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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Celebrities and Athletes Drug Abuse is Killing Little Kids

Preface

Increasingly, celebrities and nationally recognized athletes are being identified and arrested for abuse or possession of growth hormone. Undoubtedly, there are many others abusing this drug with false ideas of endless youth or muscle strength.


To all those who abuse this drug,

To those who report this drug only for its cosmetic use without also validating its real medical importance, &

To those who deny medically ill children and adults their right to insurance payment for this treatment-

STOP!

You are killing little kid’s chances and affected adults rights for a healthy life!

Hidden in the shadows of our world are little known, but very powerful people who control everything in our lives. Their decisions control what we see on television all the way down to the items we have to choose from in the grocery store. To some extent, everything we think we have a choice of- is already pre-chosen for us. And that is probably a good thing (to an extent). The world needs some type of order and control in order to be a peaceful place. We, the regular "normal" working people, get it. But when we are quietly being manipulated at the expense of our own children’s health and well being…we no longer sit still nor remain quiet.

It seems as if these select people sitting at the top of large corporations have gained enough confidence to unequivocally say…growth hormone is not medically needed for anyone- deny all claims. "They" are probably thrilled each time an athlete or celebrity is arrested for possession or abuse of this drug. If the public is against this drug,  they can "get away with" denying insurance payments for truly needy children and or adults. After all, insurance companies save thousands of dollars for each day and each child they deny. This happens each day without any thought to the children's bodies ravaged by a lack of medical attention along the way. I can imagine their thoughts…it’s a rare condition, how many people will rally to their defense if we deny some kids? It’s not like we are denying something that they think is life saving.

For parents of growth affected children, this trend is beyond alarming. Denying medically needy children growth hormone treatments can shorten their life spans, cause heart, lung and bone problems, invoke osteoporosis and decrease the quality of their health in many other ways throughout their lifetime. (This by the way, leads to more insurance claims down the road which could have been avoided. But that is not important to those watching this years “bottom line”!)

Growth hormone is a crucial hormone for every living creature. For those whose bodies cannot make or use it properly, they actually rely upon this medicine for life. The impact of going without it may not be immediate in all cases but rather it would be a slow, torturous debilitating death. Some nationally syndicated news programs have implied that growth hormone is used as a cosmetic drug which is used primarily to give short children an edge of being taller. Additionally, many newspapers, magazines, and other media frequently report about the latest scandal of celebrities and athletes drug abuse. Thankfully, some true journalists on local levels have performed their due diligence and reported the facts about how essential this medical treatment is for children and ill adults.

So to get to the bottom of this medical insurance problem we had to wonder, who does this sensationalized reporting of growth hormone abuse benefit? It does not benefit those truly in need of this medicine, it does not benefit the poor sap who was convinced into thinking he or she needed it to "stay ahead", so who benefits?

Sensational stories do feed our curiosity about high profile people. And sensational stories do sell more papers and increase viewer ratings. But ultimately who truly benefits? You don't benefit, I don't get anything, certainly the sick kids don't benefit...The magazine owners, television owners etc. make a profit…but it is a small one time thing...unless repeated stories encouraged. Who else…on an even higher level gets something beneficial from this abuse?

I find it “funny” that at the same time these stories become news, families begin to report insurance company denials for their kids cases in record numbers. Did this happen years ago when reports of the abuse first started creeping into the media…you bet they did!

So who is using what or who?

In order to understand what is going on today, you have to look at the big picture- so hang on!

The Beginning –

Growth hormone was first identified and used as a medical therapy back in the 50’s. And rather than bore you with tons of medical “junk” I will simply say that prior to the mid 1980's growth hormone was VERY difficult to get and very few people knew about it. However, in 1985 a completely new process of making medicine was discovered. This scientific breakthrough technology allowed for the clean and safe “reproduction” of a bio-identical growth hormone (and other desperately needed medicines). The cost to develop the technology was VERY expensive and the process to actually make these medicines is also expensive, therefore-the medicine is expensive.

Initially, there were many studies about this "new" growth hormone. This meant that pharmaceutical companies paid the costs (physician’s charges and medicine bills) for the children's medical care. However, after the studies were completed and everything pointed to a very successful and safe medicine, the medicine became available to everyone who "fit" the FDA's guidelines. As the years went on, news of a safe treatment for the kids spread and physicians began referring children and adults to specialists for help. It took a while for this transition to happen but by the mid 1990's most everyone had heard something about growth hormone. This increase in awareness meant that more children were actually getting help and.....insurance claims were filed. As an FDA approved drug, insurance companies were required to pay for this treatment.  

Ultimately, and eventually parents began to call The MAGIC Foundation for help. We were told about insurance policies which had been "changed” to exclude growth hormone specifically from their policies, or begin to mask this discrimination by rejecting all “injectables” (this includes insulin unless otherwise stipulated) in their policies. This tightening of what they would and would not cover has become even more detailed today. Insurance companies have begun to stipulate that they will pay for growth hormone for certain conditions but will not pay for other conditions despite the FDA approval for those conditions. (These include conditions in which the children are experiencing medical challenges and a severe lack of normal growth.)

