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Thread: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

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    Senior Member Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute"> AtlantaDan's Avatar

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    NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    When Falcons center Alex Mack plays in the Super Bowl on a broken leg or Ben returns the week after Burfict injures his shoulder to throw great passes the next week no surprise it involves more than "toughing it out." Documents filed in a lawsuit shows NFL team docs pass out painkillers like M&Ms. But we all know Goodell would never lie when he says the NFL is about player safety first and that the league needs to make sure use of marijuana is not tolerated.

    Long article linked below gets into the details.

    NFL abuse of painkillers and other drugs described in court filings
    National Football League teams violated federal laws governing prescription drugs, disregarded guidance from the Drug Enforcement Administration on how to store, track, transport and distribute controlled substances, and plied their players with powerful painkillers and anti-inflammatories each season, according to sealed court documents contained in a federal lawsuit filed by former players....

    One drug in particular is highlighted throughout the lawsuit as a staple for NFL teams. Toradol is available only with a prescription. Though not addictive, it is powerful enough that many countries only administer it in hospitals and only after surgery. The lawsuit claims teams would freely offer it each Sunday to numb existing injuries but also in anticipation of the inevitable aches and pains accrued each Sunday.

    A 2002 study found that 28 of the 30 teams that responded to a questionnaire administered Toradol injections — 15 players each game day on average.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...=.302ef8fa6b34

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    Ghost Poster Array title="ALLD has a reputation beyond repute"> ALLD's Avatar

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    Re: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    This has been going on since drugs were invented. It only gets interesting when Doc Ellis pitches a no-hitter on acid. The greenies in the clubhouse are boring.
    All Defense!

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    Re: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    Quote Originally Posted by ALLD View Post
    This has been going on since drugs were invented. It only gets interesting when Doc Ellis pitches a no-hitter on acid. The greenies in the clubhouse are boring.
    So were concussions - litigation risk and public perception makes what was once acceptable treatment and discarding of players once they were used up no longer tolerated. Once again the refusal of the NFL to pay the players post-retirement medical bills leads to a lawsuit that is going to cause bigger problems for Goodell & Friends.

    Former Steelers center Jeff Hartings started using painkillers early in his football career, a practice that only increased over the course of his 11-year, 162-game career. By the time he was 33 and playing his final season with the Steelers, he was taking pain-killing shots on a weekly basis, just to stay on the field.

    “It was the direct reason I retired,” said Mr. Hartings, 44. “I had to take so many drugs. I knew it wasn’t healthy.” Mr. Hartings described the National Football League as a culture with rampant use of painkillers

    Among the drugs listed in the lawsuit that teams supplied to players was Toradol, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug popular among players for its ability to deaden pain before games.

    “You find out you can get a T-shot (Toradol) and it’ll take your pain away on game day,” Mr. Hartings said. “It definitely takes the pain away for that three, four or five hours on game day, but you pay for it the next day. And the pain is four to five times worse.

    “From my own experience, the headaches and the issues I had on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays had to do with taking so many painkillers on game day. You have such a letdown in the following days because you’re on these drugs. Your body feels like it’s crawling in its own skin. You were coming down because you were so drugged up on game days.” ...

    Mr. Hartings said he believes this lawsuit — like the NFL concussion lawsuit that netted nearly $1 billion for retired players dealing with head injuries — is not for former players to get rich.

    “Players just want to get their medical bills paid,” he said.


    http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/s...s/201703110064

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    Senior Member Array title="Born2Steel has a reputation beyond repute"> Born2Steel's Avatar

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    Re: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    Some players understand what they are CHOOSING to do to their body up front and are fine with the consequences after. Some players either didn't fully understand what a career in pro football would mean physically, or decided after that they are no longer happy with those stakes, and are now suing. Football did not just recently become a violent sport. If people take a real look at the progression of the NFL, there are miles of evidence that show how the game has become safer. I work in medical imaging so I'm around xrays constantly. It used to be a slow, painful, death sentence to be around ionizing radiation as much as I am. Is it still dangerous? Of course it is. But nowhere near the level it was 10-20 years ago. There are still the same risks, everybody has more info now and can better make informed decisions. The league should not need rules, at this point, to keep players from taking too many painkillers. Hartings even says,"it works for those hours but then it's 4-5 times worse". At some point you have to be a man and take responsibility. Did Alzado's decline and death go for nothing on the steroid front? That is good info and needs to be heeded. How many heroin addicts die daily and allwe can say is that they knew better and this was inevitable. Enough litigation already.

