Letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe, Nov. 13, 2013

 

Re: “Painkiller Addiction – The FDA takes action,” editorial, Nov. 9, 2013

 In an editorial yesterday, the Globe applauded the US Food and Drug Administration’s decision recently to restrict access to hydrocodone-containing drugs such as Vicodin.

Imagine being a young woman in your 30s. You have just received a diagnosis of breast cancer, as more than 10,000 women your age in the U.S. do every year. Other young women your age may get similarly horrifying news — ovarian cancer, leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Not surprisingly, the headline about “designer vagina” procedures in a press release this week from BMJ Open, an online publication of the esteemed BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) caught my eye — and stopped my coffee cup in midair.

I have just finished writing a book on chronic pain and, although I didn’t initially plan it this way, I ended up devoting an entire chapter to marijuana because, as I did my research, I found considerable evidence that marijuana is both safe and reasonably effective at relieving pain. In fact, if a person taking opioids (narcotics) for pain relief also smokes marijuana, the dose of opioids needed can often be reduced.

As the controversy continues to swirl over sex change surgery for convicted murderer Michelle Lynn (formerly Robert) Kosilek (there’s a hearing this month on whether taxpayers should pay for her electrolysis), I got to wondering about some of the questions this case raises.

ProPublica reports that The American Pain Foundation has shut down just as two U.S. senators are launching a probe into the heavy financial support it received from painkiller-makers. Syndicated columnist Judy Foreman, author of the upcoming book “A Nation in Pain: Healing Our Biggest Health Problem,” considers the news and its background.

It is wonderful that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is concerned about pain reliever abuse and that the company has consulted with some physicians about ways to curb it.

Listen to Judy discuss the complexity of painkiller  WBUR, “Radio Boston”

As I’m working on my forthcoming book, A Nation in Pain: Healing Our Biggest Health Problem (Oxford, 2013),  I’m also contributing to WBUR’s CommonHealth blog. The following entry first appeared on WBUR’s site.

Today’s New York Times carries a front page article fanning the hysteria – once again – about prescription painkillers.

As I’m working on my forthcoming book, A Nation in Pain: Healing Our Biggest Health Problem (Oxford, 2013),  I’m also contributing to WBUR’s CommonHealth blog. The following entry first appeared on WBUR’s site.