Painkiller Access Debated as Patients Suffer

Radley Balko
The Huffington Post
March 9, 2012

Doctors are terrified of criminal or administrative investigations which can end their medical careers, even if they're eventually cleared, says Myra Christopher of the Center for Practical Bioethics.

"They feel besieged. And it's not necessarily even a fear of criminal charges. It's about getting investigated, about having the DEA come and say, 'We'd like to look through your files.' You then have to pay for a defense, and take time away from your practice to defend yourself."

This, Christopher and other patient advocates say, is why it's so difficult for pain patients to find conscientious doctors to treat them.

Links:

* Policy Brief: Balance, Uniformity and Fairness: Effective Strategies for Law Enforcement for Investigating and Prosecuting the Diversion of Prescription Pain Medications While Protecting Appropriate Medical Practice

**News Release: Few physicians actually tried or sanctioned for improperly prescribing pain medications

***Podcast: What's Next? The IOM Report on Pain, The Bioethics Channel, Myra Christopher

Christopher set for national podcast on relieving pain

National Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain Association Podcast to discuss "Relieving Pain in America"

Friday, December 9, 2011
12 pm ET/11 am CST

Myra Christopher is the Director of the Pain Action Alliance Initiative: A National Strategy (PAAINS) and the holder of the Kathleen Foley Chair on Pain and Palliative Care at the Center for Practical Bioethics.

Christopher will be discussing her role as a member of the Pain Study Committee at the Institutes of Medicine focused on the under-treatment of pain which produced the IOM report, “Relieving Pain In American: A Blueprint for Transformation in Prevention, Care, Education and Research.” The historic report was submitted to Congress this past June.

For more information click here.

IOM Report on Pain this Wednesday

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Wednesday releases a landmark report on pain called Relieving Pain in America – A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research.

The report will be released to the public tomorrow, Wednesday, June 29, 2011, at 11 am ET during a live event in Washington D.C. To register for a live webcast of the release event click here. The webcast link and report will also be posted on www.iom.edu/relievingpain.
In addition to the webcast, the IOM will tweet the event live using the hash tag #relievingpain.
Myra Christopher, president and CEO of the Center for Practical Bioethics, who served on the IOM’s Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education, believes changes in the way we assess, treat and manage pain in the US are morally imperative and must happen quickly.

As part of the Pain Action Initiative: A National Strategy (PAINS), Myra and the Center recently held regional stakeholder meetings about pain in communities across the country. A common theme of those meetings – solutions lie in systemic changes, and previous ways of addressing the problem won’t work anymore.
PAINS convened several organizations to report the Center’s findings and to discuss the possibility of working together to implement recommendations made in the IOM report.
Determined not to allow the IOM report to sit on the shelf, the group plans to meet again in August to analyze where common efforts can be coordinated and enhanced, to identify areas where there is currently little activity, and to consider opportunities for collaboration.
As a group of organizations, many of whom have toiled in these fields for many years, a concise set of actions will be developed to address each IOM recommendation while encouraging individual organizational activities and collective strategies.
For more information on the PAINS initiative click here.