The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic

The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic PDF

Author: Mark Sullivan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-01-24

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0197615724

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"Pain has always been a problem for Western Society, but not the same kind of problem. Until about 1500, pain was primarily understood as a religious problem. Pain and suffering challenged the truth of religious belief and the legitimacy of the Church: How could a just, merciful, and all-powerful God allow so much pain and suffering in the world? As our society became more secular over the next 300 years, pain came to be understood primarily as a social problem. This modernizing society aimed to create the best environment for human flourishing: How might human society be designed and regulated to reduce the pain and suffering of everyone to the minimum possible? At least since 1900, we have separated pain as a medical problem from the remainder of human suffering. We have aimed to reduce this problem to a minimum through medical treatment. This quest has led us to our opioid epidemic. To fully comprehend the limitations of this medical interpretation, we must appreciate how the medical explanation of pain grew out of earlier religious and social interpretations of pain"--

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic PDF

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-09-28

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 0309459575

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Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

The Patient as Agent of Health and Health Care

The Patient as Agent of Health and Health Care PDF

Author: Mark Daniel Sullivan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0195386582

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Patient-centered care for chronic illness is founded upon the informed and activated patient, but we are not clear what this means. We must understand patients as subjects who know things and as agents who do things. Bioethics has urged us to respect patient autonomy, but it has understood this autonomy narrowly in terms of informed consent for treatment choice. In chronic illness care, the ethical and clinical challenge is to not just respect, but to promote patient autonomy, understood broadly as the patients' overall agency or capacity for action. The primary barrier to patient action in chronic illness is not clinicians dictating treatment choice, but clinicians dictating the nature of the clinical problem. The patient's perspective on clinical problems is now often added to the objective-disease perspective of clinicians as health-related quality of life (HRQL). But HRQL is merely a hybrid transitional concept between disease-focused and health-focused goals for clinical care. Truly patient-centered care requires a sense of patient-centered health that is perceived by the patient and defined in terms of the patient's vital goals. Patient action is an essential means to this patient-centered health, as well as an essential component of this health. This action is not extrinsically motivated adherence, but intrinsically motivated striving for vital goals. Modern pathophysiological medicine has trouble understanding both patient action and health. The self-moving and self-healing capacities of patients can be understood only if we understand their roots in the biological autonomy of organisms. Taking the patient as the primary perceiver and producer of health has the following policy implications: 1] Care will become patient-centered only when the patient is the primary customer of care. 2] Professional health services are not the principal source of population health, and may lead to clinical, social and cultural iatrogenic injury. 3] Social justice demands equity in health capability more than equal access to health services.

Pain Killer

Pain Killer PDF

Author: Barry Meier

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2018-05-29

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0525511091

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From the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter who first exposed the roots of the opioid epidemic and the secretive world of the Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma, Pain Killer is the celebrated landmark story of corporate greed and government negligence that inspired an upcoming Netflix series. “This is the book that started it all. Barry Meier is a heroic reporter and Pain Killer is a muckraking classic.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin. In Pain Killer, Barry Meier tells the story of how Purdue turned OxyContin into a billion-dollar blockbuster. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers. But Purdue launched an unprecedented marketing campaign claiming that the drug’s long-acting formulation made it safer to use than traditional painkillers for many types of pain. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive. As OxyContin’s use and abuse grew, Purdue concealed what it knew from regulators, doctors, and patients. Here are the people who profited from the crisis and those who paid the price, those who plotted in boardrooms and those who tried to sound alarm bells. A country doctor in rural Virginia, Art Van Zee, took on Purdue and warned officials about OxyContin abuse. An ebullient high school cheerleader, Lindsey Myers, was reduced to stealing from her parents to feed her escalating Oxy habit. A hard-charging DEA official, Laura Nagel, tried to hold Purdue executives to account. In Pain Killer, Barry Meier breaks new ground in his decades-long investigation into the opioid epidemic. He takes readers inside Purdue to show how long the company withheld information about the abuse of OxyContin and gives a shocking account of the Justice Department’s failure to alter the trajectory of the opioid epidemic and protect thousands of lives. Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.

