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.