May. 23, 2005 - 13:35 MDT

SAY WHAT ? ?

NOTE this entry is for Sunday.

There are times all to often that items of import show up buried mid news in the "shotgun" section, such as "National News." Such a one is this from Albany, New York -- in full:

Medicaid paying for sex offenders to receive Viagra

"Scores of convicted rapists and othr high-risk sex offenders have been getting Viagara paid by Medicaid for the past five years, the state's comptroller said Sunday."

"Audits by Comptroller Alan Hevesi's office showed that from January, 2000 to March, 2005, 198 sex offenders received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions. Those included crimes agains children as young as 2 years old, he said."

"Hevesi asked Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a letter Sunday to "take immediate action to ensure that sex offenders do not receive erectile dysfunction medication paid for by the taxpayers."

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That infuriates me, yet gives me pause. If it is possible to forbid the prescription of such drugs for sex offenders, how can it possibly be monitored ? How can it be done to ensure privacy of other folks ? Will a law abiding citizen have to be a certified "good guy, although sexually dysfunctional," person ? ? ? ? Or will an affidavit of innocence or some such have to be given to a doctor before he can prescribe ? Or will an already overloaded staff at Medicaid have to be contacted and notified that a possible conflict in prescriptions is apparent ?

In my thoughts, it seems that a bit of "Big Brother" is in order here. But yet, how can we ever keep "CREEPING" Big Brother dysfunction from taking place because of this problem ?

Perhaps putting such medications on the "Narcotics," list wherein that substance is under more rigorous control and requiring the certification by authorities that a man is not a sex offender before his prescription can be filled.

Present day problems bring insolubles from the 25th Century it would seem, needing 30th Century expertise to take care of what can become a veritable beast to control.

So as my gaze hit that little article this morning, coffee spewed out of my mouth and through my nose and my mind went through the old bit of, SAY WHAT ? ? . . . . . . . . . . .

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