DEADLY WAR ON PAIN DOCTORS

Overzealous G-Men Condemn Legitimate Patients To Lives & Deaths Of Pain

In a study of cancer pain and resulting new guidelines for its treatment,
the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research -- a division of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services -- disclosed in 1994 that 42
percent of American cancer patients surveyed received inadequate medication
for their pain, despite the availability of adequate drugs to make 90
percent of them comfortable.

The agency then proceeded to debunk many myths that lead to this tragic
result: "Perhaps the most persistent barrier to effective pain control is
the unfounded belief" that using opium derivatives will lead to addiction,
the study found. In fact, patients almost never become psychologically
hooked on pain pills, and withdrawal symptoms turn out to be easily avoided
if medications are tapered off.

Nonetheless, "Physicians are reluctant to prescribe high doses of morphine
for fear of drawing attention, and possible punishment, from agencies that
regulate narcotics," the agency reported nine years ago.

Have things gotten better in the intervening nine years? No -- worse.
National health organizations argue that serious pain is still undertreated.

"There is no question that doctors now fear being held liable if they
prescribe painkillers," says Dr. Michael Fleming, a practicing Louisiana
physician and president of the 94,000-member American Academy of Family
Physicians.

Over the past three years, physician prosecutions have increased by 800
percent, according to the Pain Relief Network. It's a "collision of
superstition with science," states Siobhan Reynolds, executive director of
the group. "The Justice Department is misidentifying pain doctors with drug
dealers."

Surely it's time for a compassionate society to declare a cease-fire in
this national war on pain doctors, and the legitimate patients they serve.
This quasi-religious campaign to make sure no adult, anywhere, ever uses a
pain pill to "get high" flies in the face of now recurrent medical findings
that legitimate pain patients can lead long, normal lives while on high
maintenance doses of painkillers. That urging them to "tough it out"
actually makes them sicker.

The suspicion grows that the DEA is pursuing legitimate doctors to run up
their prosecution count, simply because they're easier to catch than
Colombian drug lords. And the results are as terrible as anything seen
since the persecution of the witches, 500 years ago.

Stop it, Mr. Ashcroft. Stop it now.