Steven Holper, MD, 66, a PM & R (physical medicine & rehabilitation) pain management physician in Law Vegas, NV was charged Feb 13 with seven-counts of distribution of Fentanyl, and 22-counts of health care fraud relating to Subsys, a sublingual form of Fentanyl.
To increase the propaganda flow and brainwash more Americans, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is now getting personally quoted in the DOJ press releases publishing attacks on doctors, along with the area U.S. Attorney, DEA agent, OIG agent and DHHS agent in each case. The propaganda they publish in this case involves Fentanyl. Because of all of the finger pointing of the illegal fentanyl now being brought in to the country and sold on the street as fake pharmaceuticals, attacking a doctor for prescribing Fentanyl should be an easy mark. But pharmaceutical Fentanyl prescribed by a doctor is not a killer if taken as prescribed.
Baseless Charges Against Dr. Steven Holper
They also attack Dr. Holper for prescribing Subsys, an oral spray form of fentanyl. That brings up another standard medical care issue—the off-label use of a drug. It has been common, accepted practice for doctors to prescribe new drugs off-label when the use is indicated. Pain is pain. There is no difference between cancer pain and non-cancer pain. To get a new drug approved by the FDA costs millions of dollars. It is standard for a company to get their foot in the door with one accepted use. Then doctors are free to use the drug as they deem appropriate. Subsys is no different. Just because it was approved for cancer pain does not make it illegal to use off-label for non-cancer pain. After all, pain is pain. But Dr. Holper gets criminal charges for prescribing off-label for a legitimate pain?
According to allegations contained in the indictment, Dr. Holper allegedly prescribed Subsys to a patient “without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the usual course of professional practice” from about July, 2015 through March, 2016 by prescribing Subsys for patients without cancer.
The standard cookie cutter sentence that appears in all DOJ press releases against doctors now—“some trusted medical professionals have chosen to violate their oaths and exploit this [opioid] crisis for cash,” was the basis here as well. People, please understand that these quotes are Hitlerism at its best—“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
Using this tactic, AG Sessions stated:
“Our goals at the Department of Justice for 2018 are to reduce the number of opioid prescriptions, the number of overdose deaths, and violent crime—which is often drug-related. That’s why I created the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit and sent 12 top prosecutors to opioid hotspots around the country [of which Nevada is one]: to help us find the medical fraudsters who are flooding our streets with drugs. These prosecutors are already issuing indictments from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas.”
But medical doctors are not the ones “flooding the streets with drugs”. That kind of statement is jury tampering, and Jeff Sessions should be held accountable. In his position, lies like this coming from him incorporate violation of a level of trust. His sentence should be life in prison—the same sentence he is asking for innocent doctors to receive for doing their job.
Floating on the fentanyl fear tactic, Agent Rouse states “The accessibility of fentanyl and other deadly drugs are a threat to our communities,” in spite of the fact that the fentanyl problem is illicit fentanyl, brought in to fill the demand for pain treatment since legitimate patients are now being forced to the street by attacks on doctors like this. And then the DOJ asks for the average citizen to be a part of this fiasco of charging innocent doctors with a crime by giving a phone number for tips on other doctors. How low can they go?
Here is another unbelievable result of these propagandized attacks. One of Dr. Holper’s patients died. However, it is in the record that the patient took a syringe and injected into his bloodstream the left over fentanyl in the Subsys canister. The indictment states “If Patient A had not used remaining fentanyl from the used Subsys canisters Patient A received from defendant Holper, Patient A would not have died when he/she did.”
But the decision to inject a drug directly into the blood that was designed to be absorbed through the mouth at a much slower rate, was not the doctor’s fault. The patient is the one responsible, not the doctor. But surprisingly, because of propaganda-riding charges like this, innocent doctors are going to prison.
DoctorsofCourage is active in combatting propaganda like this. We are joining Dr. Myers in his Pain Patient Advocacy Week March on Washington April 23-26.
JOIN US!
Go to MEMBERSHIP LEVELS and GET ON BOARD THE COR-“WRECK”-TING TRAIN!
Addendum:
I have failed in my mission to end these attacks on doctors and pain patients. Through John Bevere’s book The Bait of Satan, I have figured out why—my lack of forgiveness to those who attacked me. As in Mark 11: 24-26:
Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespassed. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.
And when you do not do the will of the Father, you are estranged from him and he will ignore you. So we all must forgive the agents who attacked us in order for things to be made right through any of our works.
Jesus said
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
But we cannot lay down our lives for God unless we know Him well enough to trust Him. We must have the assurance that He would never do anything to harm us. He always looks out for what He knows is in our best interest. As a nation, those of us suffering from these attacks must understand that we are serving as God’s messengers of love. We must forgive those who persecute us and love them instead, following God’s will for us. Then and only then will we see fruits from our labor.
So I hope that everyone who has suffered from what happened to Dr. Holper can trust the Lord, forgive those who have hurt you, and help bring this country back to the God-fearing country that our forefathers founded. Then, and only then, can you be a part of the effort to stop these attacks. I look forward to that day.
Addendum:
What a shame! Dr. Holper copped a plea December 11, 2018 admitting guilt to a charge that is actually illegal and out of the scope of federal jurisdiction and should have been stood up to with the right legal team. Instead, he sets more doctors up for similar charges. Until doctors start standing up to these outrageous charges, they will only get worse. Dr. Holper hoped to get probation for his plea, but he was sentenced to 4 years. He is due for release Sept 1, 2022.
