The New York Times
Nov 5, 2009
By John Tierney
Chronic pain affects more than 70 million Americans, which makes it more widespread than heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. It costs the economy more than $100 billion per year. So why don’t more doctors and researchers take it seriously?

Nov 4, 2009
Science now offers us ever more advanced ways to understand and control pain. But with those new treatments come new questions about the use (and misuse) of state-of-the-art technology and how far pain management can and should go. Is pain a symptom or a disease? How much pain should be relieved?

Oct 29, 2009
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer

Heightened efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack down on narcotics abuse are producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly patients needed pain medication, according to two Senate Democrats and a coalition of pharmacists and geriatric experts.

Medical News Today
Oct 27, 2009
A new Pain Medicine Position Paper published by leaders of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM), reveals businesses lose $61 billion annually due to ineffective pain care and the lack of optimal pain care delivery. Leaders from the organization are now implementing and teaching a new, “population-based” approach to delivering care with the goal of alleviating pain so patients can get on with their lives.

KATE BENSON
Oct 19, 2009
AUSTRALIA could become the first country to recognise chronic pain as a disease in its own right, giving sufferers greater credibility and access to more integrated services.
Chronic pain, which affects one in five people and costs the economy about $34.4 billion a year, is the third-most expensive health problem in Australia but most sufferers were still seen as malingerers or drug seekers by general practitioners and busy emergency department staff, the pain specialist Michael Cousins said yesterday.

Oct 14, 2009
Bill H. McCarberg, MD
Question
The primary care physician is the point of service entry into our medical delivery system. This doctor is the one initially seen for almost every type of disorder. Why is our opioid policy so restrictive that most primary care physicians will not touch the needs of patients with chronic pain?

Sep 22, 2009
by SB. Leavitt, MA, PhD
Controversy still exists about the long-term prescribing of opioids for chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) conditions, and particularly regarding the safety and effectiveness of higher opioid doses. Yet, there appears to be a subset of patients with CNCP who require and thrive on ultra-high doses exceeding morphine-equivalent opioid doses of 1,000 mg/day — demonstrating that what some practitioners might consider as being way too much opioid is just the right amount for certain patients.

Sep 23, 2009
Author Unknown
Reason.com
The steady stream of celebrity stories about prescription drug abuse makes Americans keenly aware of the dangers of overdosing on medications like OxyContin and Vicodin. And from President Obama’s Drug Czar to California Attorney General Jerry Brown, politicians are calling for greater power to monitor doctor-patient relationships in order to fight the “epidemic” of prescription drug overdosing.

Sep 15, 2009
By: Andrew Blankstein
L.A. NOW

Southern California — this just in

State officials are set to unveil improvements to their prescription medication tracking system this morning, including the capability to instantly flag whether patients are abusing those drugs, an issue highlighted with the deaths of celebrities Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson.

Sep 2, 2009
Jacob Sullum
Reason Hit & Run

“As Radley Balko and I have both noted here, Tanya Treadway, an assistant U.S. attorney in Kansas, is trying to bully pain treatment activist Siobhan Reynolds into silence by threatening to prosecute her for “obstruction of justice,” based on Reynolds’s advocacy work for a local physician accused of writing inappropriate painkiller prescriptions.