Unexpected numbers of ill children are now living normal and healthy lives thanks to the various new medicines developed via biotechnology. This must have sent the Insurance companies into planning panics as other drugs were and will continue to be, on the horizon using this same new technology. They will not be cheap. But what is the price of having a healthy child? If you work hard, do everything right to provide for your family, pay your insurance premiums without fail, why should you not get what you have worked and paid for?

So from the Insurance industry standpoint, they must have wondered; how can we argue against allowing this medical treatment without looking like a monster to the public as we financially need to deny covering this medical treatment?  From my standpoint as a mom and consumer, if you are profiting by millions and millions of dollars each year, why would you deny my child?

Some companies simply refused to cover the medicine. However, parents began to fight against “paper pushers” having a voice in their child’s medical care. Some parents gathered in groups and others were up against such a wall of NO that they had to go public and approached the media with their personal plight. Insurance companies want to look good to the public so that they can sell more policies and to their stockholders. So going public is very bad publicity! Other insurers began to quietly deny the drug, or to place harsh restrictions and criteria prior to covering this treatment. Some insurers required that children undergo not just one but multiple hours of repetitive tests (different types of the same test) to verify the diagnosis. The amazing thing was that these decisions were being made by people employed by Insurance companies who were not specialists in this medical issue! Yet, they had the power to deny little kids a desperately needed hormone to make them healthy!

In the past couple of years, we have seen trends whereas the Insurance companies seem to automatically deny all growth hormone claims. Such claims seem to get lost in endless mountains of “proper process”. With denial letters lacking any “specific” details for the denial. If families press for the exact reasons, ridiculous excuses, such as they were filed with the wrong diagnosis, were commonplace. It seems as if insurance companies have mastered the game of stalling the claims. So thinking “deep” again, we had to wonder; What does stalling a claim accomplish? Hmmm… Could it be that for each month they stall the start of an authorized medical treatment they save thousands of dollars? Who does this benefit? Reason would dictate that insurance chairmen look better to their stockholders if their bottom line looks good…But at the expense of ill children! What happened to ethics and decency?

We have heard arguments about the “prohibitive costs” or “cosmetic therapy” as being reasons for denial of many growth hormone claims. We could counter that argument with an examination of the salaries of the insurance company management. As hard working middle America people, we believe that millions and millions of dollars for one person’s salary is prohibitive. However, we do not begrudge anyone earning such a salary…that is until that person denies a child health care so he or she can maintain his own salary. This is particularly true when parents are paying his company a premium to ensure health coverage for their child.

Please do not misinterpret my argument here, I am neither a socialist nor a communist and do not agree with socialized medicine. (I have heard horror stories from Canada, England and many countries where socialized medicine exists and definitely prefer our system). But I do believe in ethics and our current system is in serious need of refreshing that concept.

Now imagine it is 1985 and the national and local press has been doing some small stories about this new wonder technology which now can replicate growth hormone.

-How does an Insurance company prepare for the inevitable expense? Surely they realized that this problem was only going to increase. Growth hormone was proving to be crucial for more other healing issues such as burn victims! Could media reports be encouraged which would show the sensational aspects of how it builds muscle in a deficient body?

To be honest this entire concept was a joke 10 years ago. As "normal" people we do not have the luxury of focusing on the “bigger” picture. Instead we have to worry about paying the bills coming in next week. This narrow focus is what people in the shadows rely on. Keep them too busy to organize together and things will be different before they know it and then it will be too late. They are too tired from helping their kids with homework, doing their job, worrying about everything in their little worlds to take time to do anything (make a phone call, send an email or write a letter to a politician or television advertisers) if they see a problem. They don’t have the time, energy or desire to see any big picture.

If that is true-we (the little people) deserve everything we get!
So what I want to say is this:
Attention-
Mike Jacobs
Roger Clemens
Barry Bonds
Sylvester Stallone
Suzanne Sommers
Jason Grimsley
Keith Richards
Tyler Perry
Wyclef Jean
Timbaland
Chris Benoit
Mary J. Blige
50 Cent
(Excuse me if I listed you falsely. I got your name from a list on this website: http://www.kensavage.com/archives/hgh-and-celebrities/ )
and anyone else who is trying to pharmaceutical their way through life instead of doing the work...as a public person what you do has a ripple effect in more ways that you imagine. Your personal abuse enables people to use you to destroy the medical opportunities of innocent and ill children. Stop....Think....and be aware.

Savy business people look at the current situations and very long term paths. They are not like you or I struggling to make it with a day to day, maybe even a few years planned. With these guys, everything is planned waaay in advance. It is NOT uncommon for them to have a 20 year plan. Business moves and scenarios are calculated and maneuvered into place. This is what they do, this is the time they can afford to wait. They have the resources and business smarts to do it all.

So thinking from that mindset, could it be possible....that in order to sway public opinion against growth hormone, that "they" had to dangle the carrot (the benefits of growth hormone) out there knowing that some high profile people who struggle to stay on top would jump on it.....abuse it...and get caught?  Once it happened..."they" could use that public curiosity and media to turn public opinion again growth hormone all together? Hmmmm
Stop....Think...and be aware.