Anyone who knows Steven Holper should be a member of Doctorsofcourage to prevent this from happening to other good doctors.
Linda Cheek is a teacher and disenfranchised medical doctor, turned activist, author, and speaker. A victim of prosecutorial misconduct and outright law-breaking of the government agencies DEA, DHHS, and DOJ, she hopes to be a part of exonerating all doctors illegally attacked through the Controlled Substance Act. She holds the key to success, as she can offset the government propaganda that drugs cause addiction with the truth: The REAL Cause of Drug Abuse.
Get a free gift to learn how the government is breaking the law to attack your doctor: Click here to get my free gift
I am one of Dr. Holper’s former patients, and I am one of the few who was prescribed Subsys, the intranasal Fentanyl spray. Subsys was the last resort to treat my intractable pain, and we had to jump through hoops for it, as it took about a year to be approved to take it.
I will be the first to say I was extremely physically (there is a huge difference in being physically dependent vs. being addicted to these opioids) dependent on Subsys, and I know better than 99.9% of most people exactly how the spray canisters work.
To repeatedly hear that this judge “injected “ what remained in the (they’re made of small glass ampoules inserted into a plastic spray device) Subsys canisters infuriates me every time I see it written or discussed. This is a physical impossibility! Once you use the spray, there is literally NOTHING left to inject! Nothing at all! I’ve taken them apart to see how they worked (and no, I never injected my RX’s!) Subsys is a one use only treatment and then it is dry as a bone empty.
There are so many things that have been outright fabricated with Dr. Holper’s story it makes me ill to think about.
Another point of fact is that Dr. H had not even prescribed Subsys to this judge for something close to 6 months (and you can NOT RX for more than a 30 day supply, so what exactly what she taking and where exactly did she get it?)
The math does NOT add up on his case, and unfortunately he was made a scapegoat and paraded around as the face of the “evil doctor who over prescribed Fentanyl.
I am terribly sorry for his loss in going to prison over this, but he didn’t just lose his medical qualifications, shortly before the trial he lost his wife and the mother to his beautiful little girl (may she Rest In Peace.)
As someone who had to learn a whole new way of life, I am on no one’s side here. The judge unfortunately had the worst outcome you can have, but pinning blame on the one who genuinely tried to care for her is also wrong.
Dr. Holper cared about his patients, and this and the ensuing fallout broke his heart.
I am so sorry to all families involved.
I think abt Doctor Holper often. He was a good doctor to me. I went to him for years, he truly cared for his patient’s and I am saddened by the attack they did to him. This man treated me and because of him I was able to have a normal life after years of being in do much pain I could barely move. IF you get this message Doc, stay strong and thank you. Tabitha
Dr. Holper had compassion and empathy for those of us who suffer with excruciating severe chronic pain. Many people don’t realize that Dr. Holper was injured in a boating accident that severly chopped up his legs and put him into a wheelchair. He understood what severe chronic pain patients were going through. I’m sick of this man being treated like a villian. It was very unfortunate that the person who died injected fentanyl from a canister she had taken (Subsys). You should not be injecting Subsys. To top it off she was a Federal Judge. I’m sorry that her family lost her but it was her decision to inject Subsys. A Federal Judge should know better. I believe had this been an ordinary citizen Jefferson Sessions would have done nothing but to gain politically he did the people who truly suffer a disservice. One day he may be in severe chronic pain and all the prayers in the world won’t work. This was politically driven and very sad. There is a big difference between addiction and dependence. I now have known two people who had severe pain from Cancer and were unable to get the opiods they needed. It took months and now my friend is dead. She suffered and agonized until she was ready to die. Up until then she wasn’t given much. This is heartless and cruel. I have CRPS/RSD which is on the highest level of diseases or illness on the pain charts even topping Cancer and an a disabled veteran who has had 41 operations, over 21 broken bones and my medications were reduced to where my quality of life is terrible. I could get around and do some things although I could not work. I have no disire to do anything now. America lacks empathy and to see Veterans taking their lives daily because they have pain either from injuries or ptsd leaves me heartbroken. This is America? I see more people on the streets picking at their skin because they are addicted to Meth and they are everywhere. Nothing is being done about the Crystal Meth Crisis but the CDC started a terrible disservice to pain patients with this sham opiod crises. The majority of deaths are not from prescription drugs but from illegal fentanyl that comes from China. The statistics are skewed so it is the severe chronic pain patients who suffer.
Dr. Holper did nothing wrong but be compassionate to his patients in pain. With or w/o
Cancer, pain is pain. And as far as I understand there in no law to write a prescription off label. I feel bad for the individual that lost their life, but it was ruled an accidental death. So Dr. Holper, keep strong don’t let the government get you down. They are he criminals for letting you and your legitimate pain patients suffer.
Thank you NR for stating the truth. They needed a scapegoat so they chose a compassionate doctor who truly cared about his patients. He did so much for me to help improve the quality of my life. Although I could never ever be completely pain free he had given me some resemblance of a quality of life. I was diagnosed at Mayo Clinic with a terrible disease and because of all my surgeries and complications most doctors wouldn’t even want to treat me. Dr. Holper helped me tremendously.
I don’t even know this Dr but they be ashamed of yourself for even messing with this poor doctor I’m so sick of America sitting there judging people the only reason these people are dying from fentanyl is it still legal and you know it goes to show you the DEA has it so wrapped up that people are desperate for their medicines and ordering overseas sadsadsad I hope everything works out for this doctor