Enduring pain: how a 1996 opioid policy change had long-lasting effects

A recommendation for doctors to treat pain as a ‘fifth vital sign’, coupled with a profit-driven pharmaceutical industry and a consumer culture created a perfect storm

Twenty-two years ago, in 1996, the influential American Pain Society introduced the concept that pain should be treated as a “fifth vital sign”, alongside the normal things doctors routinely check in their patients – body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and breathing. America’s medical profession broadly welcomed the idea and began to ask patients routinely how much pain they were in.

Related: US drug companies accused of being 'cheerleaders' for opioids

Almost 100 people are dying every day across America from opioid overdoses – more than car crashes and shootings combined. The majority of these fatalities reveal widespread addiction to powerful prescription painkillers. The crisis unfolded in the mid-90s when the US pharmaceutical industry began marketing legal narcotics, particularly OxyContin, to treat everyday pain. This slow-release opioid was vigorously promoted to doctors and, amid lax regulation and slick sales tactics, people were assured it was safe. But the drug was akin to luxury morphine, doled out like super aspirin, and highly addictive. What resulted was a commercial triumph and a public health tragedy. Belated efforts to rein in distribution fueled a resurgence of heroin and the emergence of a deadly, black market version of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The crisis is so deep because it affects all races, regions and incomes

Continue reading... March 30, 2018 at 03:30PM