[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 21921]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO LAXMAIAH MANCHIKANTI, PH.D.

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ED WHITFIELD

                              of kentucky

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 29, 2005

  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize one of my 
constituents, Laxmaiah Manchikanti, Ph.D. of Paducah, Kentucky. Dr. 
Manchikanti has been practicing medicine in my Congressional District 
for the last 24 years. I have known Dr. Manchikanti for several years 
and have found him to be a man of incredible integrity who is devoted 
to helping others. He is an active member of the community as well as a 
forceful leader in the field of pain management. Dr. Manchikanti, an 
immigrant from India who is a naturalized citizen of the United States, 
exemplifies the fulfillment of the American dream.
  Dr. Manchikanti is a well known physician with interests in many 
aspects of medicine, both in patient care, as well as academics. He 
specializes in anesthesiology with a sub-specialty in interventional 
pain management and is well known in the circles of interventional pain 
management. Apart from his interest in the clinical practice of 
anesthesiology and interventional pain management, he is also 
proficient in administrative medicine, patient advocacy, the economics 
of healthcare, medical ethics, and various other aspects of the 
profession.
  Dr. Manchikanti is an avid clinical researcher with numerous 
publications in peer-reviewed journals with original contributions, 
along with book publications. He is also an internationally known 
teacher who has conducted multiple seminars. As President and founder 
of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP), Dr. 
Manchikanti has participated in the development of various guidelines, 
published on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) web-
site. Apart from this, he also functions as a consultant to companies 
which assess evidence including ECRI (formerly the Emergency Care 
Research Institute), which is in charge of the AHRQ web-site and 
others. He also serves as a member on the Carrier Advisory Committee of 
Kentucky.
  Because Dr. Manchikanti is a specialist in pain management, many of 
the drugs he prescribes have the potential to become addictive. During 
a conversation I had with Dr. Manchikanti a few years ago, we discussed 
Kentucky's efforts to combat prescription drug abuse through the 
Kentucky All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting System 
(KASPER) which monitors Schedule II through IV controlled substances to 
detect and deter abuse. Dr. Manchikanti touted the benefits of KASPER 
which allows him to receive a report on all of the controlled 
substances his patients have been prescribed.
  The problem that Dr. Manchikanti identified was that while KASPER was 
effective in Kentucky, there was no mechanism to determine if his 
patients had been prescribed a controlled substance in another state. 
In Kentucky, which is bordered by seven states (four in my District 
alone), it is easy for an individual to engage in the practice of ``Dr. 
Shopping.'' In an effort to address the problem, Dr. Manchikanti and 
the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) proposed 
legislation creating a national monitoring system based on KASPER 
whereby physicians in all states would have access to the controlled 
substance prescription information of their patients, no matter where 
they filled the prescription. To that end, Dr. Manchikanti and ASIPP 
submitted draft legislation entitled the National All Schedules 
Prescription Electronic Reporting Act (NASPER).
  After reviewing the language and examining the idea, I decided to 
introduce NASPER with my colleague Frank Pallone during the 107th 
Congress. After three years of hard work by Dr. Manchikanti, ASIPP, and 
our supporters in Congress, we passed NASPER in both Houses of Congress 
and President Bush signed it into law on August 11th. NASPER combats 
prescription drug abuse through the creation of a grant program housed 
at the Department of Health and Human Services to help states establish 
and maintain state-operated prescription drug monitoring programs 
(PMPs). California established the first PMP in 1940. Nineteen 
additional states currently operate a PMP and five more are in the 
process of establishing them.
  NASPER addresses one of the main impediments to existing PMPs--that 
they currently operate only on an intrastate basis while the diversion 
of drugs is an interstate problem. We help foster interstate 
communication by establishing some uniform standards on information and 
privacy protections that will make it easier for states to share 
information. Columbia University noted in a report released over the 
summer that between 1992 and 2003 the number of people abusing 
prescription drugs increased 94 percent--twice the increase in the 
number of people using marijuana, five times the number of people using 
cocaine, and 60 times the number of people using heroin. Even more 
disturbing, the report found a 212 percent increase in the number of 
children between the ages of 12 and 17 abusing prescription drugs.
  NASPER, which is now Public Law 109-60, would not have been possible 
without the leadership provided by Dr. Manchikanti and ASIPP. I'm 
confident that the enactment of NASPER will give physicians and law 
enforcement an additional tool to help reduce the number of Americans 
abusing prescription drugs.

                          ____________________