WORLD'S POOR DYING IN PAIN: U.N. REPORT

Lack Morphine While Rich Nations Awash In Drugs

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Millions of poor people die in excruciating pain
because of a lack of morphine while the richer nations are virtually
drenched in stimulants and tranquilizers, a U.N. report said yesterday.

"There is no country or region in which the status or the availability of a
medicine can be considered a standard for the rest of the world," the U.N.'s
International Narcotics Control Board report said.

While the report noted overmedication of drugs such as amphetamines and
tranquilizers is common in rich nations, it was especially critical of the
scarcity of morphine or its synthetic equivalents in some 120 developing
nations.

"They ought to be as easily available as anything under prescription by a
doctor but they are not," said board member Herbert Okun. "Millions of
people are dying of cancer-related pain and they die horrible deaths because
there is no morphine available in their countries."

By 2015, two-thirds of the estimated 16 million new cancer patients will be
in developing nations, where a lack of a public health service, inadequate
distribution of drugs, restrictive regulations made in fear of drug abuse
all contribute to the lack of morphine to ease pain, the board's report
said.

Only about 10 to 30 per cent of cancer patents suffering from severe pain
are receiving adequate treatment - even in medically developed countries.

The 10 largest consumer countries accounted for as much as 80 per cent of
the world's consumption of analgesic morphine, the report said. At the other
end of the scale, in some 120 poorer nations, there was little or no
consumption of effective pain killers.

Okun said governments don't pay enough attention to the painkiller problem -
the cost of the drugs is only one factor.

"It's not pleasant to talk about disease," Okun said, "It's kind of a silent
tragedy, particularly if cancer patients are elderly, particularly if they
are poor."

In Canada, the pharmaceutical industry took in $7.45 billion from sales to
hospitals and drugstores in 1998, with over 250 million prescriptions handed
out that year.