Michael Jackson is Not Alone

It appeared that Michael Jackson’s problem was a combination of pain and sleeplessness, along with a history of pain medication abuse.  His position and wealth allowed him atypical access to his own anesthesiologist, and he possessed an array of powerful knock-out meds that apparently did him in.  Certainly the problem must have been mostly Michael and one bad-apple physician.  Well, not so fast.

In a surprising expose of the medical profession’s dirty laundry, it is pointed out in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings¹ that anesthesiologists as a group are the kingpins in the drug abuse world of prescription medication.  Although they account for only 5% of physicians, they “constitute 13% to 15% of populations receiving treatment for chemical dependency in centers specializing in the treatment of physicians and in programs that monitor such physicians after treatment.”

What kind of a drug underground do these addictions foster?  Maybe it wasn’t uncommon at all for Michael Jackson to link into a network of licensed addicts more than ready to accept money from another customer.  It appears that Michael Jackson’s personal problems are shining a light on the tip of a very uncomfortable iceberg.  As such, his death appears to be the symptom of a problem that pervades the medical community.

The Mayo Clinic Proceedings also reports that doctors in general are likely to become addicted to medications² at some point in their careers at a rate somewhere between 10% to 20%.  That is absolutely astounding.  Up to 1 in 5 doctors is likely to be or become a prescription medication drug addict!

And the rabbit hole goes far deeper, with physicians massively over-prescribing antidepressants, antipsychotics, ADD meds, cholesterol drugs, bone drugs, acid blocking medications, and many others.  Our elderly and children have been turned into pill-popping zombies – fueling a dramatic rise in health care costs for everyone, millions of injuries per year, and over one hundred thousand lost lives every year.

And now we get some new insight on a big factor that is part of the source of this problem: a legion of medication-addicted physicians with a pad of paper and pen in their hands.