaid that she walked away.
Drug testing threatens a huge portion of the country. Twenty percent of Americans already depend on Medicaid, and millions more are only one bad break away from the prospect of urinating in a cup to prove that they deserve health care.


Continue reading the main story
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/opinion/drug-test-poor-medicaid-walker-trump.html?emc=edit_th_20170628&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=35747334


Jamila Michener is an assistant professor of government at Cornell, where Julilly Kohler-Hausmann is an assistant professor of history.

​

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The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST
​Nicholas Kristof JUNE 22, 2017

About as many Americans are expected to die this year of drug overdoses as died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.
For more than 100 years, death rates have been dropping for Americans — but now, because of opioids, death rates are rising again. We as a nation are going backward, and drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.
“There’s no question that there’s an epidemic and that this is a national public health emergency,” Dr. Leana Wen, the health commissioner of Baltimore, told me. “The number of people overdosing is skyrocketing, and we have no indication that we’ve reached the peak.”
Yet our efforts to address this scourge are pathetic.
We responded to World War II with the storming of Normandy, and to Sputnik with our moon shot. Yet we answer this current national menace with … a Republican plan for health care that would deprive millions of insurance and lead to even more deaths!
  TO CONTINUE READING:​ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/opinion/opioid-epidemic-health-care-bill.html?emc=edit_th_20170622&nl=todaysh

STAT NEWS By MEGAN THIELKING @meggophone JUNE 19, 2017

Patients with opioid use disorder are much more likely than the general population to have a host of other health conditions, including hepatitis C, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety.
That’s according to a new analysis from health care company Amino, which culled data from the claims of 3.1 million privately insured patients between 2014 and 2016. It calculated the frequency of a slew of health conditions — from back pain to binge drinking — in patients diagnosed with opioid use disorder. Then, it compared those rates to the general patient population.
Here’s what it found.
​TO CONTINUE: https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/19/opioid-abuse-health-conditions/ 

THE    BY RYAN CLARY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/17/17 12:00 PM EDT
HILL

These days, it feels like there’s no shortage of threats. Fears of national security breaches, terrorism, global warming and more all play in surround sound in the media and on Capitol Hill.
With all of these dangers dominating the news cycle and the congressional calendar, it’s easy to forget the silent threats that also deserve our attention. One of these noiseless threats is viral hepatitis.


Viral hepatitis isn’t in on the evening news every day, but it kills more Americans every year than HIV and all other infectious diseases combined — and it’s on the rise.

An estimated five million people are living with hepatitis B or hepatitis C in the United States. The diseases, which cause cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver and liver failure, directly lead to 21,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. Viral hepatitis is also the leading cause of liver cancer —the fastest-growing cause of cancer mortality in the U.S. which kills twice as many Americans now than it did in the 1980s.
Not only is viral hepatitis killing more people; it’s also spreading.

​TO CONTINUE http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/338200-in-an-uncertain-world-viral-hepatitis-is-one-problem-we-can

AARP Foundation
Health,Drugs And Supplement
​Special Report: The Opioid Epidemic

AMERICANS OVER 50 are using narcotic pain pills in surprisingly high numbers, and many are becoming addicted. While media attention has focused on younger people buying illegal opioids on the black market, dependence can also start with a legitimate prescription from a doctor: A well-meant treatment for knee surgery or chronic back troubles is often the path to a deadly outcome.
Consider these numbers:
• Almost one-third of all Medicare patients — nearly 12 million people — were prescribed opioid painkillers by their physicians in 2015.
• That same year, 2.7 million Americans over age 50 abused painkillers, meaning they took them for reasons or in amounts beyond what their doctors prescribed.
• The hospitalization rate due to opioid abuse has quintupled for those 65 and older in the past two decades.
From pain to addictionBehind the numbers are the shattered lives of many who never dreamed they'd become drug abusers.
Cindy Thoma, 63, who owns and operates a bookstore in Muskegon, Mich., became addicted to opioid pain pills after being injured in a car crash with a drunk driver who ran a red light. "I was running away from my pain," she says. "I did well at first. But I began to take them sooner, which meant I needed more. I needed more because my body got used to the narcotics."
The way opioids are often prescribed, dependence can set in after just a few days, experts say. "Within one week you've made that person physiologically dependent on the drug, meaning they feel some discomfort or side effects when they stop using," says Andrew Kolodny, executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing.
"I was very, very sick. My mind was not right for a long, long time."

