Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for his passion and hard work on the Energy and Commerce Committee. We know this is a life- and-death issue. This is one of those things where Members are coming together from both sides of the aisle to deal with. Let me lay out the background here. How did we get here? About 80 percent of addictions begin with a prescription. When we see what has happened here on this chart of heroin increased use and prescription opioids, there is something that occurred at the beginning of this millennium where things really began to take off. On this next poster, seeing here how this is increasing at such a rate--about 9 or 10 percent--it is understandable you are looking at some of these rates increasing severalfold just in the last decade, with increasing jumps. As fentanyl has gotten here, it is even worse. Back in 1980, Dr. Hershel Jick, a Boston doctor, wrote a letter in The New England Journal of Medicine, and he said this: ``Out of nearly 40,000 patients given powerful pain drugs in a Boston hospital, only four addictions were documented.'' Since he published that letter, it has been cited again about 600 times. Doctors, academics, pharmaceutical companies, and others use it as evidence of the unlikeliness of developing addiction. But it has been criticized soundly, saying that never should have been said.…”