By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The Seattle Times reports hundreds of people die each year and more often than any others, the poor pay the price as the state cuts costs by steering patients to an inexpensive narcotic painkiller it insists is safe.
Two Seattle Times reporters write about accidental overdoes of methadone, a drug often prescribed for chronic pain which is described as cheap and also unpredictable.
The Seattle Times comprehensive Sunday story focuses in on a “preferred” drug list that took effect in 2004 for doctors prescribing to those covered under injured workers claims, state workers and Medicaid.
That was the same year complaints began about Toledo’s Dr. Lance Christansen, whose license was taken away over a string of patient deaths primarily attributed by authorities to over-prescribing methadone.
In May, June, August and September of that year, four Lewis County residents died from accidental overdoses of methadone.
Among those who raised alarms about Christiansen, was the state Department of Labor and Industries, sparked by a call from the Lewis County Coroner’s Office about suspicious deaths.
In one of those deaths, the state alleged Christiansen prescribed five to 10 times the appropriate amount.
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Read The Seattle Times story “State pushes drug that saves money, costs lives” from Sunday December 11, 2011, here
Read “Toledo doctor was working on ‘new’ therapy” from June 18, 2005 in The (Centralia) Chronicle, here. (Readers must pay to read unless they subscribe)