—Cindy Thoma, 63, sober for five years following an eight-year opioid addictionThoma stopped abusing opioids after years of struggle. But for too many, their stories end badly.
Nearly 14,000 people age 45-plus died from an opioid overdose in 2015 — 42 percent of all such deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The actual number is likely much higher. Overdoses in older people are often mislabeled as heart failure or falls, Kolodny says.
"The deaths of older people are an untold part of it," says Jeremiah Gardner, public affairs manager of the Hazelden Betty Ford Institute for Recovery Advocacy. Gardner speaks from personal experience: His mother died two years ago from an overdose after becoming dependent on painkillers prescribed for chronic pain and a surgery. She was 59.So how did we get here?
KEVIN J. MIYAZAKI
Cynthia Thoma is the owner of Gracie's Book Store in Muskegon, Mich.

The sin of overprescription"We overestimated the benefits of opioids and underestimated the risks," says Deborah Dowell, senior medical adviser at the CDC. "We assumed without adequate evidence that they would work as well long term as they did in the short term."
Pharmaceutical companies have marketed opioids aggressively to physicians, especially after the Federal Drug Administration approved OxyContin in 1995. "The campaign that led to the increase in opioid prescriptions was multifaceted," Kolodny says.
For example, Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, held pain management conferences in states like Florida that were attended by more than 5,000 doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
So beginning in the late '90s, when older patients suffering from chronic conditions like arthritis or back issues asked for pain relief, their doctors innocently wrote prescriptions for OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet and other opioid painkillers.
By 2012, addiction rates and the number of overdose deaths had soared. In that year, 259 million opioid prescriptions were written — enough for every adult in the U.S. to have one.
 "Many doctors still think seniors can't get addicted." 

Andrew Kolodny, executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid PrescribingThe trade group representing most opioid manufacturers, PhRMA, did not return calls for comment. Purdue Pharma said in a statement, "The opioid crisis is among our nation's top health challenges," and the company is committed to being "part of the solution."
The teaching in medical school used to be that opioid medication is not addictive as long as it is given to someone in legitimate pain — something we now know not to be true, says Vivek Murthy, who left the job of U.S. surgeon general in April.
It did not help that in 2009 the American Geriatric Society encouraged physicians to use opioids to treat moderate to severe pain in older patients, citing evidence that they were less susceptible to addiction. Though the society revised those guidelines, the myth persists. "Many doctors still think seniors can't get addicted," Kolodny says.
Last August, then-Surgeon General Murthy wrote a letter to every doctor in America. "Nearly two decades ago, we were encouraged to be more aggressive about treating pain, often without enough training and support to do so safely," the letter said.
"This coincided with heavy marketing of opioids to doctors. Many of us were even taught — incorrectly — that opioids are not addictive when used as pain relief. The results have been devastating."
The CDC issued guidelines last year recommending that doctors drug-test their patients before and during opioid therapy, to ensure that the medications are taken properly.
But doctors still overprescribe. A 2016 survey by the nonprofit National Safety Council found that 99 percent of physicians prescribe opioids beyond the dosage limit of three days recommended by the CDC.
Thoma had no trouble getting opioids. "I could get them from different doctors, and there was no communication between them about what they were prescribing," she says. "You could get it fairly easily." In eight years, she lost her job and home and went bankrupt. Finally, she forced herself to stop. "I was very, very sick. My mind was not right for a long, long time."
A need for treatment optionsAs people age, they can become more at risk for dependence or overdoses. To start, they are more likely to have serious pain. Kidney and liver function slows with age, increasing the time drugs remain in the system. And memory loss can make it harder to manage opioid medication effectively.
Solving the problem will require major changes, experts say. There is an urgent need for more treatment centers able to administer to older patients. That includes counseling tailored to older patients. It doesn't work to have "a buttoned-up elderly person sitting next to a guy in his 20s who is pierced and tattooed," says David Frenz, a Minneapolis physician certified in addiction medicine. And doctors need to be trained on medications used to treat opioid addiction, experts say.
There also needs to be a major attitude shift. "Some people still hold the mistaken belief that it's a moral failing instead of a chronic medical condition that requires treatment," says Melinda Campopiano, senior adviser for the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
But there are happy endings.
TO CONTINUE:
:https://www.google.com/search?q=aarp+bulletin+article+re+the+opioid+menace&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS707US707&oq=aa


 

AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that helps people 50 and older improve the quality of their lives.