Pain Killer

Pain Killer PDF

Author: Barry Meier

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2018-05-29

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0525511105

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A Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter exposes the roots of the opioid epidemic at the hands of Purdue Pharma and Raymond and Mortimer Sackler in Pain Killer, a “timely, compelling, important” (The Seattle Times) story of corporate greed and government negligence. “Groundbreaking . . . Pain Killer is the shocking account of the origins of today’s opioid epidemic, the creators of this plague, and the way to help stop it.”—Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin. In Pain Killer, Barry Meier tells the story of how Purdue turned OxyContin into a billion-dollar blockbuster. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers. But Purdue launched an unprecedented marketing campaign claiming that the drug’s long-acting formulation made it safer to use than traditional painkillers for many types of pain. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive. As OxyContin’s use and abuse grew, Purdue concealed what it knew from regulators, doctors, and patients. Here are the people who profited from the crisis and those who paid the price, those who plotted in boardrooms and those who tried to sound alarm bells. A country doctor in rural Virginia, Art Van Zee, took on Purdue and warned officials about OxyContin abuse. An ebullient high school cheerleader, Lindsey Myers, was reduced to stealing from her parents to feed her escalating Oxy habit. A hard-charging DEA official, Laura Nagel, tried to hold Purdue executives to account. In this updated edition of Pain Killer, Barry Meier breaks new ground in his decades-long investigation into the opioid epidemic. He takes readers inside Purdue to show how long the company withheld information about the abuse of OxyContin and gives a shocking account of the Justice Department’s failure to alter the trajectory of the opioid epidemic and protect thousands of lives. Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic PDF

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (U.S.). Committee on Pain Management and Regulatory Strategies to Address Prescription Opioid Abuse

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 9780309462686

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Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

Empire of Pain

Empire of Pain PDF

Author: Patrick Radden Keefe

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 574

ISBN-13: 038554569X

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From the prize-winning and bestselling author of Say Nothing. "A real-life version of the HBO series Succession with a lethal sting in its tail…a masterful work of narrative reportage.” – Laura Miller, Slate The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful. The Sackler name has adorned the walls of many storied institutions—Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, but the source of the family fortune was vague—until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis. Empire of Pain is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. It follows the family’s early success with Valium to the much more potent OxyContin, marketed with a ruthless technique of co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s addictiveness. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability. A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Empire of Pain is a ferociously compelling portrait of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super-elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed that built one of the world’s great fortunes.

Poppy Seed

Poppy Seed PDF

Author: Anthony Anonimo

Publisher: Henschelhaus Publishing, Incorporated

Published: 2017-06

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9781595985491

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The history of opium is one of the most intriguing and fascinating stories ever witnessed. This substance, considered both a curse and a blessing, has been the focal point of more wars throughout the history of the world than oil. The source of all the controversy and tragedy is the tiny poppy seed. The opium it produces has been wreaking havoc throughout the world for centuries, all the while being the unprecedented pain-killing elixir of all times. The abrupt change in the established standards of pain management in the United States escalated in 2001, inadvertently opening the floodgates of opioid prescribing. A decade later, doctors are accused of creating addicts and questioned about their ability to practice medicine. The blame game has begun and the epidemic of addiction continues to expand. How can pain be treated compassionately without the challenges of addiction? Opioid use is spiraling out of control and the agencies responsible for regulating hospitals have apparently thrown up the white flag to public outcry for the under-treatment of pain. In "Poppy Seed," author Antonio Anonimo, a former opioid addict himself, reveals the background of legislation and medicinal use around opioids and offers steps that could be taken to curb the ever-growing epidemic of opioid addiction.

A Time-Release History of the Opioid Epidemic

A Time-Release History of the Opioid Epidemic PDF

Author: J.N. Campbell

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-20

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 9783319917870

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This Brief takes the reader on a chemical journey by following the history for over two centuries of how an opiate became an opioid, thus spawning an empire and a series of crises. These imperfect resemblances of alkaloids are both natural and synthetic substances that, particularly in America, are continually part of a growing concern about overuse. This seemed an inviting prospect for those in pain, but as the ubiquitous media coverage continues to lay bare, the levels of abuse point to the fact that perhaps an epidemic is upon us, if not a culture war. Seeking answers to how and why this addiction crisis transpired over two hundred years of long development, this Brief examines the role that the chemistry laboratory played in turning patients into consumers. By utilizing a host of diverse sources, this Brief seeks to trace the design and the production of opioids and their antecedents over the past two centuries. From the isolation and development of the first alkaloids with morphine that relieved pain within the home and on the battlefield, to the widespread use of nostrums and the addiction crisis that ensued, to the dissemination of drugs by what became known as Big Pharma after the World Wars; and finally, to competition from home-made pharmaceuticals, the progenitor was always, in some form, a type of chemistry lab. At times, the laboratory pressed science to think deeply about society's maladies, such as curing disease and alleviating pain, in order to look for new opportunities in the name of progress. Despite the best intentions opioids have created a paradox of pain as they were manipulated by creating relief with synthetic precision and influencing a dystopian vision. Thus, influence came in many forms, from governments, from the medical community, and from the entrepreneurial aspirations of the general populace. For better, but mostly for worse, all played a role in changing forever the trajectory of what started with the isolation of a compound in Germany. Combining chemistry and history in a rousing new long-form narrative that even broadens the definition of a laboratory, the origins and future of this complicated topic are carefully examined.

Case Studies in Pain Management

Case Studies in Pain Management PDF

Author: Alan David Kaye

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-16

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13: 1107682894

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Edited by internationally recognized pain experts, this book offers 73 clinically relevant cases, accompanied by discussion in a question-and-answer format.