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    Re: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    Quote Originally Posted by Born2Steel View Post
    Some players understand what they are CHOOSING to do to their body up front and are fine with the consequences after. Some players either didn't fully understand what a career in pro football would mean physically, or decided after that they are no longer happy with those stakes, and are now suing. Football did not just recently become a violent sport. If people take a real look at the progression of the NFL, there are miles of evidence that show how the game has become safer. I work in medical imaging so I'm around xrays constantly. It used to be a slow, painful, death sentence to be around ionizing radiation as much as I am. Is it still dangerous? Of course it is. But nowhere near the level it was 10-20 years ago. There are still the same risks, everybody has more info now and can better make informed decisions. The league should not need rules, at this point, to keep players from taking too many painkillers. Hartings even says,"it works for those hours but then it's 4-5 times worse". At some point you have to be a man and take responsibility. Did Alzado's decline and death go for nothing on the steroid front? That is good info and needs to be heeded. How many heroin addicts die daily and allwe can say is that they knew better and this was inevitable. Enough litigation already.
    Responsibility includes teams not violating federal drug laws.

    Federal law lays out strict guidelines for how teams can handle and dispense prescription drugs. The sealed court filing, which includes testimony and documents by team and league medical personnel, describes multiple instances in which team and league officials were made aware of abuses, record-keeping problems and even violations of federal law and were either slow in responding or failed to comply....

    In August 2009, for example, Paul Sparling, the Cincinnati Bengals’ head trainer, wrote in an email: “Can you have your office fax a copy of your DEA certificate to me? I need it for my records when the NFL ‘pill counters’ come to see if we are doing things right. Don’t worry, I’m pretty good at keeping them off the trail!”...

    The league didn’t bring teams into compliance until 2015, when it instituted the “visiting team medical liaison program,” which allows team physicians to use local doctors to prescribe and distribute controlled substances while on the road. The new program called for a stark departure in the way drugs were administered before, during and after games — and was met with resistance....

    The program did not take effect until 2015, after the DEA again applied pressure. According to the deposition of Yates, the Steelers’ doctor cited in the lawsuit, the impetus was a series of DEA raids conducted in October 2014 to see whether teams were traveling with controlled substances. The lawsuit states that NFL teams were tipped off by a DEA employee in advance of the raids, and “not surprisingly, none of them were carrying controlled substances.”


    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...=.751e4d5153e7

    Doctors who overprescribe painkillers such as oxy do not get far with the defense it is the responsibility of the patient not to take it. With the feds allegedly cracking down on opioid abuse that is ravaging communities the NFL may have a real problem with its decades long business model of doing whatever it takes to numb out the pain to get players on the field on Sunday.

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    Senior Member Array title="Born2Steel has a reputation beyond repute"> Born2Steel's Avatar

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    Re: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    I get that. I'm not saying that the NFL has zero liability and doesn't share responsibility. I'm mostly talking about the example above. Hartings knew. Plain and simply, he knew what he was doing, did it anyway, and now wants to sue. The players now have the info, on concussions, on steroids, on painkillers, on deflating footballs, etc. Live with the informed decisions you, the player, make. Stop suing because you made the wrong choice. Not the same thing as a dr, and the general public.

    There was an interview with the player's union rep, forget his name. Anyway, he said all the progress they have made with player safety and such, has come from litigation. That's because the league forces it to go that far. We all know that's how corporations operate. They will pay/make the changes, but you must make the courts order them to. I wish it wasn't so, but it is the world. That part I agree on. However, when a grown man, with a college level education, says somebody else is responsible for his choices, that is as much of the problem as well.

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    Re: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    Quote Originally Posted by Born2Steel View Post
    I get that. I'm not saying that the NFL has zero liability and doesn't share responsibility. I'm mostly talking about the example above. Hartings knew. Plain and simply, he knew what he was doing, did it anyway, and now wants to sue. The players now have the info, on concussions, on steroids, on painkillers, on deflating footballs, etc. Live with the informed decisions you, the player, make. Stop suing because you made the wrong choice. Not the same thing as a dr, and the general public.

    There was an interview with the player's union rep, forget his name. Anyway, he said all the progress they have made with player safety and such, has come from litigation. That's because the league forces it to go that far. We all know that's how corporations operate. They will pay/make the changes, but you must make the courts order them to. I wish it wasn't so, but it is the world. That part I agree on. However, when a grown man, with a college level education, says somebody else is responsible for his choices, that is as much of the problem as well.
    Hartings did not sue. Ex-Steelers named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Glen Edwards, who played for the Steelers from 1971-78; Marvin Kellum (1974-76); Troy Sadowski (1997); and Jeffrey Graham (1991-93).

    http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/s...s/201703110064

    Agreed on personal responsibility, but since the teams obviously just want the players on the field it would seem to me the team doc who knows more about the long term risks of prescribing meds such as Toradol and Vicodin arguably has a professional obligation as a licensed physician, not just a moral responsibility, to not enable drug abuse or quit that job.

    Docs who operate pill mills for regular patients go to jail. Putting someone in jail or pulling their medical license might be the only way to address this rather than just impose fines or write a check to settle the case, given that the NFL paid a billion in the concussion settlement and the Miami QB who Dupree drilled in January was right back in the game under the concussion protocol that appears to be a joke.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Array title="Born2Steel has a reputation beyond repute"> Born2Steel's Avatar

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    Re: NFL Doctors Painkillers Lawsuit

    Maybe Hartings himself isn't listed in the lawsuit, ok. Point remains the same. Freaking lawyers!

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