 


































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HUFFPOST

​The Opioid Epidemic is this Generation’s AIDS EpidemicThThe Opioid Epidemic is this Generation’s AIDS Epidemic

The Unites States of America is facing the worst health care crisis of our nation’s history. Over the past two-year period, more Americans died of opiate addictionthan died in the entire Vietnam War. Drug overdoses now cause more deaths than gun violence and car crashes. In fact, accidental opioid overdoses are responsible for more deaths in 2015 than HIV/AIDS did at the height of the epidemic in 1995.
However, the AIDS epidemic can be the blueprint for the United States approachto the opioid epidemic. Once America became mobilized against AIDS, Congress orchestrated intensive efforts devoted to training and supporting clinicians, many of whom were new to the treatment of viral infections in immunocompromised patients.
Immediately, a collaboration led to one standardized set of treatment guidelines that were implemented through newly formed AIDS Education and Training Centers. Funding was provided to connect patients with capable providers of wrap-around social services supported by grants from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.
Once America becomes mobilized against the heroin epidemic, similarly, social workers, nurse care managers, and outreach workers could be deployed strategically to help obtain substance-abuse treatment in primary care settings, and funding incentives authorized by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), such as health homes and accountable care organizations, could help cover the costs.
The current treatment guidelines for opioid addiction just do not work. Today, thousands of patients receive medical treatment to relieve opioid withdrawal only during brief detoxification admissions, lose their tolerance to opioids and get discharged with referrals to medication-free residential or outpatient care. Of these patients, 70 to 90 percent quickly relapse and face a high risk of overdose death.
On June 5, 2017, the New York Times reported that drug overdose deaths in 2016 would most likely land someplace between 59,000 and 65,000 Americans. That is a 19 percent rise in deaths from the 52,404 recorded in 2015. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50.
But the solution is simple. We need treatment facilities, we need them now, and we need to create a radical model to accomplish the herculean task.
Tim Grover, a Lowell, Massachusetts businessman, buried his 26-year old daughter, Megan in 2014. On Christmas Eve, Megan had to leave a treatment center because of red tape. It is not clear exactly what happened that evening, but it had something to do with insurance mandates for the separation and clarification of detox facilities versus treatment centers.
No joke, it was something along the lines of my friend’s son who first detoxed himself off heroin in the basement of his mother’s house and then pounded the streets looking for a 30-day treatment facility. The only problem, he was shut-out because he had to be “referred by a licensed detox facility.”
He had no choice but to get high, go to a detox and then attempt long term treatment. Desperate, he did just that. But now his mother visits him in the cemetery. The first bag of heroin he bought was Fentanyl, and it ended his life.
Back to Tim Grover and his daughter, Megan. The Christmas Eve debacle wasn’t their first rodeo. After a serious automobile accident when Megan was 17, she was prescribed OxyContin to treat pain from her injuries. That, unfortunately, like so many countless others, rang the bell that sounded rehab after rehab and relapse after relapse.
But on the night of Dec. 29, 2014, Tim received a phone call from Megan. She was extremely happy. There was a bed available in a Boston treatment facility the next morning. Tim told Megan he loved her and went to bed at rest.
Tomorrow never came. Tim Grover buried Megan on Jan. 5, 2015, and 24 hours later, Tim purchased a vacant Riverside School in Lowell, Massachusetts and opened the residential treatment home for women, Megan’s House, on Sep. 30, 2015. Tim Grover was angry at God, angry at the system that failed his daughter, and felt socially responsible for helping other young women like Megan.
It is time to be socially responsible and mobilize America against this health crisis. We can never Make America Great Again if we just stand by and watch the impact heroin is having on poverty, joblessness, crime, and the deteriorating communities of the Heartland of our great nation.

TO CONTINUE:

:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heroin-now-the-leading-cause-of-death-in-americans_us_593428e6e4b062a6ac0ad0c6




e Unites States of America is facing the worst health care crisis of our nation’s history. Over the past two-year period,